Today is October 22 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “When given one last chance, how often do you give it everything you have in order to land the job?”
People like Irish born theater actress Denise Gough, and star of People, Places, Things, was one such person. When she was 15, she left home for London, with a boyfriend and “London kicked the shit out of me,” she said.
She was a wild, broke teenager, quickly split up with the boyfriend and had a rough time. She worked in a bar, and, at 19, received a full scholarship to the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.
Despite winning ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ from the Critics Circle in 2012 (for Desire Under the Elms), when People, Places, Things came up, Gough was still little known and hadn’t worked for a year.
She calls it her year in Siberia, but instead of torturing herself about failed auditions, she learned to bolster her self-esteem through yoga, soul searching, and hanging out with her nephews and nieces.
She struggled financially, working in a children’s nursery, and as a waitress, borrowing money from her sister. When Gough read the script for People, Places, Things, she knew this was the one, that Emma was a pivotal role.
She also knew that if she didn’t get the part, she was going to give up. ‘I read it and I thought, bloody hell – if it’s not this, I’m done. I can’t be dealing with reading a perfect part and then it not being mine. I went into the audition and I tore the room apart. I snorted icing sugar which I’d brought with me; I rolled a cigarette and knocked over chairs and at the end of it I read them this piece by Pia Mellody about addiction, about how brave addicts are, and when I left I wished them well and said, “I hope you find the right person,” because I thought, I’m not doing this anymore.
“It was one of those mythic auditions,” recalled writer Duncan Macmillan. “This play needs a talent, someone very charismatic. Denise came in and grabbed it by the throat and wrestled it to the floor.”
As poet Emily Dickinson wrote “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.”
Gough had one last dawn, opened the door wide open and gave it everything she had. Have you?