I got my first job when I was in my final year of drama college in 2005. It was a role in a movie called Red Mercury which starred Pete Postlethwaite, Stockard Channing and Juliet Stevenson. I’d been fortunate enough to get interest from several agents in the final year of training and had signed with the one I felt was best for me. The job came in through them.

I was so nervous before the audition, suffering from major impostor syndrome and sleepless nights, but I just prepared the material as best I could and committed to simply playing in the room. That’s easier said than done, but the nerves get much easier to handle the more experience you gain – auditions then become really exciting and fun, so I would encourage anyone struggling with that now to just keep going. 

With auditioning, I would tell the younger me to just relax and have fun; not to focus on booking the job, because that’s not up to you. What is up to you is how you play the character you’ve been given. In that sense, the audition is the job. Something else I would have taken more control of earlier on is writing and directing rather than just being at the mercy of agents and waiting for the phone to ring.

That’s my advice to others now: write, write, write. Tell the stories you care about. Play the characters you dream of seeing on screen and stage. Enjoy gaining life experience through travel and the billions of side hustles you will have to do to get by. Don’t sweat the small stuff or get hung up if you have a bad audition experience. There will be more auditions. Relax and enjoy growing as an artist – struggle is part of the process and it is only in the darkness that we get to see the stars. 

Stephen Uppal

Age: 46
Training: Teesside University (BA English Lit), ArtsEd London (BA Musical Theatre)
Theatre includes: The History Boys (Wyndham’s Theatre, Royal National Theatre), Tonight’s The Night (UK Tour), My Beautiful Laundrette (Duchess Theatre)
TV includes: Silent Witness, Doctors, Hollyoaks
Agent: Jess Jones at Winterson’s