Country life...(or how everyone in Salisbury thinks I'm a hooker)....

Well Reader, we're not in Kansas anymore. I'm in the wilds of Salisbury for the week, filming for short Lost Boy/ Lost Girl, in which I play a porn star called Leanne, who's sort of lost grip on her life a bit. I was determined only to bring my small carry-on suitcase for the week, but forgot that part of my costume is an enormous fake fur coat that makes me look a bit like Pat Butcher, so I wore it instead, and now I think the woman who runs my B&B thinks I'm a hooker. This isn't helped by a number of things:

1. I am actually playing a porn star, so tomorrow I'm leaving wearing a fur coat, mini skirt, false eyelashes and lots of boob on show
2. I am the only girl in the B&B (which despite being all chintzy and covered in fake flowers and Laura Ashley prints from the 80's, seems to be entirely populated by burly, slightly stinky truckers who grunt as they pass each other on the stairs) 
3. I've left the B&B at about 10.30 pm every evening so far (to go and have dinner with the crew, who finish pretty late.) I never have a chance to explain where I'm going, so she just sees me leaving late at night in fake fur, getting in a car full of young men, and coming back at about midnight
4. Last night, the other actor (a lovely young chap who's just about to do a national tour of 'Our Country's Good') finished shooting too late to collect his room key, so I let him crash in with me-meaning last night she will have heard us coming in past 12 (after another very late dinner), me telling him to shush and then letting him into my room. We're actors, so we're used to having to bunk in together when stuff like this happens, spending the evening going over scripts and correcting lines, but she can't have known that.

Oh dear. I'm being really careful to be very polite to her and dropping things like 'on set' and 'filming with the students' into the conversation, but I have noticed she's gone a little hyperactive around me. Bugger. 

Salisbury is pretty interesting. Until today, I'd only seen a couple of bits of it, but met with my lovely friend Dave from many years ago, who is now a director at the theatre here, and he gave me the guided tour. It's actually a very pretty place, but still decidedly odd. There's a campus here for Bournemouth Uni students, but none of them seem to go out. They don't have a student union here and the streets are empty by 9pm on a weeknight. I went to uni in Canterbury, and every night you'd find at least a few gangs of students in the pubs having a jolly old time, but not so here! Plus the conversations you overhear are very strange. Last night, I watched in fascination as a group of very young, intimidatingly pretty and done up girls tried to chat up two old, ugly, rude squaddies. The Squaddies were practically beating them off with sticks! I couldn't quite tell why the young ladies were interested to be honest, the men looked a bit like they lived under a bridge and ate goats who lost their riddles and their personalities seemed rather pants. Add to that the fact that they were roaringly drunk and you had an enigma in your midst-what were the girls so attracted to that they kept throwing themselves at these blokes? The service industry here is incredible, I've had taxi drivers who gave me history lessons as we drove to set, shop people complimenting my hair and look and just now, when I clumsily knocked over my bottle of diet coke in the cafe I'm stealing the wifi of, the charming young barista not only mopped it all up, but brought me a new one and winked at me!  Of course, there are a few downsides. There are NO free cashpoints, you have to walk for ages to find one. My B&B, although cosy, has no WiFi, so I'm getting behind on work and emailing and having to catch up today (next week will also be very busy now as I'll be working extra evening shifts to cover the loss of wages). People see me in my teddybear fur coat and look at me like an escapee of a local mental hospital, wheras at home I would just be seen as a bit eccentric. Plus, the area I'm staying in isn't within walking distance to ANYTHING. No sweet shops, pubs, Tesco Extras. So once I'm in the B&B, that's sort of it, a day of reading my pile of books and nothing else. Not having internet is driving me slightly mad, every hour that passes without me popping on Linked In to do a bit of work makes me think of the noise of money tinkling down the drain. Being able to sit and blog in this cafe is HEAVEN. I've even checked my facebook and applied for a few bits on casting call pro! 

Makes me realise just how much of a city girl I really am. I'm already dreaming of sushi and hot yoga and being able to hop on a bus and find a jazz bar or a snazzy theatre cafe to work in. It's a nice change of scene though, and dear lord, it's worth it to work on the camera that the crew is using. Everything looks beautiful and I'm already hopelessly excited to see the film. It helps that the actor I'm working with is really easy to bounce off of as well, fingers crossed it'll come out beautifully! 

Plus I got to see Dave. Which was like lots of birthday presents and Christmas presents all in one go!

Hope you're having a lovely week Reader, wherever you're based!

Ash

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Asking for it...

Reader, writing that last entry was like inviting fate to laugh at me. 'No nights out!' I wrote, thinking of my sofa and the tv shows I've been watching lately. 'My life is so dull and not like a dramatic 20 something life at all!'

