Film star dreams

“Ooh, where’s she from?”

“Wasn’t she in that reality show where she got stung by a bee and then had to have her face amputated?”

Casting is changing, treatment of people is changing. Barriers broken. And of course, people have an opinion. The world appears to be considering the possibility we might have been wrong about ‘box office material’.

We can look forward to casting with optimism and start to to release unlimited creativity. After explaining to one of my students that ‘blind casting’ wasn’t about curtains, I reiterated that we still have a long way to go dispelling stereotypes about age, race, religion and gender.I think this also means I am being robbed of my chance to be a film star.It is I, entering the car park and emptying my recycling into the Tetra bin. It’s me, stepping out of my my car and walking out to the flashing lights of the media. In my head.

Rats, I’ve left my lights on.

“Who would you cast as me?” I ask friends, hoping for an ego trip. Audrey Hepburn? Penelope Cruz? Pete Burns?

“Sue Pollard”.

Casting me would be… stressful.  Though I would love to say I’m ageless, a bit like Sheridan Smith perhaps, I think it might be a little more complicated than that. I may have acquired a sort of Pete Doherty look; especially with no makeup on. Baby faced, but with wrinkles. I strut my stuff in the supermarket bare-faced and think I’m all Home and Away. I clock my reflection and I’m more…go away.

People just can’t seem to work out how old I am. I went out once with my little two month old daughter, hoisted in a front baby carrier. “Too young. Too young to have baby!” an angry lady shouted at me. She seemed livid. Outraged. Pretty much spat at me. I managed to frantically say ‘but I’m 35!!!” but by then she’d gone.

Then there’s the opposite end of the issue. ‘But your like…40!” a teenager responded when asking me if I had small children. How dare she! The audacity. The cheek. I’m 38.

It’s the same with memory loss. I don’t have ‘baby brain’ – I claim to but my youngest is six so I don’t think that’ll cut it much longer. At least soon I won’t have to clean up my children’s skid marks. I look at my at the small figure in a fairy costume and flashing trainers and wonder why people say, “stop acting like a child!” Why define age simply by a number?

Why can’t I zoom down the stairs on a duvet or perform a dance to the Spice. Don’t we all truly love to play?

I cannot wait to be asked for ID when in 87 after winning the BAFTA for ‘Best Actress of All Time’ after being refused a taxi. I’ll zoom off making my own skid marks with my roller skates.