Silk Street. With Minnie.
In a previous millennium, I walked through a door in this complex. I began the process of training that gave me the skills and the perspective that I have now, and the friends. Minnie is one such friend.
I used to walk in to Drama School every day from Mansion House tube. I’d go through the deserted high walks. I’d stop and talk to the sculpture of the muse. It felt like we always had alone time, that sculpture and I. I shared my hopes and dreams with it. I projected onto it. Guildhall.
In the same building, just a bit down, there’s a great big cinema. Orlando Bloom, one of the stars, says in the Q&A “I trained just next door,” and Minnie and I both momentarily get very emotional that he’s keyed that specific geography. That training, those teachers… You can only really know a golden age in retrospect. We were so lucky to have met and worked with those people, a shared experience. That building isn’t really used anymore. The staff is different. Still wonderful. But there are crucial pieces missing from the puzzle now.
SXSW London tonight though with all the glitz and the glam and I’m there with Min and she was with me plus one when Bright Young Things opened in flipping 2002. How many years? Friendship is friendship.
I’m so happy she showed up for tonight and honestly, all I needed to do is tell her the premise of the movie and she was curious. Improv comedians are seriously recruited as spies. (I think she really came to support me though! Love her.)
It’s s great movie. It’s genuinely hilarious. It’s exactly what I like to see. I’m kinda gobsmacked that I’m in it, right at the start and right at the end. I’m playing an eejit. Thankfully I know that life role intimately. There’s a satisfaction in knowing that you did a good job in a good thing. This is a good thing. And I’m happy with my work.
It was good to talk to the muse again, up on the high walks, before and after. My walk to the college was always somewhat talismanic. I knew I would still be working still be playing still still still after time time time and one of my only moments of rage back then was when the potential major agent said “you seem to me like a long term slow burn type actor,” to which I said “Yep, I’m here for that, let’s go” to which they said “But life is long. Who knows where you might go. You have many other things you could do.” … I said “I think you underestimate how stubborn I am,” and they said “I don’t think you know how many times we’ve had this conversation.” They had met a load of fucking daytrippers and they mistook me for one. Ach. So be it.
I found Esta. Wish I’d found her sooner. But here we are. And there is a great film that I’ve touched. It exists. We are go. Release on the Twelfth I think on Amazon Prime. Boom. Deep Cover. Bryce Dallas-Howard, Orlando and Nick Mohammed. It’s a fucking delight. A tightly written British comedy flick. It’s a win.
AlBarclay 