So while I'm in LA of course I'm doing all the touristy things (you can check them out on my daughter's vlog if you're interested which is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=S1EOp_EeN00&app=desktop) and today we went to see the walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard. It's amazing how long in each direction it stretches but I managed to find my favourite movie star (Bruce Willis) and my favourite composer (Hans Zimmer) and it got me thinking about the peculiar nature of fame. Here, more so than anywhere else I've visited, fame and the things it brings are at the forefront of everything, from the guys on Hollywood Boulevard offering tours of celebrity homes, to the designer shops, to the forbidding signs all round Beverly Hills that armed guards patrol 24/7. Of course we'd all like the lifestyle that comes from being a celebrity - not to have to do the 9 to 5 grind in a job that might not be your dream job, to be rich enough to never have to worry about money, to have the time and means to pursue those dreams - but with fame comes a heavy cost of not being able to just walk down the street, to being subject to the media machine watching your every move and broadcasting to the world things you'd maybe rather keep hidden, to the downright scary tales you hear about celebrity stalkers. So why then do so many court it?
Maybe because we all want to be liked and accepted and, going right back to school, who wouldn't rather have been a popular than not? Maybe too there's an element of wanting to leave some kind of a legacy behind to show that we were here and that we made an impact on the world in some way. But actually you don't have to be famous to do that - you can make an impact on someone through something as small as smiling at them. Doing some research for a short story last year I stumbled across an article about a guy who survived a suicide attempt when he jumped off a bridge. When he recovered he completely changed the direction of his life and became a motivational speaker. The most chilling thing he said was that he told himself as he walked half way across the bridge, if one person looked at him and smiled, he wouldn't jump.
Of course living in constant sunshine here in LA helps everyone stay cheerful, but they are really friendly and chatty and smiley and we haven't stopped smiling since we got here. It's something I'm definitely taking home with me.
Monday 22 September 2014
Monday 8 September 2014
Dream on
Did you have a dream when you were a kid? Do you still have a dream you haven't yet achieved? My youngest daughter did, she still does. From the time she started at a school for performing arts aged seven, she knew she wanted to be an actress. The funny thing is no one else would believe her, with the exception of her family. When asked "what you want to be when you leave school?", she'd say 'actress' and the friends' parents, family members, people she met regularly, teachers, whoever it was, would always say "okay, so what's your backup plan?"
Makenna never had a back-up plan, even when she got A stars at A level she didn't bow to pressure to go to university to study drama. She knew that, for her, learning on the job was the best option. And having a back-up plan was tantamount to admitting that she wouldn't get where she wanted to be.
She's been learning her craft since she left school and this year she's really gone out there, worked hard and reaped amazing rewards. Next week she's attending (with me and her dad in tow as her ' crumbly entourage'!) her first red carpet premiere in Los Angeles for a film in which she plays one of the leads. Seeing my baby girl on a cinema screen is going to be quite something, I'm so proud of her I'm having to go and buy waterproof mascara ;) But what I'm most proud of is that she didn't get swayed by the naysayers, by society's expectations of her, by her school pushing her to take a different route, she held fast to her dream through knock backs and rejections and now she's on her way.
She's just started a blog to share her journey - you can find it here
http://makennaguyler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/errrrr-hi.html
Do you have a dream you haven't yet achieved? If so, all I can say to that is dream on.
Makenna never had a back-up plan, even when she got A stars at A level she didn't bow to pressure to go to university to study drama. She knew that, for her, learning on the job was the best option. And having a back-up plan was tantamount to admitting that she wouldn't get where she wanted to be.
She's been learning her craft since she left school and this year she's really gone out there, worked hard and reaped amazing rewards. Next week she's attending (with me and her dad in tow as her ' crumbly entourage'!) her first red carpet premiere in Los Angeles for a film in which she plays one of the leads. Seeing my baby girl on a cinema screen is going to be quite something, I'm so proud of her I'm having to go and buy waterproof mascara ;) But what I'm most proud of is that she didn't get swayed by the naysayers, by society's expectations of her, by her school pushing her to take a different route, she held fast to her dream through knock backs and rejections and now she's on her way.
She's just started a blog to share her journey - you can find it here
http://makennaguyler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/errrrr-hi.html
Do you have a dream you haven't yet achieved? If so, all I can say to that is dream on.
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