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Back home, just a quarter past nine and Misty and I are in bed. I’ll be back filming on Monday, just need to make myself mad repeating things all day tomorrow and job’s a good’un. What a lovely unusual break I’ve had with Lou, right in the middle of this lovely little job with people we’ve heard of. It’s so odd, the scale of “known”. I guess I’m “known” now in some circles. I spoke to a close friend and named my scenepartner in this and she immediately knew who that actor was. I haven’t been watching the right things mayhaps. I’m trying to raise my watch so I can balance when I meet the makers. But there’s too much for me to have seen it all and I missed the stuff she’s in and there’s not enough time in the day to make shit and also consume all the shit other people make. I’m happy to generate and keep an eye on it enough that I’m not out of whack with the prevalent styles.

Sad to leave Brighton. Sad to leave Lou. I burnt it back up to the catflat, to find grumpy creatures howling for grub. They’ve both eaten. I was woken up in Brighton at 4 by a stroppy cat. Brian had Boo wired up to an auto feeder and it was golden. Now she understands the correlation between people and food, as Misty has a daily feed routine. We will have to dump the gravity feeder before long now, and just replenish wet and dry for her, and she is never going to be anything other than vocal about it all.

I’m up for it. We now have two great cats. Boo is just generally very opinionated. “She’ll be better once she’s done,” I’m told, and my whole discomfort about what we have done to cats rides to the front. Evolution has had nothing to do with cats since we domesticated them. The gene pool has been arbitrated and many of the variants that have got this far have got hideous issues that only manifest if we don’t cut their bollocks off / seal them up. “It’s kinder to spay,” and it is, now, because our cats aren’t viable when real, and we don’t want them to be unmanageable anyway so we convince ourselves its for their own good rather than just our convenience as we don’t want to be kept up all night by. yowling.

I’m going to lie in my puddle of cats mumbling lines to myself.

This is delightful nonsense that we do.

Good good good. The mystery shop holiday with the cast of Cocoon already feels like a strange dream. There was a possibility I wasn’t gonna be able to make it around the filming so I’m glad it worked out. We woke up this morning and straight down into the spa for a steam. It’s dry up there – they superheat it all for the OAPs. I wanted to be in wet heat for a change.

Checked out in the morning, but stayed on site to pirate WiFi while Lou filled all her forms in. I loaded up envelopes and sent them all over the place, shifting more Magic cards, turning them into money. We finished at more or less the same time and then it was our wondrous Valentine’s Day four hour drive to Brighton.

Three hours non stop I can do without issues but after that I like to zone out into something academic or philosophical so I can compute the roads without my noisy brain getting involved. With a decent podcast I can then get lost for another four or five hours, but you can’t really do that with a passenger so I just got a bit impatient and scratchy. Still we made it to Brighton pretty well despite the God awful Friday night traffic on the M25. I dropped a pack of magic cards with some guy in Brighton up at Seven Dials. He had given me excellent instructions on how to get in. Sometimes things just align. It’s nice having the eBay ticking over and will continue to be so until some fucker finds something to moan about.

Back up to London tomorrow but for now it is Brighton and the things of Brighton. So we bought a hot Thai meal from Kemp Thai – they actually do it how it should be, rather than just let it see the chilli. It’s HOT. I’m writing this while I digest, thinking I’ve just had a weekend and now it’s the weekend. I’ll be into my lines again tomorrow, just drilling drilling drilling. Never waste a shot flubbing. It’s not shot on film as it turns out – duelling cameras and digital. A touch less pressure, but turning over fast. Teams of people helping change the lens etc, all very much run by one incredible fellow you’ve heard of. He doesn’t give acting notes much… Like some theatre directors I love, half the battle is in the casting and then, if you don’t get any notes you can just assume you’re in the right ballpark. Notes’ll just be tweaks, unless you’re getting them all the time in which case you’re either doing something you need not do, or you’re you’re standing in the wrong place.

But… Brighton means cosy warm fabrics and low light. I’m gonna sink into this and think about all the filmy related joys and concerns later on. Should be asleep by ten. zzzz

Last time I was in this part of the country I spent two days jumping into the heart of the universe and pulling myself apart for examination and reconstruction before yarking heavily into a white bucket, washing the thing out, and starting again. I was sleeping on the floor. People were playing tribal instruments and singing vaceros.

