This is not going to be an easy article to write, hence the delay in doing so since Sarah Jones's death almost two months ago.
The difficulty comes not only from that fact that a 27 year old girl, someone younger than me, lost her life in such a tragic and untimely manner. The difficulty arises because I believe the reasons that led to her death is something we can all relate to, and may even have been there.
For the record, I do not know Sarah, I have no affiliation with the project, nor know anyone involved. For a clear encounter of the events, you can read it here.
In this business we call 'show', whichever side of the camera or desk we choose to work on, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be hundred, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people snapping at your heel who will happily rob their granny for a chance to get a break in this industry.
Oh, are you sick/in mourning/having an operation/out of the country/unavailable? Sure, no problem, we'll replace you with one of the 8,102 others who are desperate to do what you do. If you're in the UK, do you know that there is 36,000 plus actors and actresses registered on Spotlight alone?
I once worked with an actor on a television series who needed an operation on his leg. He was scheduled to be filming the day after the operation, which could not be moved. Thus he rescheduled his essential operation to a later date and as a consequence, he now suffers permanent pains in his leg because he was not operated on within the correct time frame.
I guess you can see where I am going with this.
Our industry is so heartbreakingly hard to break into, so fierce with competition from all angles, so fraught with failure and rejection at every turn that once you get that ever elusive deal, contract, one day booking, you will literally put your life on the line to do what is required of you.
I once worked in Asia on a big budget action film. For one of the scenes, I was thrown off a cliff. We're not talking kindergarten abseiling here, we're talking Cliffhanger. Jagged rocked a hundred feet below, no mats just in case, just me, a wire, a crane and a load of guys on the end of the wire. And another actor strapped to me. This was a few years ago, and it was one of my first big jobs. I was just amazed to have been flown out there, put up in a 5 star hotel, and be paid to work as an actress. So safety concerns were really at the bottom of the agenda. And if they were, they were only in font 8 and definitely not underlined in bold or italic-ed up.
One day we were shooting this scene, both myself and the other actor involved were not stunt professionals or had any prior training in wirework. Oh well, let's just get you rigged up and see what happens. The throwing-off-cliff takes went fine, despite the crippling agony of the harness which I thought would snap my ribs, I remained unscathed. However, after one take, as we were waiting to be lowered down (we remain suspended about 40 feet in the air after 'cut'), suddenly we drop as if someone's taken their hand off the lever. Which is exactly what did happen, because it transpired that the guy who was in charge of lowering us down ever so slowly had taken a call on his mobile. Luckily, we didn't hit the ground as someone got there in time, but by the skin of all our teethes.
We laughed about it, because, what else can you sue - I mean do? But in retrospect, that was pretty fucking dangerous.
I have seen many actors and supporting artists get hurt in the line of work, end up in hospital, delay their own medical treatment just so they can attend work. I have heard many more stories, and I have experienced injuries myself, to the point of picking up confidence shattering scars.
And all this makes me angry. Sarah's death makes me angry. Why do we do this? Why did she do that?
Because we feel we have to?
Who is it that makes us feel like we're lucky to be there? Is it the producers? Directors? Or ourselves?
Yes, so many questions. But if we don't ask questions when something like this happens, what's a tragic waste of everything. I don't want to go all pyscho-babble on anyone, but Sarah's death has made me very reflective, and I hope that her unfortunate death and the aftermath of it will provoke you to question a few things.
In all my years of working, I can't remember a time or incident when made to feel like I was lucky to be there. The directors and producers have always been most gracious and always thanking me for my work. Even other actors too. Perhaps I have been lucky. Perhaps there are egomaniac confidence destroyers out there.
Therefore, I looked inwards to try to root out this sense of desperate gratitude at its origin. Is it actually me? Is it we who fight so hard to get a bite of the cherry, that whilst engaged in a professional cherry biting capacity, we do pressure ourselves to do anything and everything? Are we so insecure in our ability, or work and our worth that we feel so privileged to just have our name on the call sheet? I don't know about you, but in my case, that's largely yes. I don't think I'm a bad actress, I have managed to convince myself of that much over the years. But the more I know of our industry, the more it makes me realise how difficult it is to continue to build a career and sustain it.
I doubt Sarah is stupid. I doubt she underestimated the dangers of a speeding train hurtling towards her. But like most others in her position, no doubt she thought she'd get away with it. We have all been there, the only difference is: is that we did. I wouldn't be writing this now if I didn't, nor would you be reading this if you didn't either.
The bottom-line is that people shouldn't have to die in preventable accidents for us to wake up to the ridiculousness of the situations we put ourselves in sometimes just so we can work, do a good job and hopefully be hired again to do even more risky things to health. And it feels absurd that I'm even writing this, because it shouldn't need saying, but evidently it does.
I guess my point, if I have one is - take care of yourself. We work our hearts out, sweat blood and cry tears simply to enable us to have a life that we will enjoy. Whether as an actor, crew, caterer or road sweeper. Whatever makes you happy, do it. And yes, hard work will be involved.
But what is it all for if by pursuing our goal of a happy life, we lose our place on this earth in its quest. I really have an answer for that.
