Why I’d happily hurtle over Niagara Falls in a barrel

Michael Simkins explores the challenges facing young actors eager to become stars

Look out for Michael Simkins flying over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. istockphoto.com

I may soon be a regular visitor to your sitting room, several times a night. It’s not that I’ve decided to take up housebreaking as a career choice, merely that I have been auditioning to appear in a TV commercial which, should I be chosen for the role, could soon have me featuring during ad breaks and thus make me a household name all over the world – albeit not in the way I envisaged when as a young drama student I set my sights on becoming a Hollywood movie star.

Commercials are a particularly curious subdivision of the acting game and those individuals who specialise in them can do very well. They’re not so much about acting as about being able to convey in a few seconds the aspirations of the product you’re demonstrating. During my career I’ve been up for literally hundreds of these parts and the type of roles for which I’m seen offer an accurate reflection of the passing of years.

In my twenties, I was always going up for fresh faced young professional wannabees: drinking coffee or driving a gleaming new car along a suspiciously empty motorway, the epitome of the sort of successful young men the car makers were hoping to ensnare with such commercials.

In my thirties, the ads reflected more sober concerns: dads with children or sitting at desks listening to cheery clerks explaining the finer points of acquiring a mortgage. Nowadays I specialise in avuncular grandparents or granite-faced senior executives masterminding a conference.

But whatever the product, and whatever your age, advert auditions are humiliating interludes. You enter a small room, usually in an apartment block in central London to be greeted by a casting director and a spotty teenager perched behind a single unblinking video camera.

OK, so here’s the deal, the casting director explains.

The ad is for, let us say, a new chocolate bar. So, he says, you’re in a barrel going over Niagara Falls, when suddenly you recall that somewhere in your pocket you have the new confectionery sensation. Just as you’re about plunge to your doom, you take a bite and suddenly the air is filled with hundreds of tiny starbursts as the honeycomb filling activates your taste buds. The barrel soars high into the air above the churning torrent, with you still in it, munching happily, a contented smile on your face.

Right then. So it’s time to take a deep breath and debase yourself. You jiggle about hopefully in an imagined facsimile of what it might be like to find yourself in such circumstances, you mime unwrapping the chocolate bar, you stare around you with a look of inane delight at your sudden ascent, before allowing your features to settle into an inane grin of pure happiness.

And cut. Seconds later you’re back out in the street, while the next candidate will be giving their own desperate version of the agreed narrative.

Occasionally, you’ll be chosen for the gig. Far more frequently you’ll hear no more about it. So why do we do it?

The answer, of course, is money. If you're lucky enough to be picked, you can expect a hefty performance fee plus regular repeat cheques each time it’s shown. Success in just a few TV ads, while it won't make you rich, will at least allow you a few months of solvency. One acquaintance of mine has put both his kids through private school and acquired a holiday apartment in France simply on the back of a rolling contract as the face of a leading brand of wood preservative. Not bad for a three-minute audition and a couple of days filming a year.

So what can I expect now that I’ve reached my 60th year? Well, my days of eating chocolate have almost gone. Indeed, I suspect I’ll soon be advertising dentures, mobility scooters or boiled sweets. Say what you like about ads, they remind you of how old you are and how well you’re physically faring.

I still haven’t heard if I’m to be asked to hurtle over Niagara Falls. But if you see me soon on your TV, flying high above Canada in a wooden barrel, you’ll know it was my lucky day.

Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London

On Twitter: @michael_simkins