It started so well: a lead role with the Royal Shakespeare Company, ecstatic reviews, a hotshot agent. But then I started losing parts to Dev Patel, and the years of hustle and humiliation began
A lead role with the Royal Shakespeare Company is a dream gig for an actor at any point in their career. In 2006, straight out of drama school, I had it in my grasp. I’d already signed with one of the most powerful agents in the business, who operated out of a gymnasium-sized office fringed with hanging plants and succulents. I’d pop in every now and then just to steal the toilet paper, which was enriched with natural butters. We’d have meetings, the only purpose of which were to tell me how great I was and discuss what I wanted to do. I’d take my shoes off and put my feet up, wanting to be at home in the feeling.
The audition was for a uniquely brilliant new play called The Indian Boy, a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, focused on the changeling who is fought over by the king and queen of the fairies. The play placed this feral child, literally raised by animals, in a psychiatric unit as doctors try to socialise him. Rona Munro’s script was a wonderful, layered exploration of what it means to be human, and from the title page I visualised it as a giant finger crooked from the heavens, ready to hoist me skyward. I am a changeling boy, I thought.
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