RIP Sarah Jones.
The difficulty comes not only from that fact that a 27 year old girl, someone younger than me, lost her life in such a tragic and untimely manner. The difficulty arises because I believe the reasons that led to her death is something we can all relate to, and may even have been there.
For the record, I do not know Sarah, I have no affiliation with the project, nor know anyone involved. For a clear encounter of the events, you can read it here.
In this business we call 'show', whichever side of the camera or desk we choose to work on, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be hundred, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people snapping at your heel who will happily rob their granny for a chance to get a break in this industry.
Oh, are you sick/in mourning/having an operation/out of the country/unavailable? Sure, no problem, we'll replace you with one of the 8,102 others who are desperate to do what you do. If you're in the UK, do you know that there is 36,000 plus actors and actresses registered on Spotlight alone?
I once worked with an actor on a television series who needed an operation on his leg. He was scheduled to be filming the day after the operation, which could not be moved. Thus he rescheduled his essential operation to a later date and as a consequence, he now suffers permanent pains in his leg because he was not operated on within the correct time frame.
I guess you can see where I am going with this.
Our industry is so heartbreakingly hard to break into, so fierce with competition from all angles, so fraught with failure and rejection at every turn that once you get that ever elusive deal, contract, one day booking, you will literally put your life on the line to do what is required of you.
I once worked in Asia on a big budget action film. For one of the scenes, I was thrown off a cliff. We're not talking kindergarten abseiling here, we're talking Cliffhanger. Jagged rocked a hundred feet below, no mats just in case, just me, a wire, a crane and a load of guys on the end of the wire. And another actor strapped to me. This was a few years ago, and it was one of my first big jobs. I was just amazed to have been flown out there, put up in a 5 star hotel, and be paid to work as an actress. So safety concerns were really at the bottom of the agenda. And if they were, they were only in font 8 and definitely not underlined in bold or italic-ed up.
One day we were shooting this scene, both myself and the other actor involved were not stunt professionals or had any prior training in wirework. Oh well, let's just get you rigged up and see what happens. The throwing-off-cliff takes went fine, despite the crippling agony of the harness which I thought would snap my ribs, I remained unscathed. However, after one take, as we were waiting to be lowered down (we remain suspended about 40 feet in the air after 'cut'), suddenly we drop as if someone's taken their hand off the lever. Which is exactly what did happen, because it transpired that the guy who was in charge of lowering us down ever so slowly had taken a call on his mobile. Luckily, we didn't hit the ground as someone got there in time, but by the skin of all our teethes.
We laughed about it, because, what else can you sue - I mean do? But in retrospect, that was pretty fucking dangerous.
I have seen many actors and supporting artists get hurt in the line of work, end up in hospital, delay their own medical treatment just so they can attend work. I have heard many more stories, and I have experienced injuries myself, to the point of picking up confidence shattering scars.
And all this makes me angry. Sarah's death makes me angry. Why do we do this? Why did she do that?
Because we feel we have to?
Who is it that makes us feel like we're lucky to be there? Is it the producers? Directors? Or ourselves?
Yes, so many questions. But if we don't ask questions when something like this happens, what's a tragic waste of everything. I don't want to go all pyscho-babble on anyone, but Sarah's death has made me very reflective, and I hope that her unfortunate death and the aftermath of it will provoke you to question a few things.
In all my years of working, I can't remember a time or incident when made to feel like I was lucky to be there. The directors and producers have always been most gracious and always thanking me for my work. Even other actors too. Perhaps I have been lucky. Perhaps there are egomaniac confidence destroyers out there.
Therefore, I looked inwards to try to root out this sense of desperate gratitude at its origin. Is it actually me? Is it we who fight so hard to get a bite of the cherry, that whilst engaged in a professional cherry biting capacity, we do pressure ourselves to do anything and everything? Are we so insecure in our ability, or work and our worth that we feel so privileged to just have our name on the call sheet? I don't know about you, but in my case, that's largely yes. I don't think I'm a bad actress, I have managed to convince myself of that much over the years. But the more I know of our industry, the more it makes me realise how difficult it is to continue to build a career and sustain it.
I doubt Sarah is stupid. I doubt she underestimated the dangers of a speeding train hurtling towards her. But like most others in her position, no doubt she thought she'd get away with it. We have all been there, the only difference is: is that we did. I wouldn't be writing this now if I didn't, nor would you be reading this if you didn't either.
The bottom-line is that people shouldn't have to die in preventable accidents for us to wake up to the ridiculousness of the situations we put ourselves in sometimes just so we can work, do a good job and hopefully be hired again to do even more risky things to health. And it feels absurd that I'm even writing this, because it shouldn't need saying, but evidently it does.
I guess my point, if I have one is - take care of yourself. We work our hearts out, sweat blood and cry tears simply to enable us to have a life that we will enjoy. Whether as an actor, crew, caterer or road sweeper. Whatever makes you happy, do it. And yes, hard work will be involved.
But what is it all for if by pursuing our goal of a happy life, we lose our place on this earth in its quest. I really have an answer for that.
RIP Sarah Jones.