Acting In Nepal

Last Christmas was a doozie

Our family holiday was cancelled the morning of

When my partner and I were both keeled over at 2 am

With the same food poisoning symptoms

(Possibly due to a fish I caught for dinner)

Whilst fighting over our one bathroom

Resorting to one of us (I won’t say who) having to dash outside

Much to say

We never really got that holiday break we were so hoping for after a solid year of work and parenting

So I was over the moon when my partner surprised me with a solo night away in a hotel

Thirty hours of me time

Which these days is incredibly rare.

As soon as I arrived

I sent my last texts and slipped my phone into a drawer

Not to be touched for the duration of my stay

Time to walk

Time to follow some curiosity

After a few hours of snorkelling with blue groupers, manta rays and a big old green turtle

I wandered into a second hand book shop

I was hoping to find a book on a famous ship wreck in the 1800’s

Instead

My eyes gravitated toward a cheap blue coloured paperback

Huh

It was on the topic of a mountaineering disaster

I picked it up

Flipped some pages

Read a line

Yes

Hell yes

I paid the $12

Found the nearest quiet cafe

Sat down in my still-salty swimmers

Popped my headphones on

And started on the first page.

Two hours later

I had read more pages of one book

Than I had in the last 12 months

For whatever reason

This particular adventure just gripped me

Maybe it was the authors voice

Maybe it was the culture of climbing

Maybe it was the particular mountain itself

But it kicked up something in me

And two weeks later

I was onto my third book on the same topic

Okay

Clear obsession

I was shooting a Disney+ series at the time

And had plenty of hours in the trailer to lose myself in the pages

What it must have been like to climb those peaks which hover above the notorious “death zone”

There are 14 mountains on this earth above 8000 metres

People dedicate years

If not decades to climbing Everest, K2, and the other “eight thousanders”

They have done this for the last 100 years

A recent phenomenon in terms of our scope on this earth

One of the privileges that has come with our modern day cushiness

Not having to be concerned about being eaten by a bear

Anywho

For whatever reason

I was loving the topic

So of course

Six weeks after first wandering into that book store

I felt a deep sense of alignment

When an audition came through

For a film

On a very famous climbing expedition

Of one of those famous eight thousanders

Set in the 50’s in Nepal.

These days

I usually give myself a week to prep for an audition

I take my time

Procrastinate

The usual

This one?

Nope

Printed off the sides

Stuck them up in my trailer

And in-between scenes on set

I asked a fellow actor to come play with me

In 15 minutes it was done

Funny how easy things become when desire overrides obstacles

And a week later

After much debating back and forth re schedule clashes

I got word that I would be flying to Nepal.

Oddly

This is the second time

Where I have been reading a particular book

And a job has come along

Which is linked to that exact book

I’ll thank some lucky stars up there.

If anything

It’s been a wonderful and necessary reminder for me

That I have no idea where I am going

But I somewhat know how I’m going to get there

By trying my best (often failing) to follow my curiosity

Trusting it will nudge me in the direction I’m supposed to be going in

Even if it means going in the opposite direction to the one I think I should be going in.

Alrighty

The following is a diary entry

For one week of filming

In Nepal

…

It’s 2 am

Kenzie Baby is crying

My partner has got a week of solo parenting on top of work

So obviously it’s my turn

I spend an hour trying to get Mackenzie back to sleep

Every time I try sneak out of her room

She demands “MORE TWINKLE”

Which means more of me singing twinkle twinkle little star

I climb back into bed at 3am

I have to get back up in one hour to leave for the airport

I don’t sleep

A car picks me up

The driver insists on lifting my heavy bag

We lift it together

I feel embarrassed

I’m only going for 6 nights

I don’t know why I packed so much

The driver is now very quiet

I feel strange

The car is fancy

Worth more than everything my family has monetarily

I feel poor

Like I’m pretending to be wealthy and important

I sip an expensive bottled water

My feet are lit up by moody neon lighting

I go through the express line at the airport

And find myself sitting in my business class seat

Pretending like if someone hadn’t paid for my flight I would still be sitting here

I’ve already done three things which have made the flight crew giggle at me

I fold out my bed and hide

Stretching my smelly feet out all the way on a plane feels glorious

The first leg of the journey is smooth

I arrive at Hong Kong

A reminder…

Never travel with knife shaped objects

I have to convince the security - who don’t speak English - that its a blunt titanium bottle opener

I have no idea why its in my bag

Maybe Kenzie has put it in there

She’s got a habit of hiding strange objects in strange places in the house

I press it against my skin in a desperate attempt to prove that its blunt

They cautiously let me move through

I try make myself look smaller

I think I have plenty of time to rest

So I go to the business lounge and grab an orange juice

I’m exhausted

I’ve slept 90 minutes in 21 hours

Moving into delusional territory

I have a quick shower

Making sure not to confuse the bidet with the shower head

Like that time at Singapore airport on the way to Venice Film Festival

I sweat from awkwardness thinking about that memory

I suddenly realise I’m extremely late

I begin running

I almost miss my flight to Kathmandu

When airport staff say “RUN RUN RUN” you know its not looking good

I’m the last one to board and say “sorry” multiple times as a walk on

It’s 11pm in Hong Kong

The flight is 5 hours

And going west (backwards)

