Conversations with people working in Film and Theater
I. Introduction
I was thinking about how to write an introduction for this article, maybe something like "I've always wanted to be an actor growing up but didn't have an opportunity to do so blah blah blah..", but you know what, I'm just gonna jump right in because that's kinda lame, and also because the title is self-explanatory already.
So this article will be an ongoing, compilation of conversations with people working in film and theater (actor, director, producer, music composer,..) that I have a chance to meet. The conversations will center around how these people create their artwork, how they collaborate with other artists, and have them sharing insights and advice for other aspiring film workers. So yeah, to my dearest readers, keep coming back sometimes for more stories and conversations!
II. Conversations
- Emma Rose Gold, actor, and writer of The Bright Young Things. (Vancouver Fringe Festival 2023).
“The Bright Young Things” settings in the 1920s in London, the play is about a group of eight young artists and aristocrats trying to readjust to society post-war and post-Spanish Flu. It deals with important existentialism themes, such as the pursuit of happiness, the quest for purpose in life, and along with satirical comments on the vanity of the wealthy and influenced class.
“In the circle truth is a luxury”.
At night, inside a fancy ballroom, there is Celina Ross, the host of the party. Deeply indulging in hedonism, Celina believes that life is a celebration and an endless chain of glamorities. Then Stephen, the birthday boy, the life of the party, and best friend with Celina. Thomas, the veteran of the war, comes to reunite with his old friends. Then we have two famous actresses, Diana and Scarlet, along with Everett, a charming and arrogant avant-garde photographer, who is always ready to give people back-handed compliments. And Ron, a homely, low-class painter who just got found off the curb and thrown into the party. And finally, an unexpected arrival, not in a pleasant way, is Olivia Ross (portrayed by Emma Rose Gold), an ambitious writer at Vogue, and also, sister of Celina Ross.
Interviewer
What do you think the main theme of the play is about, besides the existentialism and vanity?
Emma
I think you can also say that it’s about how different people deal with traumas and hardships, going through the war and grief and the Spanish Flu, and how they want to rediscover their own selves. Because this play is based on a real historical movement, WW1, these characters are still in their teens, so when the war ends, they are now just becoming young adults and decide to explode and have these crazy parties as a way to combat the loss of their youth. I think perhaps if they didn’t have to go through all these traumas, they would make some different decisions on how to live their life. But at the moment, they really need something to make them feel like they are gaining control of their own destiny.
Interviewer
The play has a total of eight main characters, each with their own distinctive viewpoints. So how about the character that you play, Olivia? What is her main point of view of the show?
Emma
From Olivia’s perspective, it’s probably about the impermanence of everything. She knows that this won’t last forever, all the hedonism and glamorous parties that people throw to distract themselves from reality, and she can see how damaging it is to her friends. But in the end, she has to accept that they must go on different journey, and she can’t force them out of that. And sort of whatever the decisions they make, she gotta let it be.
Interviewer
From what I remember from the play, Olivia is an ambitious, full of youth arrogance writer, but struggles to get the recognition she thinks she deserves. Is that correct?
Emma
Definitely! She’s working at Vogue at this point in the story, and she’s building her career out of it. But she’s basically running away for two years because she wrote these awful, awful tabloids about the aristocrats going to this kind of fancy parties, and when people got angry at her, she packed up and left. So she crashes her sister’s party now, as a more successful writer, who isn’t just writing tabloids. She sure doesn’t get any recognition for the work she does, because everyone there still thinks she’s gonna write another hippies about them.
Interviewer
What is the process of creating “The Bright Young Things”? I notice that all eight actors also serve as writers for the play, which is a very impressive thing.
Emma
We originally wrote it when we were in school together, back in 2021. We really wanted to serve the story well, so if scenes got cut, or people got less time on stage, we didn’t mind it, really. It wound up being very character-piece driven, with everybody as the main character with their own viewpoints. Our attitude for the audience was if you were somebody walking through a party, you would get just a snippet of conversation and confrontation, you’d never hear the whole thing of how they got there, just this is where they are right now. So we have some moments like when you are walking into a room, and you see people arguing with each other, you’d be like “Wow, what’s happening?’, then you back off and run into another room.
So after we finished this play for the school project, we performed it to a small audience, and we graduated, and we basically sat on it for a year, until Ming Hudson, the director, and supervisor of the project, gathered us together and she’s like “We should do it again, together”. So the first thing we did was to re-write it, which was a beast! It was absurd! Like eight people trying to write something and make it into a cohesive story in an hour. And then we had reading sessions when we read the script and discussed what we wanted for the characters, tried out different concepts, and what we thought would work and would not.
So once we did that, we went away and tried to write our own parts, based on the previous scene, like “Who are the characters in that scene, and what do they want?”. Then we brought it back and read them together again, made changes, and cut more unnecessary scenes so we could focus on different interesting story elements. We sort of pulled the string out of them to see what was coming out of it, and then we brought a drama editor on board with us to revise the story. And she was fantastic, she would sit with us for multiple sections and give her feedback “I think this would work, I think this would not.”
And once we got into a good enough place, we started rehearsal. And in rehearsal, we allowed it to be very fluid, and let things change all the time. We had a written script, but nothing stays the same anymore, because certain things feel right to your mouth when you are saying them, and so it’s just a constant change. And once we felt like it was, again, “good enough”, we packed up and went to Edmonton Fringe, and then finally to Vancouver Fringe.
Interviewer
You are both a writer and actor on the show and so I imagine the perspective between writer and actor will be different in some ways. Can you explain how you approach this play as an actor, and at the same time, a writer?
