I’m not famous for my punctuality, but it’s one of the peculiarities of the theatre that actors do become just that: “famously punctual”. 

I don’t imagine it’s the sort of fame they dreamt of as young hopefuls but there are some senior actors who hold punctuality as their topmost point of pride. It’s not that I don’t respect good timekeeping but there is a certain cult around it in the theatre that doesn’t seem to exist in other professions. Being late can write you off as a serious actor. Being late reflects upon your talent.

In film, timekeeping has been ritualised into a power gambit. Actors will scrutinise the call sheet to see if any of their colleagues are getting picked up later than they are – a 15-minute difference can cause hell in the life of the Second AD, who makes the schedule.

It’s pretty difficult to be late to a film set as most productions (Holby City is an exception) use drivers to transport the actors. It is one of the perks of the job, though it has survived the general cull of perks only because it is also an economy – film actors are not really trusted to be on time and it’s very expensive when they aren’t.

If an actor is extremely late to set, he’s either slept through his alarm or it’s deliberate. An A-list Hollywood actor once told me an unprintable story about working with a persistently late Julia Roberts. Julia apparently made sure she was always last on set so that everyone knew who was top billing.

Suffice to say, the actor got so angry waiting around and then so coldly contemptuous that no-one dared confront the star that finally he marched to her trailer, threw open her door and threatened her sanctity with a large wrist-watch if she was ever late again. The actor in question is never gratuitously crude or menacing; his violence will always be apt and eloquent…

For me, there is “tube late” and there is “f**k you late”, and more rarely there is “f**k-up late”. My most appalling episode of missing the bell was at drama school where I was running up a rank reputation for lateness.

That lateness was certainly a symptom of how much I disliked my time there, but one morning, having woken up at my girlfriend’s house, I made it to the tube station in good time to get to a rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet only to follow through on what I mistakenly thought were the gusts from last night’s beans. And so I became “f**k-up late”. 

Having shat myself at Sloane Square tube station, I felt it would be un-Romeo like to rehearse smelling like a tramp’s nappy so I ducked into the bathrooms of the Oriel Brasserie next door, cleaned up and flushed my boxers down the loo.

I arrived 40 minutes late with a definite reek about me and weathered the bollocking from our director who ordered me to explain myself to the waiting cast. This I could not find the voice to do, so I mumbled penitently and then lay beside my Juliet in the crypt for the final tomb scene and simpered self-consciously as she kissed the poison from my lips.

It’s hardly surprising that during the run I arrived backstage for “beginners” and heard Juliet having it off with Tybalt against her dressing room door. This is surely not the natural order of things.

Don’t be late and don’t be smelly. How’s that for advice? 

More Actor X:

Bastard sons – a homage to Peter O’Toole

The spin of the wheel – Actor X spies a dream project on the horizon

See all of Actor X’s previous columns.

Image: Adam Kesher by djenvert, available under a CC BY-NC-ND license.