Now I’m surrounded by old folk in a stately home crossed with a Toby Carvery.

We just left the musical extravaganza. It’s hard to watch performers who don’t care. The warm up act was a pro, a kind woman, working for and with what might be a disheartening audience if you’re just in for the validation. She gave it her all and really added to the joy. The main act were younger and there’s this thing when you’re young when you kinda need some sort of validation. Once you’re secure in your craft it goes, but these guys had switched out from caring after one too many sleepy audiences. Even with the two of us in the room I kid you not but the average age there was well over seventy. They aren’t gonna be howling for joy, especially after nine at night when happy hour starts mid afternoon.

In other places here, people really give their all. Our neighbour at dinner recommended a multi instrumentalist. He was playing in the ballroom and was greatly skilled, mature in his craft and humble, sharing his passion with us. The whole day can be full if you want it to be. ‘It’s like after retirement you can be a child again,” Lou says.”Make friends, do activities, eat too much, sleep lots.” It’s true. And mere oblivion. Sans teeth sans eyes sans taste sans everything. But let’s have fun on the way down.

It has been a very curious experience. We stick out like sore thumbs. Everyone is lovely. These are the part of their generation who still gets out and does stuff. “He can’t hear a thing, but he’s always at it, can’t sit still, can’t stop moving,” says our neighbour of her ninety year old companion. “I used to do long walks,” he shouts to me. “So do I, the longest ones I can find,” I shout back. “Oh, yes,” he smiles and nods, having heard nothing whatsoever. “Oh yes. Yes I like long walks.” Her second husband died less than a year ago. Getting old is hard if you manage it.

It’s the immersive pensioner experience in having here. Someone’ll run it in a building in London some time, charge everyone £200 quid, give ’em a bit of dry chicken on good plates and then pay someone like me to shout at them for a bit before blowing a bit of smoke at them and singing a song. This is better. And there’s more meringue.

I’ve eaten so much though. Buffet, innit. Three courses. My side of the bed is nearest the bathroom.

Huge windows but it’s boiling in here. Gotta keep them warm. One more night in this humungous suite and then it’s the real world again and I think we will both remember that we aren’t in our eighties.

For now though, bed before eleven.

Well this is all change. Lou met me this morning at Sloane Square. I picked her up in Bergman and we drove three hours west.

She’s mystery shopping for a hotel. We get to spend two nights here and participate in … activities.

Right now she’s writing up her first day report. It is of course exhaustive and will take her a while so I thought I would lie here in this four poster and synchronise work.

You have to have some sort of customer interaction. Lou can’t sleep with noise and there’s a boiler next to our first room. They’ve moved us to a suite. The noise is much the same but it’s vast so I think we’ll get over it. “They might have identified us as mystery shoppers,” Lou intuits. We are twenty years younger than everyone else, we are doing all the activities and taking loads of photos, eating varied meals, asking for toothpicks and cotton buds and chamomile tea. We’ve told them we are from London and Brighton which is miles away from their catchment. I reckon they’re onto us but that’s ok. They still horlixed a drinks order twice, but I don’t think she’s gonna be tough on them as they are evidently working hard and seem to be a genuinely friendly team of local young men and women, probably funding degrees and whatnot. We had a great meal, we have an even better room, we’re on our holidays.

I shoot left handed. Always have. Don’t know why. Turns out I do archery left handed too. They had a Southpaw bow though so I used that. They’ve thought it through. We aren’t the first mystery shoppers. I reckon with a bit of practice I could sort my aim out on the old bending yew. I’ve always been an excellent shot so long as they don’t make me hold the gun the wrong way round. I tried the bow right handed and it’s just the same with a rifle, it somehow just doesn’t actually make sense at all that way round. Right arm forward but right eye for aim.

