Jethro Skinner:
"I've been an actor for 10 years, scraping by, earning £10,000 a year. I've specialised in oddballs and psychos: a rapist on Cold Feet, a pervert who drilled into his groin on Casualty. I went up for the part of a terrorist paedophile on The Bill, but I didn't get it. I have large eyes when I open them wide and hair that won't lie flat and have regularly felt consigned to the overcrowded room of the "quirkier" actor.
I've also busted my gut doing as many cheap and cheerful theatre projects as I could find, most of them for free, lots of them rubbish. It was on one of these that I worked with a chap called Oscar Sharp. Last year, Oscar rang me saying he'd got some work filming the casting sessions for some Russians in London and was allowed to nominate one chum to audition. The movie would be shooting in Moscow, they'd sacked their American star and, after a month, they were getting desperate. That was about all I knew about the project. And it involved a puppet called Diggy.
I was the very last person to be seen. I'd finished a day's gardening and was tired, grubby and grumpy. But I was the happy recipient of blank slate syndrome as two beautiful Russians, Oksana the director, and Alena the casting director, smilingly welcomed me in.
I love the Russians: they look hard for the soul and less for the cute little nose. "Ugly men is much problem in Russia," I later heard. When I was introduced to Diggy it became clear we looked remarkably similar ... the hair, the eyes, the hippy heritage (my self-sufficient parents named me after Jethro Tull).
I don't speak Russian. Nor am I a pro puppeteer. But I knew I stood a good chance. Although a little shaky, I've got capable hands. And after they saw me dance enthusiastically to a Russian Little Red Riding Hood cartoon, they were all laughing. The audition continued the next day in St James Park. Behind a bush, in sight of Buckingham Palace, I groped Alena - all for the purposes of art. Meanwhile, Oksana sat on the grass saying "goood, goood".
The following day I received a phone call offering me the lead in Plus One, a feelgood romance about a British puppeteer struggling with love and language in Russia. I must come immediately and I'll be paid a "goood" wage. I did, and I was.
A year later, I won best actor at the Kinotavr in Sochi, Russia's biggest festival, the equivalent of Cannes. As a local Glastofarian I know my festivals, and this was harder than any Pilton or Edinburgh. The Russians are the embodiment of rock 'n' roll: live fast, die young. Seatbelts aren't worn, pregnant mums smoke, rules are broken with pride. Instead of conversation they do speech, drink, speech, drink.
Amongst all these hard men I suspect it was my hippy softness that won them over. "Your power is in your vulnerability," I was told at the press conference.
Now I'm back in Stockwell, working in our garden and looking after our new baby. Soon I'll return to Russia, where I've two projects lined up. Will I get any more work in my homeland? Who knows? I told a Russian critic that Brits might not respect my triumph. "Fuck Eengland," he replied calmly. That was reassuring."
I've also busted my gut doing as many cheap and cheerful theatre projects as I could find, most of them for free, lots of them rubbish. It was on one of these that I worked with a chap called Oscar Sharp. Last year, Oscar rang me saying he'd got some work filming the casting sessions for some Russians in London and was allowed to nominate one chum to audition. The movie would be shooting in Moscow, they'd sacked their American star and, after a month, they were getting desperate. That was about all I knew about the project. And it involved a puppet called Diggy.
I was the very last person to be seen. I'd finished a day's gardening and was tired, grubby and grumpy. But I was the happy recipient of blank slate syndrome as two beautiful Russians, Oksana the director, and Alena the casting director, smilingly welcomed me in.
I love the Russians: they look hard for the soul and less for the cute little nose. "Ugly men is much problem in Russia," I later heard. When I was introduced to Diggy it became clear we looked remarkably similar ... the hair, the eyes, the hippy heritage (my self-sufficient parents named me after Jethro Tull).
I don't speak Russian. Nor am I a pro puppeteer. But I knew I stood a good chance. Although a little shaky, I've got capable hands. And after they saw me dance enthusiastically to a Russian Little Red Riding Hood cartoon, they were all laughing. The audition continued the next day in St James Park. Behind a bush, in sight of Buckingham Palace, I groped Alena - all for the purposes of art. Meanwhile, Oksana sat on the grass saying "goood, goood".
The following day I received a phone call offering me the lead in Plus One, a feelgood romance about a British puppeteer struggling with love and language in Russia. I must come immediately and I'll be paid a "goood" wage. I did, and I was.
A year later, I won best actor at the Kinotavr in Sochi, Russia's biggest festival, the equivalent of Cannes. As a local Glastofarian I know my festivals, and this was harder than any Pilton or Edinburgh. The Russians are the embodiment of rock 'n' roll: live fast, die young. Seatbelts aren't worn, pregnant mums smoke, rules are broken with pride. Instead of conversation they do speech, drink, speech, drink.
Amongst all these hard men I suspect it was my hippy softness that won them over. "Your power is in your vulnerability," I was told at the press conference.
Now I'm back in Stockwell, working in our garden and looking after our new baby. Soon I'll return to Russia, where I've two projects lined up. Will I get any more work in my homeland? Who knows? I told a Russian critic that Brits might not respect my triumph. "Fuck Eengland," he replied calmly. That was reassuring."
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