Fears, Tears, Fake Blood & Beers

16 Years Later

I never thought I’d become a scare actor.

Actually, if you’d told the younger version of me that one day I’d be creating, managing and running scare experiences, I probably would have laughed.

This was the same person who, when faced with a scare attraction for the first time, turned around and ran straight back upstairs.

So yes, I went from running away from scare attractions to running them.

Funny how life works.

This month marks 16 years since I started my career as a scare actor, which means I’m officially celebrating my “tin” anniversary.

Back then, I had absolutely no idea what opportunities, experiences and friendships would come from saying yes to that job.

These 16 years have been filled with successes, challenges, injuries, awards, memories and some of the best friendships I could have ever asked for.

Everyone always tells me I have an impeccable memory, and for years I’ve wanted to share my experiences and create stories from the incredible journey I’ve had, whilst spending so much of my career creating stories and experiences for other people.

So what better time to finally start than on the anniversary of where it all began?

Since then, I’ve gone from a timid scare actor who would cry when hit, to managing some of the biggest Halloween events in the UK and running my own company that focuses on immersive experiences, including an award-winning attraction.

I’ve somehow managed to catch a bit of sleep amongst all of this…somehow.

I’m a complete sucker for nostalgia, and I love looking back at the moments that shaped me. I’ve always been fascinated by memories, stories and the little moments that end up changing the direction of your life without you realising it at the time.

That’s what this blog is about.

The stories, the memories, the people and the moments that made this journey what it is.

For everyone I’ve worked with over the years who takes the time to read this, I hope that somewhere along the way my writing brings back good memories, laughter and maybe even a little bit of joy.

For those who aren’t part of our industry and are reading this just for fun, I hope it gives you a glimpse into why I love it so much and why, year after year, I continue to get completely lost in this world. (Lord knows I’ve probably already chewed your ear off about it at some point.)

Maybe this will inspire some future scare actors. Or maybe it’ll just entertain people who enjoy hearing about strange jobs and stranger experiences.

Either way, I think it’s worth telling.

I’ll try to post regularly, even when life inevitably gets in the way, because there is a lot to cover…

So buckle up bitches.

Everything I write comes from my own personal experiences, the memories I made, and the incredible people I met along the way.

So this blog is dedicated to everyone I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Here’s to the scares, the hard times, the wild nights out, the night shifts, the stressful moments, and the lifelong friendships that somehow blossomed from all of us working together in dark, loud environments.

Enjoy.

But before we get into scaring, I need to rewind a little bit.

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Rewinding Back To 2010

It’s June 2010, and I had just finished university after three years. Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s Telephone was dominating the charts, Inception was about to hit cinemas, and if you got lost in London, you were relying on a printed map rather than your phone magically telling you where you were.

I had studied Performing Arts at Bath Spa University’s School of Music and Performing Arts, and I was due to graduate in July that year.

Bath Spa wasn’t classed as a drama school, but our tutors also taught at places such as Mountview, so I still felt like I had received a great education, just without the official “drama school” title.

Those three years consisted of wearing almost entirely black clothing, 10-hour days, evening rehearsals, countless hours in the library, being told not to eat badly (specifically burgers from “Friday Flux”), and me throwing a chair in frustration at one point across the canteen when I got a bad grade. (It’s really not as dramatic as it sounds, but the chair did take flight and I was exhausted after writing about practitioners I didn’t really understand…) Flying chairs I’m sure will make an appearance in this blog somewhere in the future for another story that we’re not quite at yet.

At one point, our tutor sat the whole class down. Thirty students who had spent three years training together.

They told us that realistically only three of us would make it into the industry, based on the usual ratio of success. I remember whilst we sat in silence, one of my peers saying:

“I’ll make it.”

They said it confidently, showing the determination they had.

And I had that same determination.

I just wasn’t as confident.

Instead, I remember thinking:

“I’ll do everything I can to keep going.”

Looking back now, I think that sentence probably says a lot about me. I’m not always the loudest person in the room – but I was and am still someone who is determined.

I was sad to be leaving university, but I was also looking forward to returning home and being closer to London. I graduated with a 2:1 in Performing Arts and, more importantly, an understanding of how not to burn baked beans when making beans on toast.

Bath was a beautiful place, and looking back, I wish I had appreciated it a lot more at the time because it’s exactly the sort of place I would love to live now.

But back then, I missed the city and the 24/7 lifestyle.

Here I am outside the cottage I lived in for two years in a place called Odd Town in Bath.

By this point, I was the last one living there. My housemates had all moved on, and slowly everything had disappeared with them. The broadband, the TV, the cutlery, and the boiler had broken about six times in the past two months. So I was honestly quite happy to leave and stop sleeping in damp bedsheets.

On 25th June 2010, I left Bath for good and returned home to Surrey.

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What Next?

At the time of leaving university, I was the only third-year student who had auditioned for an extra-curricular production of West Side Story that was being taken to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and I hadn’t been successful in getting a role.

I remember feeling devastated and quite alone whilst I watched my friends go off and perform a week after we had all said goodbye to each other, whilst I sat at home trying to figure out what life looked like after three years of studying and living off beans on toast.

What was I going to do?

What was the next thing?

After three years of knowing exactly what I was doing, suddenly I felt like I was stuck in a calm ocean with no land in sight.

I didn’t know whether to pursue an acting career, look into SFX makeup, or explore production. I had always been good with art and had an interest in creating things, but I didn’t have the foggiest idea where to start with it all in the big, bad, competitive world of entertainment.

I had 100 copies of my headshot sitting there, but no idea who I was supposed to send them to.

Previously, I had planned to return to my old job at TK Maxx, where I had worked during school holidays for around five years. I remember calling them up to ask about shifts and when my start date could be, but my manager told me he couldn’t give me work anymore and that I should call back in a few months and they’d take another look.

I put the phone down feeling annoyed.

Our previous arrangement had suddenly changed, and I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do next. But something inside me told me that maybe I should at least try to pursue acting.

I told myself that day I wasn’t going back, and that would teach them for messing me around. (Although, I’m sure they survived without me, but that’s not the point…)

So, I signed up for Jobseeker’s Allowance and the hunt to find a job in my industry began.

Every week I’d get the bus into the town centre to sign on and show them that I was doing my best to find myself some income. I would sit and go through all the jobs they had available, trying to find something that might be a good fit.

One day they offered me a job as a bus driver, and I remember being confused when I declined. The small detail being that I couldn’t drive a car, let alone a bus…

I started looking at places near me that might have entertainment roles. One of those places was Chessington World of Adventures, a theme park in Surrey that I had visited as a child a few times.

They didn’t have any roles available, but they were owned by a company called Merlin Entertainments, and whilst looking through their website, I noticed an advert for a scare actor position at Madame Tussauds London for their scare attraction Scream.

I clicked on it. Then I realised exactly what it was.

The big dark scary dungeon that I had run up the stairs away from the previous year when visiting with my family.

I had actually tried to go down and have a look, but I had seen a man on the floor with chains around him yelling and grunting, and decided that maybe it wasn’t for me.

I turned around and pegged it back upstairs to find the comfort in the wax figure of Brad Pitt.

It was a no from me…for now.