What incredible luxury that we get to be here together and behave like we are happy pensioners. The two people we met in the steam room were friends from a local church, seemingly on a date. They do bible study. Separate rooms. Seventies plus. He sings all the time, under his breath. I picked out some words. “attendant devotion” rhymed with “deep as the ocean”. That combination of buzzwords and mawkish sincerity. I used to love all those jolly charismatic Christian songs. Nice young men and women with guitars, maybe a tambourine. Absolutely no nuance. Tunes that would have made Bach throw you out of bed. But they catch in the head. He’s probably not aware he’s doing it. “Dum dim de love de lamb doo shining ping de perfect sacrifice la de ping immaculate bong de drives away badoobie forever.” And then you die and instead of like heaven and hell and all that it’s, I dunno, a crab with socks on playing the accordion. You’re only gonna be disappointed, but all the organised games of “guess what’s out there,” they pass the time.

We’ve eaten so many eighties things. Fish pie, prawn cocktail, ham and cheese toasty, Eton Mess, bad coffee…

The bathroom here is astonishing. Low light and it just feels luxurious. How the hell am in a suite the size of my flat for two nights? I’ll get over it. It’s the new swindle. Make them think you’re mystery shoppers by coming in the low season when you’re not the target demographic and then being awkward fuckers. Win. But for the fact we actually ARE this time and have to do some work too.

Just putting this at the start after proofing myself; I’ve been on set and in character today. Without that context it’s a weird read.

Early start today might leave me tired now, but I’m enervated. It’s been a solid day. The guy I’ve been working with is prolific, and my goodness he works fast. He is DOP and director, calling all the changes, auteur and instigator. I’m lucky he liked me, getting over my impostor syndrome and just getting stuck in. It’s a dry part in a bright script, and that’s my job, been that for a while, to find an honest lightness in the dry or the dark. Not a comedy. Just a colour. It’s the torch I carry now. I’ve been an optimist in a hard industry for three decades. I was trained well at Guildhall to claim perspective on myself. Before that I was at those institutions that try and train people to disable their empathy. “You’re sad about being away from mummy and daddy? You need to toughen up.” Dad always taught me to examine the source, so even when I was eight I found myself questioning the wisdom of those who gave me that opinion. They seemed weak, empty somehow. They were weak, of course, but through the fault of the institutions, I can’t blame them. It was the easiest route to follow, the “pretend you’re strong by disabling empathy” thing.

This was doubled down when I met the poor kids at secondary school. “public” school. These kids were almost drained by then of anything but basic self preservation and promotion of those like them. Not all of them, but many of them … shells, estranged even from basic kindness. Stage 1 we separate it from its parents, stage 2 we nourish it with rhetoric about how great it is. Stage 3 it perpetuates the same lie. Stage 4 Good officer / manager / perpetuator. The kids who held their heads up high, we still know each other, and we know what we had to put up with to get to the stage where we could do it.

But I’m not here today of all days to run the old saw about how my expensive education – and one that brought me many benefits – brought me into contact with shocking numbers of people who have never evolved into emotional adults.

It’s cos I was playing one of them today. That’s why it’s at the front. I was in cosplay as the guy I might have been had I not found the arts. Had Martin Tyrrell not cast me as Camille. And I’ll always go into bat for my character, as TC would have it. You have to love yourself and think you’re doing the best. So I’ve been emotionally supporting myself in a character very like me who I wouldn’t be friends with at all.

“What do you think our relationship is,” asked Anthony, young actor, his first time in a credited role, playing my secretary. “I don’t think I’ve even noticed you beyond how you serve my needs,” I tell him. I’m not method, that’s tedious and I don’t find it helpful enough to warrant it. I’m just playing who I might have been if art hadn’t taken me. My guy is one of three partners in a law firm, a solicitor, letting my junior do the dirty work and picking up the slack. Lazy, entitled. I have been sitting wide all day, unfussy slob physicality. I know these people I’ve been playing well. Take up all the space, bring nothing to the table but a sense of self importance, be suspicious of anything unfamiliar.

It’s a good movie. I’m a lucky boy. I’ve worked fucking hard too. Fffff. More to come. I haven’t actually signed an NDA but I haven’t read my contract so I’m saying nothing.

