Celebrity – by Chris McTrustry
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Transcript from The Day That Was, Episode 2845. Broadcast 7:30pm 03/07/202*
Host:
You may have read their books to your children or even read them as a child yourself, but an ever-increasing trend is seeing much-loved children’s authors turning up in leading roles on our big and small screens, in theatres and on the airwaves. Stephanie Helpmann has more on this phenomenon.
John Markham:
Well, yeah, acting. What’s that all about? Remember a few lines and don’t walk into the props.
Stephanie Helpmann:
John Markham is a children's literature veteran with more than fifty titles to his name. He’s recently embarked on a soap opera acting career at the age of fifty-seven.
John Markham:
Yeah, it’s a bit of fun. You rock up, knock off a couple of scenes and hit somewhere trendy for a long lunch. Nothing to it.
Stephanie Helpmann:
What do you say to professional actors who claim you’re robbing them of their livelihoods?
John Markham:
Don’t be so precious. If you can act, you’ll get a gig.
Stephanie Helpmann:
But many good quality actors don’t have your profile and feel that you’re taking away opportunities because of your celebrity.
John Markham:
Again, stick at it and work at your craft! Life in the arts wasn’t meant to be easy.
Stephanie Helpmann:
Long-time theatre and film actress, Annabelle Keying has been a victim of so-called celebrity-author casting.
Annabelle Keying:
My agent put me up for a supporting role in a touring production of Romeo and Juliet. The producers cast a husband and wife writing and illustrating team in the leads. They’re both in their seventies. She’s colour blind and he’s stone deaf! The classically trained actors who should have got the leads were relegated to support roles – the roles I would play – and so I missed out. It’s not right.
Stephanie Helpmann:
And this craze of casting children’s authors in key movie, television and theatre roles has seen some desperate celebrity authors trade on their fame by employing ghost-actors to perform their roles. Alexander Turbitt is an experienced character actor who has witnessed such deception.
Alexander Turbitt:
It was just so damned blatant. And artistically immoral. The children’s author in question never turned up to any of the performances of the play. It was a big company too. Prestigious. Most jobbing actors would give their eye teeth for such a role. I mean, the guy this author employed to ghost-act was at least fifteen years younger and a foot taller than he was. And the author still got glowing reviews! The last I heard they’re taking the show to New York. And the author’s been offered a role in the latest Marvel franchise movie. It just beggars belief.
Stephanie Helpmann:
Concerned professional authorities have sprung into action. Jaayne Sedley is a leading light in the Film and Theatre Actors’ Guild.
Jaayne Sedley:
More and more, the bigger theatre companies, and major television production companies are employing these so-called celebrity actors – these writers of children’s fiction. And they’re paying them exorbitant amounts of money, when this money could be used to nurture many promising newcomers to the acting profession and provide them with a platform to make their mark in the performing arts. It’s just wrong. But as long as people are tuning in, as long as they’re bums on seats, the money men don’t care. It’s profit, profit, profit over artistic integrity. Something needs to be done.
Host:
Well, there you have it. An argument that’s bound to rage for some time in the arts community. But when you think about it, is it such a bad thing if it gets kids acting? ▼
Image: Omar Flores
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