I have read two memoirs written by actresses recently, namely Zawe Ashton and Mara Wilson. Despite their very different career paths, both clearly have mixed feelings about the industry and how it operates.
Zawe Ashton’s memoir ‘Character Breakdown’ has an unusual but brilliant structure switching between prose sections about different auditions and roles she has played, and scenes from her life in the form of a play script as she makes the transition to roles in Hollywood. Each chapter begins with the “character breakdown” of the audition – in other words, a short description of the role and the type of actor they are looking to cast. Some chapters are about the auditions or roles themselves, and others draw on events in her life at the time.
Ashton has been acting since the age of six with a range of credits spanning sitcoms and period drama across television, film and the stage and is also a director and playwright. The abstract style of this memoir is intriguing – most likely this is for practical reasons while she is still working (she is careful not to identify the projects or people involved), but it also gives some insight into how acting has impacted her life to the point where having a sense of her own identity becomes increasingly distant: “Some days, I feel like a human woman walking down the street, pretending to be a human woman walking down the street.” She highlights the sexism and racism inherent in the industry, and also the limited number and range of roles for women of colour. This is a very original and creative memoir, although some of her experiences are so grim it does make you wonder why she still does it.