Online thoughts of actor Dudley Rees. A place to explore the big questions of acting. Blogerty Blog Blog.

I was working on this short film for a couple of years. Not acting in it. Trying to get it made. The story sat in a notebook for about 4 years. That sounds romantic, but it wasn’t. I hate my own fat handwriting, I couldn't figure out what to say and the notebook was thick with dust on top of a cupboard. Discarded alongside some pickup sticks.

The worst representation of a little boy I've ever seen on stage (as portrayed by an adult) came from a female actor, cast for her high pitched voice and cherubim features. She had her hair tied up inside an Elvis wig, her tits strapped down under some pyjamas and was running around going, "Woaaaaaargh! Brrrrraaargh boom! Neeearrrr!" (Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell, 2011). I was so tense with awkwardness, when I came out I was a fossil.

I've had the challenge of playing a child thrice. Each time the aim was not only to fulfil my role in the wider story but not to get lynched by the audience. Let me tell you about these times.

As an 8 year old I knew the kind of characters I wanted the play when I was grown up. I imagine lots of actors began at the same place. I wanted to play baddies.

Baddies were so much more interesting than goodies. Terry Thomas from Tom Thumb, Dustin Hoffman in Hook, Robert Patrick's stirring performance as the T-1000 in Terminator II: Judgment Day. Bad was cool and I loved it. Maybe it's that so many bad guys were British, so I could relate to them, or perhaps it's just that children are obsessed with maniacal power. I was, weren't you?

When you start to study acting, "being evil" just doesn't cut it anymore. There has to be more dimension to the character - something you can actually play. A brilliant tutor helped me at drama school when I was playing Eisenring in The Fire Raisers (I was the youngest, cutest Eisenring there's ever been). He said, don't play evil, play the enjoyment of performing evil acts. So the character became warm and joyous, it was something I could practically play, it just happened to be that the things that turned him on were immoral.