The male director calls “Cut!” after a particularly intense scene, full of rage and invective. He pulls the young female actor aside. “Never do that again,” he says. Do what? How did she get the scene so wrong? “You can play angry, but you gotta stay f**kable.” Definitive. Reductive. Demeaning. This was the late 90s. It was the woman in this story's first lead role.
Good god I'm thrilled to have reached middle age – not a phrase I ever thought I'd write. But as an actor, as a human, I've become increasingly uninterested in others’ judgements
