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Stage Beauty
Date: Time flies
Weather: California sunshine
Working with someone you love is not easy. It is even harder when you are working with someone you love but you have to let go.
I am forever grateful with Helena for bringing me on board of this production. Time on set and on location brought back great memories of the drama school when we just spent time together making art (and making out). However making out is no longer an option as Helena is now in a relationship with Damien, one of the coolest guys I’ve ever known – great actor but no attitude. Watching him making out with Helena in between takes was not one of my greatest pass times, but I do feel happy for her. She had a hard time struggling in States at the beginning before landing her first break out role – and I was not there to support her.
Going to work with someone you care and love dearly is a delicate art. Every time I saw Helena on set feelings automatically bubble up and I just couldn’t help want to spend more time with her. However, I was at the same time well awared that now her heart is with Damien. Joking around and bantering was fun but I had to be very careful not to cross the line. The thing is Damien knows our history. Helena told him everything about us and that’s Helena when she truly trusts and loves someone. Because of that Damien cast his vote of confidence for us to work together and be friends again. So I really cannot screw everything up and destroy a friendship that I dearly care about. It’s lots of pressure and sometimes my heart ached when I needed to pull back from conversation or physical contact. But I know very well that’s what I need to do if I want the best for Helena. My heartache is nothing when compared to the happiness Helena can get.
Talking about arts imitating life, in the film I was playing Helena’s best friend who had a crush on her since high school. But because of his geeky nature, he remained as her best friend and in the process helped her to find her true love. The character was great to play, as he is geeky but romantic. The main flaw of the character was that his romantic side only works when it does not involve himself. So it was no surprise that Helena’s character never saw him as boyfriend material throughout. His heartache was keeping on helping the girl he loves to find “the one” but at the same time he was so madly in love with her that he had to turn on his geeky volume which further killed any chances between him and Helena’s character. It has been some time that I was offered such a varied and well-written role so I was very happy. And the process of building that character from pages of writing was so satisfying and enjoyable. The only pain was that it was so close to home that I had to be very careful when playing the character so I won’t mix up the character with my real life. However, having said that, my history with Helena helped me a lot when playing the characters. During the filming, I got nothing but praises from the director for my performance and he and the producer kept on saying that they want to work with me again. As for Helena, she said that my skills have improved so much that I should really consider trying out LA. She said they lack actors like me in LA and they will appreciate me more than the Australian industry. Damien even offered to hook me up with his manager and agent if I decided to go there one day.
The offers are very tempting and surely I do feel that I’m not going anywhere in Australia because of my colour and my look. Maybe when you lose something, you do gain something eventually.
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