Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Nikki And Helen. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Snippet of news from Mandana about lack of roles
Topic Started: Oct 24 2007, 03:38 PM (1,258 Views)
I love MJNet
Member Avatar
The bosses slave!
Hi everyone,

We just want to let you know, we've had a small snippet of news from Mandana about her lack of roles - Due to her committment with the upbringing of her son, Mandana hasn't been able to think about any major roles that have come up (not that there have been any). Combined with this being a very tough time for all actors at the moment with very few roles out there means Mandana is considering getting "a proper job".
So, while we at MJ Net are ever hopeful, it looks for now as if we might not be seeing Mandana in anything - for a time at least......... *and this is when we hope something does come along that would be suitable and we've put this news up for nothing.*
“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lisa289
Member Avatar
Welsh Bad Girl
The Muppets!
Thanks for that ILMJN :)
Posted Image

I'm Not Just Perfect - I'm Welsh
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
richard
Member Avatar
Enhanced
It's great that Mandana has taken time to keep this board updated and the choices in bringing up her son are obviously for her to decide. What is disheartening is the wider context of the shortage of roles for actors and this says something unpleasant about modern times. With the wall to wall media that we supposedly get these days as 'viewers' it should not be the case that opportunities for actors are so thin on the ground. It is possible of course to point the finger at the curse of the twenty first century, reality television.
Thanks very much for the news, ILMJN
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
liverpoolkiss
Member Avatar
Out of Dorm
Yes Reality Television is to Blame. I remember watching a TV interview with Robson Green, and he is dead set against it. There needs to be more good story telling drama - is what he said.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
yankeelady
Member Avatar
G3 Curtain and Duvet!
Yes, the news about Mandana is really disheartening. I do agree with Richard and liverpoolkiss...reality TV has certainly taken its toll. I absolutely refuse to watch it.

Does anyone know if the situation is any better in Canada? Going to Canada for a short time (if the acting environment is better) would certainly be better than "getting a proper job"...just the sounds of that turns my blood cold.
Nikki...Don't get jealous...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jeanna
Member Avatar
I said SIT IN THAT CHAIR
It's a sin, a shame, and a crime. This actress had a landmark role in a landmark series. This, coupled with the papparazzi trampling over her to get to some flavor of the month or other at the BG Musical premiere (when they'd formerly shoved people aside to snap shots of her at another premiere just a few short yrs. ago) makes me feel physically ill.

The bit about getting a 'real job,' tho, almost makes me smile as I remember what Simone said about having to open a pub and employ her out of work actor friends when "Thief Takers" caught her off guard by being cancelled after she'd done only a year's worth of that...but things looked up shortly thereafter. <G>

I cringe when all I hear actors talking about these days on chat shows is their favorite 'Reality' programs. These shows do indeed take away jobs from actors. Ironically, so many of the 'performers' in these cheaply produced series are wannabe actors.

If I had my dream job of directing in the U.K. and working with the actors I'd wish to employ I can think of several plays, from Shakespeare to Pinter, that I'd cast her in...as well as what I'd consider a major coup of casting her opposite SL again as a guest star on "Wire in the Blood." That would be a ratings draw, needless to say.
H&N Music Vid by me and ekny

Something To Talk About
YouTube

My BG Music Vids
On YouTube

My vids You Tube removed
Click Here
OR HERE

BAM for Beginners
BAM Channel
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
richard
Member Avatar
Enhanced
Jeanna
Oct 26 2007, 02:04 AM
I cringe when all I hear actors talking about these days on chat shows is their favorite 'Reality' programs. These shows do indeed take away jobs from actors. Ironically, so many of the 'performers' in these cheaply produced series are wannabe actors.


Oh Jesus, Jeanna, that is definitely the rot setting in. It was bad enough when the question was raised about 'your favourite soap' because however cheaply they were cranked out, they did at least employ actors

My friend, a long time theatre actress was in an episode of 'eastenders' and was critical of it. Last time I saw her she said that her one time drama school explained to aspiring actors the need to think in terms of a second job.

All this is about is the bottom line of stacks of profits and to hell with quality. I agree with everything else you've said.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
I love MJNet
Member Avatar
The bosses slave!
It is indicative of the state of TV making in this country at the moment.

Made worse by the BBC's announcement they are cutting back on its program making now and we will be getting more repeats!

Part of the problem is with the reality TV is they are comparatively cheap to make, and as much as I'm no real fan they are also bloody popular! And yet I look at the small amount of TV I do watch, and all but 1 or 2 series, the drama has come out of America, and some of a very high standard indeed that is putting a lot of our shows to shame (Wire in the Blood I believe is one of the few exceptions to that and could challenge any drama out there - and that was before Simone joined).

