Special Skills: The CV Lies That Came Back to Bite Me
Somewhere in a casting assistant's inbox, there is a PDF of my CV that claims I can ride a horse 'confidently at canter.' Let the record show: I can stay on a horse. Those are not the same thing.
The Skills Section Is the Wild West
Nobody audits the special skills section of an actor's CV. It's the only part of the entertainment industry with absolutely no regulation whatsoever. You could write 'fluent in Morse code' or 'can suppress own heartbeat' and some casting director in Soho will believe you, because they've seen worse.
And here's the thing — you don't lie for fun. You lie because a breakdown said 'must be able to sail' and your rent said 'must be able to eat.' So you spend a wet Tuesday in February watching YouTube tutorials on tacking a dinghy and hoping the self-tape only shows you from the chest up.
The Crossbow Incident
My personal favourite disaster was a fantasy pilot that wanted a 'competent archer.' I ticked the box. I had, at that point, fired a crossbow exactly once, at a friend's hen do in the Cotswolds, where I hit a hay bale adjacent.
Cut to the shoot: I'm in full leather armour in a quarry near Swindon, and the stunt coordinator hands me the prop and says, 'You've done this before, yeah?' Reader, I had not. But muscle memory is a mysterious gift, and apparently my body remembered the hen do better than my brain did. I hit the mark on take two. The crew applauded. I have never been more terrified in my life, including the time I had to sing live on daytime telly.
The Broken Arm That Wasn't
Then there was the medical drama. The breakdown wanted someone who 'could hold a convincing arm splint naturally.' I spent the weekend before the shoot walking around Sainsbury's with my arm bent at a carefully practised angle, holding it the way I'd seen people hold it on Holby City. An elderly gentleman asked if I needed a taxi. I said thank you, no, I was rehearsing. He nodded like this was perfectly normal behaviour for a Saturday in Crouch End.
On the day, the director said my 'injured arm' was the most believable thing in the episode. It is now on my CV. I regret nothing.
The Accidental Hobbies
Here's the strange upside: some of the lies stick. I took up archery properly after the quarry job — I'm now in a league in North London, which is a sentence I could never have predicted at drama school. I can juggle badly thanks to a panto. I know four chords on the ukulele because of a commercial that never aired.
Acting, it turns out, is just a very expensive way of collecting hobbies you never chose. I've got friends who learned to waltz, friends who can deliver a lamb (actually — she was on a farm drama and the farmer said 'just get in there'), and one lovely bloke who is now a qualified forklift driver because of a warehouse advert.
A Word to the Casting Directors
If you're reading this and you've ever hired me: I'm sorry. Not sorry enough to take the skills off the CV, obviously. But sorry.
And to every young actor panicking about the skills box: put the thing you're 60% sure you can do. Worst case, you end up with a funny story. Best case, you end up with a trophy from the Barnet archery club and a whole new personality.
Either way, the hay bale forgives you. Eventually.