February is letting me down. A few hardy daffodils, a few bright mornings, but largely we are in a cloud and a wet one at that. I slung out to meet a friend for lunch. She took me to an Italian place in Duke of York Square. “I’m more or less the same age as your mother was,” she reminded me, and mum has been gone over twenty years. “It’s the booze.” She was married to my uncle Peter. He clinked his way to oblivion shortly after mum, also in his fifties. I can sit and laugh at the table today. I’ll likely walk down the beach with her next time I’m in Jersey. Life is a lot more than just wet oblivion. “Would you like a glass of wine,” the waitress asked us at noon on a weekday. It’s in the culture. It’s in the economy. Doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it. More and more I’m finding the times I’m not doing it are more colourful than the times I am. Numb is numb, but just as I don’t like living in a cloud at February so I don’t like living in a fug.

Linelearner on my iPad just as you can’t have a crib sheet on set. Everyone does their work to make it look effortless. I’m sure we all have our own systems but the answer to “how do you learn all those lines?” Honestly it’s hard work to appear effortless.

It’s not yet 8. I’m scrubbed and fed and watered and I’m in bed. Alarm will go off at 4ish tomorrow so I can go and shave and have coffee and dress nicely and pack a little efficient carry bag. Been on enough sets now to know what sort of things I want. Lots of waiting around. I’ll have a book made out of paper with no batteries. Glad to have things to think about on these cold dark days.

Posted some eBay, including one awkward bugger of a package that I forgot to switch off international shipping for so of course it is going to blimming America. I had to improvise something out of cardboard, bubble wrap and old shirts I was going to take to the charity shop. All the while, three short scenes were zinging round in my head. I think I’ll have them without looking now. One more sleep, I’ll go once more before I put the light out, but I reckon I’ll be asleep at nine.

A quiet Sunday. Just me and these cats. It’s not a bad way to spend the weekend really. Play slave, occasional food refiller.

Last night I hung out with some old friends after Scissorhandz and they helped me find my perspective on some work things. He’s a musician, she’s an art producer. Both good people and energies I align with. It helped me just take the day today to artlessly do nothing beyond self care and a touch of prep.

I roasted a chicken just for me, with half the trimmings and a very good gravy with port – didn’t want to open a bottle of red. Absolutely glorious. The cats and I have been playing ever since. A happy warm Sunday in a heated flat, prepping for Tuesday and taking care of myself.

In showbiz news, the algorithm seems determined to tell me how they’re doing a new season of Buffy. Some of the original cast and crew – the ones who aren’t into coercive control and punching ladies – will be coming back. I am smiling at the thought as, despite the fact it was a load of bollocks it was a SEMINAL load of bollocks. Good old Buffy, perhaps back for another generation. I need to get a Nescafé ad stet, in case they are angling for a new edgy and genial English gent, although I think Anthony will still be in the frame after his turn in Ted Lasso. I don’t think he’s been doing any Spaceying. I was talking with my old mate who writes fantasy fiction about Neil Gaiman the other day and that shit is even more disappointing when it comes from someone you think is a good guy. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Trump. Putin. But … in microcosm across so many industries. Max Stafford Clark. Weinstein. For years you can shut down criticism. Often it doesn’t even catch up with you until you’re dead. Saville died celebrated. Trump is president, not prisoner. Putin? God alone knows what he’s been up to. We probably never will, but if he’s not a proper wrong’un I’ll eat my hat.

It’s late. I’ve been talking on WhatsApp with a friend. The cats are flanking my feet in bed, facing inwards like they are a pair of sphinx and I’m the monument. I’ve been radiating advice from this position. Now I’m gonna try and go to sleep without kicking either of them.

A lovely day. I’ve been swallowing lines, trying to make sure I’m easy on set. I’m not that known so it will all need to look like I do it for breakfast dinner and lunch. 0 fucking around. I’ve heard it on the grapevine that my director on this job likes to shoot on film. I hope that’s the case, to be honest. I like working on film. It makes for a familiar and glorious world of stakes and language lost to the “fuck it we are digital” era. Every shot counts HARD. The words “check the gate” suddenly start to mean “that was a good take”. The gate is where the film loads into the camera. A hair or bit of dust might get there. The DOP won’t see it but it will be visible in the camera output.