Richard, I wholeheartedly agree about the situation of thinking in terms of a second job. I know of a number of people who trained as actors, were good - and since marrying/having kids etc have given it up and taken on "proper jobs." because they couldn't afford to wait for the next role just to come along. I was talking to a friend who 2 years ago had to make this very decision only the other week.

And at the moment actors are not the only sector suffering because of this lack of TV making going on - I know a producer/director who has done a massive amount of work previously for the BBC who is struggling to find work now, as well as cameramen, make up artists, and all the other production crew needed to make these programs. It's tough out there right now and it stinks!

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
richard
Member Avatar
Enhanced
That's a very good post,ILMJNet which is horrifying in its content and that there are knock on effects onto the whole of the industry that backs up creative drama and certainly we could do without the cutbacks in the BBC.

At the risk of turning this slightly off topic, I must include the magnificent quote from Judge John Deed which featured 'Reality TV' which says it all.
“Celebrity….the pursuit of the talentless by the mindless. It’s the common disease of the twenty first century. It pollutes our society and diminishes all who seek it and all who worship it.”

Yeah, it is popular unfortunately but then again, so was the Roman Colliseum, the original subject of the famous 'bread and circuses' quote.

I can certainly understand Mandana thinking in terms of a second career out of necessity but I hope that sooner or later, acting work does come her way though I'm sure she will be highly conscious of thinking about juggling this with the need to bring up her son. That is a committment and a half. What is really great is that Mandana does think of is and keeps feeding her with updates on what is going on in her life.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
This article is in the same neighborhood as what you guys are discussing; it was in yesterday's Times & is called "Is It Curtains for Big British Films?" The subject of the article is Stephen Frears, but what it suggests to me is that there's something of a cyclic nature to all of this--film, tv, financing, trends, on & on. And I think that includes government-funded vs privately funded films & tv. They have similar but related sets of problems.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle2689591.ece

Ironically, when my friends & I discuss 'great' TV, we're as likely to be including British export shows as US shows. But I suspect that's six of one; the real issue is between financing productions intended to make large films--and attract large audiences/profits--or small/indie films (&/or TV shows targeted at more specific audience segments). When I look at it that way things fall into place, at least for what's been happening in US tv. What I mean is, if I look at a list of the television shows that have been canceled over here in the last 5 years or so, they're all arguably high quality--some extremely high--and... they're all *not* geared to grab maximum market share. Veronica Mars, Deadwood, Once & Again, (very likely imo) Friday Night Lights (it's just got Too Good to Live written all over it), etc. Whatever; everyone has their own lists. The point is, these are not T&A shows. They actually feature acting, scripts, and um, plots. Their sole purpose is not to finance advertising. And they respect the audience--unlike 24. In the current environment, it seems to me my choice is to either feel pathetically grateful for any table-scrap of quality I can find, for so long as the powers that be deem fit to serve it (ie Thank heavens we got to see Deadwood at all / Something new is sure to be round the corner!) or to say Um, hello, what the hell's wrong with this picture? I find the Pollyanna thing a bit of a stretch, myself, but ymmv.

It's possible when the cable channels finish savaging the waters for market share all of this won't be such an issue, but only, I expect, because by then another 'new' form of viewing media will have come around to replace the now-stale cable offerings. See: the cyclic thing.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
richard
Member Avatar
Enhanced
I've meditated on your very thoughtful post, ekny and it seems that, superficially, the one difference between Brit TV and your side of the pond is the BBC which isn't funded by advertising revenue. That isn't to say it isn't market oriented and my actress friend who did a year's work for BBC radio blames a guy called John (now Lord) Birt who ushered in the takeover by the accountants who, if unrestrained, will aim for precisely the sort of TV you describe, ekny, at the expense of the programmes that all of us respect. The article rightly focusses on such past leaders in Brit Cinema as Richard Attenborough and David Puttnam and I get the feeling that this goes across the board. There isn't total domination as I had the pleasure in taking part in a public discussion on satire in Brit TV addressed by the producer who has targeted Blair and a Brit ex minister called David Blunkett and how ITV4(a private channel) put out the programmes despite political opposition.

I tend to think what viewers your side of the pond like in Brit TV is the sort of thing like the 'I Claudius' series about the Roman Empire based on the Robert Graves book - in BG Series 5, Babs namechecks it in the 'sit in' series. That was a period when it was realised that viewers' concentration attention was wider than was supposed, that the details of narration, storytelling, period costume, etc should be got absolutely right and isn't this something all of us value in Bad Girls?

I watched what is called the National Television Awards last night and it was a depressing spectacle of the flashy celebration of total second rate stuff and categories of ' best talent show' and 'best reality TV' This is kind of a ramble but this follows on. What it comes down to is that the best art form isn't necessarily the most popular and certainly not most talked about by the 'chattering classes' and this goes both sides of the pond. This is regrettably the environment that Mandana is placed in.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · Mandana and Simone general discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply