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I could also be seen in the Bleak Old Shop of Stuff on BBC2, and on Downton Abbey’s Christmas special. Oh, and Junkhearts with Eddie Marsden.

I have also been in both of the British TV shows which won Golden Globes.

Onwards and upwards.

I didn’t even know what an audition actually was. I had heard of one vaguely. I didn’t have a monologue, I had no clue what I was doing, but I got on stage and I improvised a comedy sketch. There were limited spaces and I got in.

So started a career. Okay, years of struggle, but you get the point. I was still awful at auditioning. It took my years to work up the courage to put myself out there. Now, I don’t even get nervous. Though I am sure if Spielberg called I would. Get ringing Steven.

So here is what I have learnt:

Relax. I know it’s hard but as an actor your life is out of your hands. My mother always said what is for you won’t go by you. I live by this.

Learn your lines

Research the director, the casting director, the part, things about your character. Knowledge is power.

Believe in yourself. If you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to?

Know that there is no such thing as a wasted audition. If you don’t get that one, and you are good, the casting director will remember you.

Be nice. No one wants to work with rude or arrogant people.

Break a leg!

I recently had lunch with a director that had cast a female friend in something. My female friend has three children. The director offered me her part, and all the future work he was going to give her as ‘she could not be totally committed to her work’ as she had children. I was appalled and turned him down. What if I have children soon? I couldn’t work with him after that. The irony is that the director has FIVE children. But no one ever asks a man how he juggles work and kids.

Most of the castings I see are for men, the rest are for women, usually between 18-35, size 8-12 and the part usually requires nudity. I don’t do nudity. The most depressing thing about the movies I see are the amount of naked females in them. Rarely any naked men. What kind of message is this? That women are sexual objects?

Some castings require you to wear a bikini or ask that actresses are a specific weight. Age discrimination is rife, so much so that an actress who was the same age as me when we started out is now four years younger. I won’t lie about my age although I have been told to. It’s a stance against idiocy. I am still young, but I am cast younger. This is a problem. They can cast someone who looks like a teenager, or an actual teenager.

I am making a film, Prose & Cons. I am buying equipment and have been asking for a lot of advice. The most annoying thing about making the film so far is how condescending some of the men are in their answers. If I ask a general question on where to buy a microphone I get a lecture on what a boom is. I have worked in the film industry for eleven years. I know what a boom is, thanks mate.

But this is what happens when a ‘girl’ makes a film, or wants to be taken seriously. When she gets sick of the girlfriend roles, which become the mother roles and go on to be the hag roles. And the constant requests for nudity.

She says I have had enough and I am not taking it anymore, then she goes off and makes her own films while finding other amazing people who make films she wants to be in.

If you want to help fund Prose & Cons then contact me. Any amount of money helps. Thank you!

You just don’t realise how much Shakespeare has influenced people, hundreds of years after his death. And then, of course, there is the chance to combine Shakespeare and Stratford Upon Avon. Which is why I will always love Mary Tynan. At the end of April 2011 I performed in Stratford Upon Avon. I was a witch in Macbeth, Rosalind in As You like It and Portia in The Merchant of Venice. They say that acting is all about luck, it’s not. However, I am lucky; as I have done all three of those acting goals. And I am grateful for it.

The entire weekend was amazing. Before we performed there was a procession, full of thousands of people, we marched en masse through the streets of Stratford. Patrick Stewart was there and Prince Charles came the next day. The first time I got up to perform I was a but shaky (literally! I was terrified) but I gained confidence and it all worked out perfectly.

It was the first time I had ever performed Shakespeare since studying drama. It was terrifying and fun. I recommend it to any actor. We went to check out the Royal Shakespeare Company during an intermission and dreamed. Stratford is a beautiful place. So, if anyone from the RSC is reading this….

So why did I put myself through that? Well, it’s my job. When I was 16 and our end of year production came up, not even a year of drama training stopped me from shaking so badly backstage that my colleagues stared in horror. I had to fill in at the last moment for an actress who had not turned up. I had two hours to learn my lines. I was bambi, staring at a truck. I though I might die. But it ended in good reviews. It usually does.

I came across a quote from Judi Dench on twitter whilst rehearsing the play: “If I’m not nervous I’m not working.” In an interview Kirsten Scott Thomas declares that “It’s not butterflies in the stomach I get but elephants.” And then she elaborates when the interviewer asks her why she puts herself through it: “I may be frightened but I am also very brave.” There it is. I got told it after the play all the time: You’re so brave! It wins out. I get on stage for the same reason I write: I don’t know how not to. I have the British sense of talking yourself down but I always allow myself one complement. I am brave.

Toby Stephens talks of seeing both of his parents throw up before performances. It didn’t stop him becoming an actor himself. You see, it’s because, art will out. Every time. I took my fear and used it in my performance. I asked my colleague to throw me onto the stage. I was playing a Jewish mother, brutalized by the Nazis who sends her son to safety. I also played an SS officer and a member of the Gestapo. In the end I started to collect quotes on stage fright. A few are below. I hope you like them.

“If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?”
Stevie Nicks”

“It so amazes you how much stage fright you get. I’ve been in front of cameras all my life, but that first tee, standing over that ball that’s not even moving, it’s scarier than doing a movie.” Michael Douglas.

“Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.: – Henry Louis Mencken

Do you have any?

I am playing Sarah, a famous poet who is an Oxford graduate. She gets writers block and things spiral when her publisher gives her two weeks to come up with another book or she gets dropped.

Production blog for Prose and Cons is here: http://undersadtears.wordpress​.com/

I am also doing Le Fear, Le Sequel. A film directed by Jason Croot: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1982759/ and a film called Cafe by the same director.

I just finished a film called My Name is Michael Morgan. I played a 1960′s housewife. It is a very intelligent, original film. I can’t wait to see the final cut.

Not bad for a month’s work!

If people are searching for you or writing about you, it goes up. If it goes up a good amount, people pay attention. A high ranking could bring brilliant roles with top notch directors. Why am I writing about this? Well, last week mine was 13,663. This may not sound good, but there about four million people on IMDB. That means I broke into the top 20,000 people in the worldwide film industry. In May my rank was 6,647; Top 10,000 on the world.

Some people claim it doesn’t make a difference but Nancy Bishop has an entire chapter about it in her book “Secrets From the Casting Couch”. Casting Legend Ros Hubbard also says it is “very important”.

You can see my IMDB here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2952107/