A Hollywood ending?

By David Willis
Los Angeles

The BBC's Los Angeles correspondent David Willis has been on sabbatical, trying to forge a career as an actor in Hollywood. In this, his final diary entry for the BBC News website, he reflects on the path his journey has taken him.

David Willis (l) with some of his fellow thespians

Spencer Tracy's advice to aspiring actors was delightfully straightforward: learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture.

The problem - as I have discovered over the past six months - is that there is a great deal more to it than that.

Acting had always struck me as an impossibly glamorous profession. The concept of putting on a show, fighting first-night nerves and then basking in the glory of a standing ovation was almost too much for a pimply young lad from East Anglia to grasp. You mean they get paid for that?

The local theatre, opposite the bus station in Ipswich, was hardly a mecca for the performing arts but its repertory company nonetheless managed to provide an eclectic diet of Shakespeare, Stoppard and Pinter; enough to foster a yearning for the bright lights which was rekindled every time I went anywhere near a theatre or watched a Hollywood classic.

The thought was always the same: what if I had given it a go, would I have been any good? Could I possibly have "made it"?

And then, years later, this would-be thespian found himself in Los Angeles, the movie capital of the world, where every waiter is a frustrated actor and every hack seems to be hawking a screenplay.

'Nativity play'

The sunshine jungle lured not only the prettiest boys and girls from virtually every high school in America, but their counterparts from all over the world. They came with one goal in mind - to make it in the movies and become a star.

It was here that it dawned on me that I couldn't go to my grave without giving it a go as well.

True, the last time I had been before an audience was as the rear end of a donkey in the school nativity play, but the time had finally come, I decided, to unleash the actor within and stake my claim to a place on Hollywood's red carpet.

The experience was to prove deeply revealing. Suddenly, instead of impassively delivering information into a camera lens, I was required to "give something of myself" - and that included emotion.

Willis says nothing beats the feeling of being on stage

I joked to one of my acting teachers that being English, the last time I had expressed an emotion was in 1967, but whilst keeping one's emotions in check works well in journalism, for an actor it is a disaster.

Years spent covering chaos and disaster for the BBC seemed to have anaesthetised me to my own feelings: given the sudden opportunity to vent them in front of others I found, to my dismay, that there was nothing to call on.

Another - more practical - drawback was the amount of time it takes to make a film and the often excruciating boredom of being on set. To someone raised on hourly deadlines, the notion of spending a whole day on a single shot seemed faintly ludicrous.

Then there was the hierarchy, which bestowed upon its stars the status of royalty whilst rendering extras the equivalent of "untouchables".

For two weeks on the set of the Brad Pitt/George Clooney movie Ocean's 13, we were herded around like sheep.

And when, during a break in filming, I found a canvas chair to sit on, a film bigwig was on me like a heat-seeking missile: "What's your name?" "Um, David Willis," I replied, nervously. "Whose name is on the back of that chair?" he demanded.

Al Pacino... not David Willis

I walked around to take a look: "Al Pacino." "Exactly," he replied, "and when your name is Al Pacino you can sit there - now get lost!"

Then there were the commercial auditions - many of them pretty strange.

For a Cadburys commercial I had been told to dress as a music-hall magician and turned up in a tuxedo and bow-tie, only to find the room full of midget wrestlers and people dressed as clowns.

Several girls on roller skates were doing wheelies in the corridor outside - a man in a Superman costume stopped me to ask directions to the bathroom.

Four at a time we were called in and told to stuff our mouths with gummy bears. The storyline had us working on the Cadbury's production line when the foreman approached and accused us of eating on the job.

The woman on roller skates wasn't happy. Not only was she allergic to gummy bears, but she accused me of stealing her line (all I said was "No"). On the second "take", one of her wheels came off and she careered crazily into a wall.

Bruising as it can be, I nonetheless found the acting game to be strangely seductive.

The experience of performing on stage was one of the most exhilarating of my life - I suspect only those who have survived a near-death experience could possibly identify with the adrenaline rush that comes with playing to a packed house - albeit in a small theatre off the Sunset Strip.

Casting agent Jeff Olan said he had seen many dreams shattered in LA

Afterwards, several people told me I might just have what it takes to make it, but Hollywood casting agent Jeff Olan's assessment was a little more sober.

Jeff said he had seen thousands of people arrive in Los Angeles full of hope, only to leave a short while later, their dreams in tatters.

He thought I did stand a chance of making it, but it would take a while; six months wasn't long enough to become known at the local corner shop, let alone in one of the most competitive industries in the world.

And he warned of the pitfalls of auditioning: "There's more rejection here than in any other city on the planet."

Nevertheless, my theatrical and comedy performances have gone down well, I have just landed an agent, and - to their amazement as well as my own - a part in a national TV commercial.

Although I won't be giving up the day job any time soon, as far as acting is concerned I've caught the bug, and it's much too early to take the final bow.