Reader, last night was insane.

Fate decided to chuck me one of those nights that features in Girls, I met Lady Luxe and her amazing 7 ft male model friend, then we went for dinner (but since I'd been picking at things all day I just sat with them while they ate) and we drank out of jam jars (so Shoreditch darling). Then it was on to a private members club in Soho, where we had a ridiculous number of cocktails-and every time I finished one, someone would order another to replace it. Every time I went to the loo, I'd get offered a line of coke (which I never know how to politely refuse. I always sound like I'm turning down an offer of tea 'Oh, no thank you, I'm grand! But cheers anyway!') and in classic Ash form, I ended up acting like a total prat. After a large amount of alchohol, I got chatting to a really pretty lady in the bathroom and was sure we'd met. I kept saying 'Were you at this audition or that?' and even asked if she went to my old uni. In the mean time, her and her friend kept laughing. It was only this morning that I realised it was Angela Griffin, hugely famous Brit actor and presenter. I slightly wanted to cut my own tongue out for telling her she must 'just have one of those faces'.

Eejit.

Then great excitement occurred when Tom Hiddleston was spotted! My new friend Ruby and I decided to go on a Loki hunt (to no avail), but an hour later, I passed him deep in conversation. Realising that I was too tipsy to actually make a good impression by speaking up, I stroked his arm and ran away. I am ridiculous. I stroked and ran. Please someone kill me.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but there was a kiss in a rooftop garden, dancing with my ex boss like we were old men at a wedding to tunes of the early 2000's, chats with celebs about my hair (a bloke from Eastenders called it 'A firey dream'), someone telling me they wanted to write a book about me and a taxi home at 4am.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened, it all feels like a mad haze. Occasionally, my hangover clears and I remember saying some really stupid, far too brutally honest things and have to hide under a pillow again (apparently drunk Ash has no grasp of social etiquette). Two nights of drinking have destroyed me, so from tomorrow onwards it's all about running, Bikram yoga and veggie soup.

For a while at least...

Ash
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Filming in the countryside...

So Reader, I've just returned from a few days working on 'The Kepler Deception' for Sky Sci-Fi channel in the wilds of Dorset with the fantastic people of Scanach Media Productions. Filming in the countryside is always interesting, from the people (we had a taxi driver who was best friends with Ray Mears and spends 3 months a year living with the Masai tribe!) to the weather (flooded roads meant our trips to set sometimes took twice the time they should have) and the locations (it was like filming Lord of The Rings. So much greenery...). I'm hoping the film is going to look rather beautiful, as the setting was fantastic!

We were staying in a couple of cottage/villa type houses on a working dairy farm, the crew in one house, the cast in the other and there was nothing in walking distance. And by nothing, I really do mean nothing. No pubs, no newsagents. Nothing. So making our own entertainment was an important part of the experience. Luckily, we're a resourceful bunch and every night made a group dinner together (my chef night recipe was caramelised onion and Gruyere tart with all the trimmings) and took the mick out of the people on tv a lot. One terrible thing did come of this though-I am now slightly addicted to Take Me Out. I'd never seen it before, and it is truly awful programming, but making fun of the people on it is a truly joyful experience. They are so cheesy, and so brilliantly, brilliantly thick. But now I want more. So far I have resisted the urge to watch another episode, but I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out! Send help!

Now I'm in serious recovery mode. After three days of getting up at 6.30 and working till late in rain soaked, windy conditions and travelling all the way to Dorset, I seriously need a break. In fact, I'm planning on booking a day of massages, manicures, pedicures and sofa time next week-I've had a headache for the past two days so some downtime needs to happen. But have some lovely things coming up-it's my gorgeous mum's birthday this weekend, so I finally get to give her the spoiling she deserves, Saturday I'm babysitting for my adorable godson AG, who I'm planning on giving all my cuddles to (he's at the age where he'll let you hug him, so I am taking full advantage) and during the day I'll be trying on bridesmaids dresses with The Bride and some of the other girls as well as a lovely lunch!

For my latest vlog on my filming exploits, go here (if you click on my picture below the video, you'll also find all my other vlogs too!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Fi1IOBcNk

Tarrah chaps!
Ash
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All the other actors...

So Reader, as an actor, I go to a few auditions. Admittedly, now I'm slightly more established, a lot of my work comes from my previously made connections and people I've worked with in the past (industry tip, networking is IMPORTANT), but I still go to quite a few and the most interesting part of the whole shebang is always the other actors at the audition.

The thing is, auditioning is a strange thing. Sometimes you'll go to one and there will be loads of girls that look just like you and you'll have a moment of 'Oh dear lord I look like everyone else' (this doesn't happen very often to me, as I am a bit odd looking). Other times you walk in and everyone looks so different, you can only assume the casting director got a very vague brief through. The worst ones though, are when you walk in, look around and realise you are most definitely the odd one out.

