🎬 Miss Representation - Pt.2

Get famous or cry trying! Take-two in my attempts to make it big...

Hello!

Last November, I shared the first instalment of my (mis)adventures of getting signed by a talent agent. If you need a refresher on that wild ride, you can read all about it here:

🎬 Miss Representation - Pt.1

Here is the promised Pt.2, which includes never seen before photos and video of my attempts to ‘make it big’ (CRINGE ALERT). Please note this is a lengthy post, so click ‘see entire email’ or the three dots if you’re reading this in Gmail. For the best reading experience, view it on my Substack page (especially as GIFs work better there) or the app.

Miss Representation - Pt.1 and Pt.2 are paywalled posts. If you’d like to read them and would also like to support my work, tap the button below to upgrade your subscription!

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* This is a true story of my lived experience. The names and identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed.

Here she goes again…

So… how well was I coping with the fallout from my representation nightmare? The petty cow in me would switch to a different channel whenever I saw one of my ex-agency labelmates on the telly or cry into the pages of a glitzy magazine I was reading if they happened to grace the pages.  

It was impossible not to feel bitter watching their careers flourish under our once-shared agent's guidance while mine withered and died.

Although my burning determination to break into the industry had been pissed on from a great height, the dying embers of desire to work in television were still glowing in the pit of my jaded soul. I spent a long time convincing myself that if (and that was a big if) I were to try and pursue a career in TV again, doing it without representation was the way forward.

An interview the brilliant Michaela Coel did with The Hollywood Reporter¹ in 2020, in which she talked about the freedom of going it alone, gave me hope that it was possible to be successful without a talent agent's support. OK - I’m nowhere near the dizzying heights of Coel’s fame, which may have made her decision to go solo a tad easier, but I took comfort in how she regained control of her life and an air of inner peace at being left alone to water her house plants and have a choice about what she did next. 

So, hellbent on being a one-woman show, what did I have in my media arsenal to help me break into TV alone? Well, there was the knowledge I gained from previous representation and understanding of my worth when it came to negotiating fees (so something useful did come out of that), my years of experience working in television, and, of course, the connections I made along the way who would hopefully be of help. 

I spent time slowly building myself up again. This involved pitching to figures I knew in the industry for potential work and reminding them that I was still here and available for any upcoming projects requiring a ‘skilled and confident all-around presenter’. 

But, no matter how hard I pitched, hustled and networked, it wasn’t happening.

I wasn’t expecting an automatic shoo-in through the stage door, but I hoped, at the very least, for a little nudge in the right direction from people who had worked with me before and knew what I was capable of. It was especially demoralising when the same TV personalities who used to tell me they ‘couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting more TV work’ gave me a very different kind of airtime when I approached them for some help. 

Every industry door I knocked on was either slammed shut in my face or not even answered. The whole situation was giving the stench of Old Boys’ Club and reminded me that the world of ‘it’s not what you know, it’s whom you know’ absolutely sucks. 

Those embers of a television career smouldering in the pit of my soul had finally been extinguished. Perhaps watching every presenter and producer I knew to pull the career ladder up behind them was the jolt I needed to leave that world alone. 

“I was unsure what my next move would be, but I was sure it wouldn’t be toward doing anything like this again”.

Miss Representation - Pt.1

Let Me Think About It

It was evident that by the first half of 2023, my career had become a clusterfuck. I conceded defeat in my efforts to get back on the small screen; my time on TV had truly passed me by, and I was too exhausted to keep fighting to make it happen. 

And all my other freelance work that I had to fall back on? Well, if you must know (and I’m going to tell you in detail), that was rather screwed, too. 

Adventures in Coffee (the podcast I co-created and loved) ended abruptly in January 2023. In the last ever episode, we all agreed to toe the official line of season four being our swansong because we were “moving onto so many other exciting projects” and didn’t have the capacity to make season five. That couldn’t have been further from the truth.