The 1945 Hitchcock film Notorious is … ahem… notorious for having a hair in the gate for some shots. You’ll see it and know it from old movies. It’s a bit of crap in the shot, often moves away quickly but sometimes it’s there for ages and they got to the edit and would have been horrified but eventually passed crucial shots to the final edit rather than retake for a hair. Very common in Keaton and Chaplin stuff where the shot is hard so the gate being blocked doesn’t trump the “fuck me you did it perfect” vibe.

It’s about immersion though. A hair pushes us one step back, reminding us we are participating in a chicanery of reality. This business we’re in, we’re peddling stories. We need to be good at them. Good stories make people listen. If you’re making a fake world with morals and there’s a bit of hair suddenly pops up, it allows all the people who want to try to avoid caring about the people in the fiction to switch out of their belief suspension. “ah yeah I watched that thing that said that people exactly like me damage others selfishly, but there was that stupid hair in the shot, why was that there? What was the message of that? huh? Does the hair need to think about the way it does things?”

While I’ve been writing to you, I had a hot bath and scrubbed thoroughly with Dr Bronner’s hilarious but brilliant rose scented soap. The ingredients are great. The worldview is nonsense. I’ve blogged about it before. Bragg’s Aminos, Bronner’s liquid soap… Glories.

I have to think about my face and so forth, suddenly. I’m washing with my Dermalogica face wash, but the guys at Derma played an absolute blinder. It’s a big pot. It used to be called “foaming facial cleanser” now it is called “special cleansing gel” and everyone who ever stays at my flat clearly slathers it all over their bodies, coz it goes down at an terrifying rate. I am so frugal with it a bottle can last me ten years. This one is almost empty after three. They asked me on set “Do you have any products you like to use?” Dermalogica, I said. You never know. I might get a range in my trailer.

Misty has been trying to lick my arms and body. She clearly likes the rose flavour Bronners. She is hilarious. I guess she’s needing something to ground her after the cat rave.

I’m off to bed now. Gorgeous day. Went to Scissorhandz at Southwark where there was only one person miscast and it was a glorious musical madness. Then dinner with dear friends by which time I was ADHD popping and had to get home to do the familiar things. I’m managing my headspace at the mo. Making sure I’m all on the yes for next week.

Brian and Maddy have gone up north, leaving me with both cats. Boo, my talkative shadow friend, who I’ve bonded very well with. Boo who is no longer horny thank the lord. Boo who just persuaded me to spend a good twenty minutes playing with her when I should be learning my lines. And Misty. Fluffy pudding. Misty just installs herself somewhere and expects love. I left my electric blanket on for her and she’s barely moved all day. She lies next to my face as I sleep and bats me in the mouth if I’m having weird dreams. I can largely prevent the story going bad, but there’s nothing like a catfriend to punch you in the face when you are about to start following an unhelpful cosmic track in dreams.

I’ve got these two reprobates all to myself. So we’re gonna have a cat rave. Get in.

I’ve ordered a load of mice in, a good few kilos, active ones. They’ll be running around. Some of them are mice strippers. I’ve put Misty on the tech, just cos she’s more likely to pay attention to it. Boo is a cat after my own heart. She’s perfectly capable of the tech but she might get distracted. She’s better off on reception and response if something goes wrong. I’ll start her on the door as she won’t run out of it. I’ll move her to checking performers once the bulk of punters are in. She’ll either be the one that everyone has an experience with or she’ll be off pulling mice out of gutters and sorting out disputes with the hedgehogs who can be spiky.

There’s a guy in Camberwell who does high grade catnip on delivery. I’ve had the number for decades, it’s one of the best in town but reflected in the price. It’s good if you’re catering for Top Cat, Liono and Cheetara, even Tom if he can get away from the home. Boo insists it’s worth it buying the good stuff. Misty reckons she’s got someone for half the price but I don’t trust her to be in touch with the catnip market so I’m letting Boo sort it out because, between you and me, Garfield might show. I’ve had it through his people. I can’t do him lasagne, but I want to offer him high grade nip instead. I’m told that’s more his jam these days anyway. He’s trying to move with the times. Plus he’s been hanging out with Hobbes who hasn’t been well since Calvin took that job in silicon valley.