Emma
It’s very different. You need two different lenses. As a writer, it’s all about what serves the story best, and how you find these points, climax, and moments that are important. And how to balance it by having moments that are loud, moments that are quiet, and silence. It’s a very critical lens we are looking through. But when it comes to being an actor, it’s almost a selfish lens. You only focus on yourself and your character, and you stop having empathy for all other characters. As a writer, you gotta have empathy for everyone, you need to understand all of their perspectives. But as an actor, you gotta get into your character’s mindset, right? So for Olivia, she hates so many people at this party, she doesn’t have empathy for anyone, she’s just kinda nasty, to be honest! And as a writer, my rational brain could understand where Celina and all her vanity are coming from, but Olivia doesn’t! So you gotta put a blindfold on, to just think about what your character is thinking and doing at the moment when you are acting.
Interview
So maybe other characters will think Olivia is kind of a hypocrite and pretentious, like she’s preaching a lot about morality and dignity, but she’s writing tabloids for a living. So what do you think when you are writing Olivia versus when you are portraying her? I can imagine you talk to yourself something like “Oh my god Olivia is such a bitch!” and all *giggle*
Emma
I certainly do! When writing characters, especially when we were writing argument scenes between her and her sister, there were times when I came up with very good lines, and then I was like “Oh my god she’s so MEAN, what’s wrong with her, why would she say that??” So as a writer, there’s certain time that you gotta question your character’s likability. But when it comes to acting them, you just gotta put that aside and get on their mind. Nobody thinks of themselves as a bad guy or a villain, you know what I mean? But for someone else, they are all of those things. So I just gotta find a way to stuck in her way. And Olivia can’t be too self-aware, she believes she’s the only sane person, but the reality is she’s just as much of a mess as everyone else.
Interviewer
You did have experience with directing back in high school, right? So do you recognize anything difference in perspective between a writer and a director? I often hear people say that a writer can write something, and then the director can have their own vision of what it should look like, and so the result is a reflection of the director’s vision, not a writer’s anymore.
Emma
I got in trouble at acting school a lot, cause they’re like “Oh you are looking at things like a director, not as an actor.” And cause I like looking at the big picture, rather than a snippet of something, and so it’s kinda hard for me when I have to switch mindset from a writer back to an actor. And about the difference between writer and director’s perspective, you are absolutely right, and it’s a hard thing for me to come to accept as a writer. You can write a word, but you have no choice about its tone and intention. Like I have a vision of what it should be like inside my head, but it doesn’t always pan out that way. So you just gotta learn to let it go, cause now it’s out there, it’s not yours anymore, and so just let's see which choices other people will make. A writer writes the line “That’s a cat”, then an actor can say like “that’s a CAT”, and then the director be like “no no no I need you to say “that’s A cat!”, and it sorts of stripping away the actor’s creativity. And so it’s a tricky thing for a director, that is to find their own vision, but at the same time, still give your actor room and space to be creative, to make them feel like they have some kind of ownership over their work as well.
Interviewer
Fringe Festival uses the lottery system to choose artists and performances to ensure equality and inclusivity for everyone. As you got chosen for this year, how do you feel about this system and your overall experience at Fringe?
Emma
I love the lottery system, cause so much other mainstream theater is all about curated work. You curate what you want people to see. But with Fringe, what I like about it is it gives absolutely everyone an opportunity to show off a story, and you can write quite literally about anything, and you can have your work show, and get people to come and see your show. And it also gives people who’ve never studied theater in their life opportunity, maybe for them, it’s a hobby and brings them a lot of joy. Speaking as someone who’s trying to make a career out of it, it’s tough out there! And I’m so excited when I see people so passionate and wanting to either perform, direct, or write, even though they have or 9 to 5 job that is not acting, they still find a gut to go for it.
Interview
Any advice for aspiring actors?
Emma
Just do it. Find opportunity and say yes. When you find someone with artistic vision that resonates with you, hold on to them. And be bold to reach out to people for job opportunities. The worst thing they can do is say no, right?
Emma talks about how she prepares for a script as an actor.
It's very different from actor to actor. They all have their own way of preparing for script and character. So for me, let say I have a script that is already written. And I would start annotating it, almost like in an English class, and start writing down any thoughts that first come to my head. Like questions I have, and reactions to things. So I just get everything down, because the more you go into rehearsal process, the less you're able to figure things out in a new, fresh way. So it's helpful for me to have a record of my initial thoughts and reactions. And then I try to get off the book as soon as possible, I try to memorize everything. I would go for a really long walk and look like a crazy person, and I keep mumbling my lines under my breath, and I'm damn sure other people would look at me and like "Oh my god what's wrong with her??".
And when I memorize lines, I'd be like a robot, without any tone or emotions, just plain lines. Cause when you memorize something and you attach emotions to it, you gonna remember it that way, and so you won't be able to pivot or change at the rehearsal. I'm kind of an impulsive actor. I react to things when it come at me, so whenever things happen to me on stage I just react to it, and so I need to get off the book as soon as possible. And I would ask myself what endowments I'm gonna put on my scene partner. Endowments are the actions I'm gonna do to them to make them feel something, like if my scene partner needs to be angry at me, what I'm gonna do to make them be angry at me, you know what I mean, it depends on the intention of the characters. Recently I learned this exercise I really like. When you go through the script, you find every single time your character refers to themself, and you write that down. So you know how your character perceives themselves, and also you write down what other characters think of your character, and you ask whether your character knows that other people see them that way, and how that informs things. And after my character's intentions and personality are confirmed at the rehearsals, I start working on my physicality and vocal quality. How my character walks, how they hold themself? I have a phone here, let say how Emma, I, pick up a phone, versus how my character will pick up the phone. How would that be different? It's a small thing, but it's very important. And so the voice will be very different. For example, Olivia. She has a very deep, and masculine voice, very in contrast to her sister's high-pitched voice.