Actor
PRIMEVAL

Jason F

00:00:03 My name is Jason F, I’m an actor and I’m currently working in Primeval which is an ITV Friday night drama.

00:00:12 The acting is not hard work at all. The hard part of my job is initially is the insecurities and the not knowing what you’re going to be doing. Although you become quite, you have to be very nomadic to do it, you can’t be the sort of person that needs to know what they’re doing in a month or two months or a year. I tend to get jobs on the Friday and be in Uzbekistan on the Monday. So, you have to be very flexible and you have to have a very understanding partner.

00:00:43 I would never, ever say to a young actor or someone who wanted to be an actor, “Don’t follow your dreams.” You have to. But you need a good safety net because it’s a very low percentage that manage to make a career out of it or make it and even those who make a career out of it, some of those careers are very frugal, you know. You have to want to do it for the job and then the money and the glamour are a by-product of that job, you know. Not the reason for wanting to do it.

00:01:10 I was really lucky, I mean, that’s a huge problem, I think, for kids nowadays is not having an exact idea of what they want because once you know you can invest 100% into it. I always knew I wanted to be in the business, I thought I wanted to be a stuntman but I kind of stood on the top board at Putney swimming pool completely dry for 20 minutes looking down and I, and this was at the age of kind 10 or 11 and went, “This is probably not going to be the job that I’m going to really succeed at.” So, I came back down the ladder and decided to be the actor. Luckily, because stunts is a whole other thing and I’m sure your programme will be speaking to stunt people but that’s a tough job.

00:02:00 Since I was last here or there, we have pushed someone through anomaly, one of the team has died, being killed by a terror bird and we’ve had a three course lunch. Apart from that, we’re exactly where we were.

00:02:17 Obviously you go to drama school, you study at drama school for three years, it’s great for your confidence, great technically but really what you’re doing is you’re spending three years in a university situation in order for the last week of your third year all the agents and all the casting directors come to see your show and you hope that someone goes, “That kid’s alright,” and they grab you. Once you’ve got that, that’s the first step up a 200 step ladder but it gives you a chance to get represented and seen by other people.

00:02:43 You need a key. As an actor there’s a key and it comes with a certain level of success, depending on where you are. My key was Lock Stock, you know, they were like, “Oh, he’s one of the kids from Lock Stock.” They need that, they need to have something that they understand. No matter how bad any of us were in it, it was fiscally a success. And they understand that and they understand that they can then pigeon hole you as one of the boys from Lock Stock. So, if we can’t afford Jason Statham, what’s Flemyng doing and that’s fine. You know, you just have to find your little place and that was key and from that everything’s gone, really, everything I’ve ever done has come from Lock Stock.

00:03:22 For all of us, for everyone involved in the film industry, you know, from the drivers to caterers to lighting to costume and make up, we’re like gypsies. We travel the world, see amazing things and experience them with likeminded people. I mean, that’s pretty much a perfect life if you’re not driven to achieve anything greater than that. If you are it’s the most frustrating life you could possibly live but if the journey is what you’re about then this is a great profession.

00:03:52 You know, what you lose in the fact that you haven’t got much job security you gain in the fact that, you know, you’re getting paid to do something that you enjoy every minute of. I mean, I’ve done 50 feature films and I still don’t need to, no matter what time of the morning it is, I never need the alarm to go off. I’m awake and waiting to go to work. So, that’s an amazing thing to have in your life. ENDS