We don’t need a sound system. We’re gonna use Boo’s lungs, she’s proved she can out shout anything and now she’s no longer horny she has the attention span so is clearly the best resource we have for amps.

So yeah, it’s on. Cat Rave! These furry maniacs and me gonna ‘ave it up large.

I’m just gonna look at my lines first. In bed. Bed is the best place to do work when it’s sleet outside. So … I’ll just do this work in bed before the cat rave. And maybe I’ll have a little power nap before we get on the catnip. I’ll just have half a Dreamie. That’s all I need these days. And a mouthful of Sheba to ground me and if someone can stroke my belly then I’ll attempt to bite their face off. Maybe a little nap. The rave will happen anyway I’m sure. Misty is very organised, Boo is responsive, they don’t need me, that’s all you need, that’s the team, I’ll just have a little rest, then I’ll be ready to take it all down tomorrow. Boo is pretty good with the forklift, but she might have other pulls on her attention and Misty can’t do it for shit, but she’ll have the breakdown spreadsheet. I might need to help with practical stuff or get on the phone, won’t know until the morning, best I get some rest and let the cats have their party. If things go to tits I’ve asked Thomas O’Malley to come wake me, and I think Macavity will help too but you can never tell with Macavity.

zzzzz

The early nineties. Bright coloured clothing. The town of Reading. Young people all aligned to theatre in some way. Kenneth Branagh in the cinema, having just been at the local Amdram “Progress Theatre”. Kate and Anna Winslett known well, loved well, both starting acting careers with some traction. Friends on TV once a week. Pills changing the way the weekend worked. Two pounds a pint. TGI Fridays. 20 Marlborough lights for £3.75. Radiohead before OK Computer. U2. REM. Finlay Quaye. The Beautiful South. Down the road near the Winslets, Chesney had his one and only house. “We used to sneak in and use his pool.” The Singing Detective on VHS. Lipstick on her Collar on TV. Trainspotting. The Chart Show on Saturday morning. Terry Pratchett. Stephen King. Braveheart in the cinema.

A faceless terraced house on Elgar Road. Mister Webb had rented it to students. Three of us. A gas oven where you had to throw in a match. Just one loo, through the kitchen. A big living room.

Adrian, Tim and I. Students. What were we studying?

Studying dreams. “I’m gonna be a writer.” “I’m gonna be an actor.” “I’m gonna be a director.”

None of us with family, precedent, contacts. All of us passionately clueless, and fervently generative. Making, building, causing, starting. The process of creation over the detail. Do do do do do.

I saw Adrian today. First time in ten years maybe. He’s won awards. Lots of them. Even back then, his output of books, all printed on that green perforated printer paper – he was prolific. “I think I’ve got the only copy of one of your early ones in my attic. If I find it I’ll send it.” “I’ll probably burn it.”

3am over thirty years from now, someone would have asked “In thirty years, where will we be?” “I’ll be acting, maybe the RSC, maybe a major American film director, maybe both, one after the other.” “I’ll be writing, maybe a few awards, selling well, sought after, going to conventions – you know up and down to London to talk at bookstores.” Adrian and I pulled a blinder. Tim too – his first feature as a director is in the edit. “That was a special year, a really happy year,” Adrian observed. And it really really was. All three of us the first time away from home, with a place of our own, working out what the heck made us tick. The late nights of it, the discussions, the projects we made. I had someone I’ve never met before who was at Reading after me ask “How in hell did you get the budgets they gave you for those summer Shakespeare’s?” Teamwork. Crazy passion. Luck. Chutzpah. I worked hard that year, just not on my English degree. We made decent shows, even if I wince at what I thought was good acting then. I had a long way to go, and needed that to go through Guildhall and Wendy and Ken and Chattie and Wyn and Patsy and Jeanette and Martin and Kate and Jo and all the incredible people who were being paid but still it was golden assembly of practitioners. I learnt what I needed to learn, including humility. Just not too much, motherfuckers.

But to have a coffee and just hang with Adrian felt like a tonic today. I’m happy for him. I never knew anyone else work as hard as he did on his vocation. Passion and commitment. Learn by doing. It’s the best way.

Hopefully it won’t be another decade. We are both still passionate and vital. I’m happy to have felt it.