Press photo day.
Hair and makeup done, an hour and a half before call.
…This gives it just long enough to run and sag before they break out that damn camera.
God, how I hate photoshoots.
…On the list of humans in the acting industry, my photos are always just the worst. There is never any saving grace.
I’m not built to be on camera. I found that out rather early in my career. Once I passed what everyone calls the “awkward High School years” when NO ONE takes a decent picture. But everything even after that period in my life, is a disaster area in print.
…This is why I’m still using my headshot from 13 years ago.
Yes.
13.
This is ridiculous.
It’s black and white, for shit’s sake.
…From back when ALL theatre photos were black and white.
…Mercifully making us all look somehow better than our color-self versions.
…And the only ones who used color stock were the print models and film actors.
Who really cares what color my eyes are from the 8th row of a theatre? No one. Any actor you meet would WILLINGLY dye their hair fucking fusia if it would get them a role with you, so the original version we were born with is also immeterial.
Case in point: Mama Frank and both Anne and Margot are BLOND blonds.
…But NO ONE CARES.
That’s what wigs and a box of Loreal are for.
…This is all to say: I do theatre on PURPOSE. It is my “medium.” It agrees with me, from the 8th row. And I agree with it. Because I don’t have to sit down afterwards ever, and be forced to watch myself.
And yet…
And yet, there will ALWAYS still be press photos to deal with.
They must be had.
I know it.
You know it.
We all know it.
…But it doesn’t mean I have to LIKE it.
…And I don’t.
Taking them makes me nervous and itchy and in an odd way sorta “shamed.”
There is something in the camera eye translation that just hates me. No matter if the mirror tells me, (with the 5 pounds of makeup, and my hair all curled and up), that I look pretty decent, by and large. And I should look better with a filter and good lighting (one might tell oneself.) But it just never works out this way.
Never.
In the history of ever.
…So here I sit, all “done up” and twitching in my seat, waiting for it to hit 5:00 so I can get on the road and get this shit OVER with.
…Over (that is) until it pops up in all the newspapers and the theatre website and Facebook and Twitter and the programs.
#stuffihate
~D