Dialect coach

Generally I spend a lot of time doing dialect research, setting up master classes, organising recruitment visits to schools or universities, sitting on audition panels, reading plays, attending showings, preparing notes for accent workshops, rehearsals etc.

The best things about my role are no two days the same, being part of a team who all have the same vision, being surrounded by performance of all types, happy, challenged, positive creative people, helping people discover how amazing they are.

The worst are people who think they they’re helping by contradicting hours of accent work you’ve done with a nervous actor, people who claim to have a ‘good ear’, and lazy people who want to be rich and famous and think that’s what acting is.

My advice would be to grab every opportunity that comes along, however banal it might seem, and do more than you’re asked to do, and do it from fascination, not slavish obedience. Keep an open-mind and don’t be limited by your own fear or lack of imagination. Listen more than you speak. Assume everything is interesting until experience tells you it’s not. Be prepared to do things for free for people who need your help. Know your limitations and when to try to exceed them. Laugh a lot (but not during a take or when someone’s trying to concentrate).