WORK: Everything You’ve Never Heard About Becoming an Actor
Joseph Millson
RIGHTS AVAILABLE: Translation, Film/TV and all other rights handled by the bks Agency
***Published in the UK on February 4, 2021,WORK received a four star review in The Telegraph ***
“Millson has the eye of an outsider, by turns amused, astute and awed.” ~ The Telegraph
Who in their right mind would want to be actor?
When you get away from the red carpet photos in the glossy magazines – which happens to about 0.04% of the acting population – the career of acting itself is a relentless pursuit of soul-enhancing joy wrapped in a cloth of repeated misery. A recent study by Queen Mary University of London showed that only 2% of actors make a living from the profession and that 90% are out of work at any one time. You still want to be an actor? Then get ready to be kicked in the teeth repeatedly; be relentlessly rejected; be told you are shit by directors; be isolated by other actors also clawing their way up; and if you are really lucky — you might receive criticism of your work from total strangers writing for national newspapers. If you want to truly make it, you’ll need to cloak yourself with an insane drive and near religious zeal to repeatedly get up, dust yourself off, and try, try again.
Laurence Oliver once stated: ‘It takes twenty years to make an actor.’
As Joseph says: “despite some incredible successes, at my twenty year milestone I was on my arse, out of work, and at the end of my rope. I humbly admitted that Larry was entirely correct.”
In WORK, Joseph takes the reader on his acting journey. This is Joseph’s memoir, but it is also a playbook for the young actor and — for those readers who are not actors — Joseph rips the curtain open to this fascinating industry to share the most embarrassing, disastrous, and hilarious tales.
Joseph takes you behind the scenes, shows you the ropes of the impossible slogs of auditions, the endless disappointments, successes, and ultimately he gets into the bones of what really makes an actor. The final ingredient of acting is the love affair you have to have for your vocation. It is the non-stop drive to stay in love with the work itself.
WORK shows acting as an obsession, as a religion, as a distraction, as a solace, and often as hell.
Joseph Millson is an experienced actor having played many leading roles at the National Theatre, The Royal Court, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Vic, the Almeida Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, many regional theatres, and many West End productions including winning the WhatsOnStage award for his performance in the Musical Love Never Dies. In 2017, Joseph won Best Performance in a Play for The Rover at the prestigious UK Theatre Awards.
His most recent television work includes leading roles in The Last Kingdom, Banished, 24:Live Another Day, as well as regular roles in Campus, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Holby City, Talk To Me, Survivors, Eastenders, Macbeth, and Peak Practice.
Joseph has appeared in over a dozen feature films including Casino Royale, The Dead 2, Devil’s Bridge, Tango One, All The Devil’s Men, and Angel Has Fallen.
“Joseph Millson shares with us a vivid and fascinating insight into the breath-taking highs and the excruciating lows of ‘An Actor’s Life For me’, and he’s still smiling.”
“It’s the proper story of an actor’s life - not the champagne and air-kisses, but the graft, the doubt, the debt, and sometimes, just sometimes, the bliss.”
“If you are interested in the real life challenges of a working actor, then this book is absolutely essential. Joe Millson writes in an engaging, honest, but highly optimistic tone, and his passion for the craft and the life he obviously loves so much shines through those pages. For fellow creative professionals like myself who have to engage with those beautiful nutters, WORK demystifies many of the things actors do, and how they need to think about this strange undertaking. Therefore, it should also be required reading for anyone crazy enough to want to join their ranks.”
“Millson writes about the craft of acting with the tireless ardour of a besotted lover. Beneath the hilarious (and sometimes deliciously indiscreet) anecdotes lies the story of a boy becoming a man. A joy to read.”