My Life as a Film Star

Or should that be ‘My Dog’s Life as a Film Star’?

Anyhow, whichever way you prefer, I went to the premiere of my first role in a feature film last week. I missed the red carpet occasion in the local multiplex due to the ravages of flu, so I haven’t see myself on the big screen yet. But on a biggish screen in a community arts centre was quite exciting enough.

Thankfully, I have reached a point in life where major vanity issues have been slung unceremoniously out of the window. Never to return, I trust. They don’t half cramp your style. I looked human. That’s good enough for me. Plus I didn’t make a fool of myself. I call THAT a result. And Phoebe the dog played her part to perfection, looked gorgeous, and got a line in the credits all to herself. And outside the actors and the film crew, who needs to know about that prop-eating incident between takes? (She had just found a ‘drunk’ passed out in a doorway – and, yes, you seriously don’t want to know –ugh!

Drunks passed out in doorways? Not a romcom, then? Not, not in the least. Ah, yes well: Hollywood has not quite made the call yet. In fact, I’m not even an actress. I wouldn’t even pretend to be one. I can live the lives of ten different people at once when I’m writing a book; laugh with them, cry with them. Go through all kinds of agonies with them. I did once stand on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. But that was during a backstage tour, and I was much happier nosing at the scenery and props for ‘A Winter’s Tale’ I’d just seen than standing there in a scary state of fully-clothed exposure. Put me on those boards for real, and I’d have run.

But when I’m not writing, I have a part-time job with the utterly wonderful ‘Tape Community Music and Film’, who make films people who have turned their lives around and are undertaking the life-long recovery from drug and alcohol addition. And the feature-length film ‘Legacy’ was funded by a Community Cashback award (that’s from out of the proceeds of crime) to show young people the real, nasty, uncool and undignified face of addiction. The real stars, the volunteers who wrote and acted and made the film out of their own experiences, will also be going with the film to talk to youngsters after the film has been shown.

And so when my dog (not me, I have to confess) had the call to take a small, but vital, role in the story – well, what else could I do but become the dog walker who finds the body? Phoebe just had to look pretty and winsome. Being of the collie/spaniel cross persuasion and with a main chance in the biscuit direction, she can do this in her sleep, and doesn’t she know it. I – it turned out – had a speaking role.

More than that: an improvised speaking role. My worst nightmare, and which started of as a bit of a disaster. But then a weird thing happened. We were working with real police and paramedics, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the whole thing became real. It wasn’t the guy we’d just had a cup of tea with sprawled out in a pool of tinned vegetable soup. I remember feeling real anxiety as the policeman made his way towards me. Watching the paramedics rush to do their thing had me holding my breath that he’d pull through. And when the ambulance pulled away in a blaze of flashing lights and sirens, I almost felt I really had found someone lying in a doorway in a pool of wee and sick.

And so my first – and possibly only – experience of playing a fleeting part in a feature film has left me proud to be part of it, rather than anything else. I’m looking forward to seeing it on the big screen when my chance comes.

Meanwhile, I shall run back to the safety of the WIP and laugh and sigh and weep and become traumatised in private, to the gentle snores of a well-walked dog, before going downstairs for tea.

If you want to see me and Phoebe in action, we’re in the trailer. Honest. Just don’t blink. And the rest of the trailer is worth seeing, too. Pretty awesome, in fact.

http://www.tapemusicandfilm.co.uk/?page_id=59