I once went to an advert audition and walked into a room full of models, all tall, skinny, young and beautiful. I had a moment of smug pride as I thought 'they must think I'm as gorgeous as these people! They think I'm a model! WIN!' then my pride was swiftly broken as the only other normal looking person got called in with me and cheerfully uttered the eternally soul destroying phrase 'So I guess we're the uggos, huh?'. Oh dear. Pretty sure we were the 'hey, let's get some average looking kids in to see how they work out' routine. As neither of us got cast, it seems they preferred the 6ft, no fat, eyes bigger than my fist look. Bugger.

Of course, occasionally you get the actors who try to psych you out. I always assumed that was just an actor urban legend, until I went to a short film audition a couple of years ago and a slightly older actor asked me where I went to school and when and when I told her where it was and that I had (at that point) just graduated, she looked me right in the eye and said 'yeah, I really feel that drama schools have gone downhill in the last 5 years, they'll just let anyone in'. A bit taken aback, I told her how much I'd enjoyed my course and how it had been very challenging. She replied with 'Hm. Hey, is that your natural hair colour? Or is your natural hair colour your eyebrows?'. WOW. I just smiled and turned to the person on my other side to chat instead. What a knob. It was only a bloody student film! I couldn't believe it (interestingly, I actually saw the film later that year-she wasn't in it. HAH.)

To be fair though, you also meet some awesome people in auditions. I am still in touch through twitter with one really lovely girl I met at a short film audition earlier this year, who made the whole waiting process great fun, as we just giggled the whole way through it. I met one of my close male friends Sam at the audition for drama school and although we ended up studying at different places, we are still close almost 5 years later. When I went to work at the callcentre, I ended up bumping into loads of people I'd already met at auditions which was lovely!

The thing is, auditions are much better when you don't see the other people there as competition, but as people swimming against the tide with you. If you get on with them, you go in feeling relaxed, happy and ready to face the world! If you're bitter and try to make them nervous before they go in, karma will come back to bite you on the bum. So don't do it yeah? Be a lovely person, you'll make more friends that way!

Tarrah Reader!
Ash
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Hanging...

Reader, today I have not been very well. I have, in fact, had a hangover from hell. I went out last night and took full advantage of a happy hour deal and had six cocktails on a very empty stomach and when I woke up this morning, I had a mouth drier than a sand dune and a stomach that turned every time I reached for my glass of water. My head was vibrating like the inside of a bell and words weren't coming out as words, more like slurring yelps that made little sense. I sounded like a character from Lord Of The Rings. A midget Orc.

I wasn't even that dramatically drunk, but my mid-twenties ability to handle my booze has clearly diminished. I spent the majority of my day squinting at my screen trying to get work done, then having naps, then watching Glee while I worked and wept. Eventually I half crawled to Asda and got mashed potato and sausages and ate them in a giant Yorkshire pudding covered in gravy. I was quite proud given that I only got lost on the way to the shops once. Although I did discover that my purse got nicked last night, which was less encouraging on the ability to handle my drink front. When my friends left this morning, I was unable to get up and give them a hug, I just waved at them from bed encouragingly and then carried on groaning into my pillow.

The night was great though. My lovely actor friends banded together for a night of cocktails, positive attitudes and stories from the scary (and at times hilarious) world of dating in London. We laughed, we posed for silly pictures, we took the unholy mick out of each other and we behaved like the pretentious luvvies we claim to despise (which is always great fun).

I did however, get chatted up. Which is a bonus. Apart from the fact that he was a 20 year old telecoms project manager with an S shaved into his head and his chat up line was 'So what drink are you getting me?'. I laughed so hard that I nearly fell off my extremely tall shoes. 'No dear, I'm an actor. I can barely buy my own alcohol'. Then he asked how he could get in touch with me. 'Ahhh' I said, mysteriously, 'Look me up online!' Luckily no one can spell my name. Little does he know! Oh dear Reader. My life has been reduced to enigmatically turning down pre-pubescent telecoms staff whilst trying to stay upright on exceptionally high heels. Hardly Sex and The City.

It's the first time in a while I've had such an intense hangover. I used to have one at least once a week at uni (although I think the emotional scars from the awful, cringey things I did whilst pissed lasted longer than the hangovers.) Being a social secretary always comes with a side of painful morning afters. The difference of course, is that now when I'm hungover I'm invariably guilty over not giving work my 100%. So no more getting drunk for me. Till November anyway. And then the Christmas parties will begin and my home made mulled wine will be making one hell of an appearance!

Hurrah!
Ash
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