Otiena Ellwand's parents in masks as they rehearse
Otiena Ellwand
Last night when I got home, I was greeted by a gun and a half-empty bottle of rum.
My mum was trying to jump out of a window and my dad was trying to break her ankle.
The couch had been pushed into the middle of the room, the coat rack had vanished, and everything was in disarray. I had walked onto a set.
My parents are actors and have been for 30 years. This is standard operating procedure in my home. They don’t have an office or a nine to five job. They have their living room stage, their props, and their scripts.
If there’s no job to be had, they make their own. Which is why they’re currently rehearsing a play about a poly-amorous couple — in our living room. It’s all sex, lies, love and betrayal; yelling, singing, dancing. I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t called the police yet.
Being an actor is not a job. It’s a lifestyle that I’ve come to expect will be unpredictable.
At a young age, I had to get used to seeing my parents being shot, committing suicide and falling in love with other people — on TV, that is.
Then there was the time we drove across the country so my dad could play 11 different characters in a musical and get his foot run over by a moving set as big as a house — this time for real.
When I tell people what my parents do for a living they ooh and aah. They seem to think there are paparazzi hiding in the bushes outside my door or that red carpets make a regular appearance in my life.
It’s not quite like that. Sure, my parents have appeared alongside a few Hollywood bigwigs, but in minuscule roles reserved for Canadian actors. I’ve memorized those parts of their resumés to pull out like ace cards at parties: “Once Matthew Broderick called my dad a communist!” Or, “Once my mum was stuck in an insane asylum with Julianne Moore!”
They have, on occasion, had to warn us about a character we may see them play. Like the time my dad played a pedophile who tried to lure Elisha Cuthbert’s character into his basement.
It may sound like a fast paced and exciting career, but work is unpredictable and so is the paycheque. There’s a lot of financial stress when there are lulls in the industry.
Growing up, my siblings and I lived in a dodgy part of town, wore hand-me-downs, and got our bangs trimmed in the bathroom. We never got an allowance. When my mother went into labour with my eldest sister, she sat on the crossbar of my dad’s bicycle as he biked her to the hospital. They were broke and didn’t own a car.
“I love and hate acting,” my mum says. “Acting is the brass ring: you’re always reaching for it, you’re never satisfied. I’m only good because I’m always trying to be better; I’m never good enough because there is no finite point.”
I did flirt with the thought of becoming an actor myself. I landed a Skittles commercial and thought I was on the road to fame. But “tasting the rainbow” didn’t turn out to be as glamorous as I’d imagined. My job was to wave, which I did 15 times until the clients were satisfied. I realized then that many acting endeavours are mind-numbingly dull.
“Sometimes actors get to let their minds go on holiday,” my dad says, “but other times, they have to delve into dark recesses, into places they’d rather not imagine.”
For example, one time in university my mother’s acting instructor made his students imagine that the person they loved most in the world was burning in a fire.
After hearing about that assignment, I knew I didn’t want to be an actor anymore. My sister had come to the same decision a little more pragmatically. “Actors don’t make enough money,” she said.
Still, performance and entertainment are part of my daily life. I often use the, “my parents are actors” excuse to explain my behaviour. My friends expect me to be outrageous.
Being the daughter of actors has given me an unconventional upbringing. I may not have had all the newest toys and trinkets, but that was all made up for in entertainment value.
After all, who can say they come home to their parents practising to kill one another?