There is no way I will sleep

They keep giving me food and I don’t know how to politely decline

Something flashes outside my window to the right

I now understand why storms inspired stories of gods

The dark horizon has orange squiggles of lightning filling it every second

Like Zeus is zapping flies with his fingers

We fly over Kathmandu

There are more storms to the right

More white than orange this time

The clouds seem far more powerful, aggressive

Of course they are

This is the land of the gods

This city is elevated higher than where I go when I adventure in the mountains back in Australia

People from all over the world have flocked here to climb

Many have never left

I’m being flown here to honour that story and legacy

The story of those who dared to climb the Himalayas

The legacy of those who were first to do it

Yet here I am, being flown business class, staying in the Hilton. La-dee-fuckin-da

Not exactly how the climbers struggled back in the 1930’s

The wild actor within yearns to rip the chains off

Prep for 3 months climbing 6000m peaks in order to get my body acclimated

Getting a taste of the reality

So I can honour those whom I pretend to be

I feel a bit pathetic knowing that in my prep this coming week

I most likely won’t even have the time to climb a quarter of the way

The flight begins it’s decent

It’s the middle of the night in Nepal

The mountains are dotted with house lights, but no street lights

I see the houses up close just before we touch down

Where the hell am I?

I didn’t do any research on Kathmandu before arriving

So it’s all a bit of a shock

A shock that I wanted

I walk into the terminal

Okie dokes

Genuinely doesn’t look like anything has been upgraded since the 60’s

Apart from some strung up dusty security cameras

I have gone back in time.

I’m in heaven

Day one

11am

Hardly slept

I open my curtains

Where the hell am I?

Come on Mike

Get out there

“Little steps”

I tell myself

I exit the hotel

And am greeted with rickshaws

Screaming traffic police

Barefoot children

Starving dogs

And more power lines on one telephone pole than the imagination can muster

I wait at the traffic light

It turns red

I get ready to stride

Everyone just keeps riding through

I take 13 minutes

13 minutes

To cross the road

I notice something

I’m strangely anxious

Something feels different

My daughter comes to mind

I turn around and go back to the hotel

This time I cross the road in under 3 minutes.

I’m a bit shaky

I feel embarrassed

I’ve always prided myself on my adventuring

Nature I can do

Trying to cross a road like it’s the Wild West?

Maybe not my cup of tea

That night the cast are meeting up for dinner

They’ve already been here a week

So they understand the ways of the city

“Oh no, you don’t wait for traffic, Mike

You flow into it & with it”

I tuck my arms tightly by my sides and pray as we slide in with the screaming cars and motorcycles

The technique works surprisingly well

Magically everything dodges each other

It starts raining

We hide ourselves under an awning

The monsoon season has started early this year

I wonder if that will impact filming?

We sit down for dinner

“Not spicy” I am told by the kind Nepalese woman

It is more spicy than anything I have ever tried

My eyes flood with tears

I spend 5 minutes drinking a beer to try quell the heat in my mouth

I have worked with 6 out of the 7 actors sitting at the table

The 7th - I know their partner well

This industry is so bloody small

Surprisingly

Most of the cast have young children now

I feel comforted by this

It’s possible to act and parent

A lovely moment of breaking old stories in my mind

Day two

I walk through the streets of Kathmandu

I feel the cobbled stones beneath my feet

I smell the roadside butchers

I have four conversations with randoms

Every one of them starts with “you like Mara Juana?”

It begins to rain again

I hop into a rickshaw for the first time

I tell the rider I have a child waiting for me at home

He laughs

I laugh

Hiding my seriousness

I need to return to Australia with a body that can handle parenting

Squats, shoulder presses, lifts, knees, elbows

All essential

The driver begins to peddle

We start off on our 4km journey home

I realise quickly that I can walk much faster than we are travelling

We ride about 150 metres before he tells me the rickshaw can no longer go further due to the main road ahead

I wonder why he didn’t explain that to me before he agreed to the location

I pay him the full price

And step back into the rain

We say goodbye

He offers me weed once more

My phone is about to die

I have a long walk in the rain

Never did I think I’d be walking the streets of Kathmandu for work

This job is magical

I ask Ed out for dinner

He is the historian on the film

I want to know everything about the man I dare to be playing

I quickly become way more fascinated by him than getting historically accurate information

A life time of being a journalist and travelling war zones

Has made him one of the most fascinating people I have ever met

I watch him well up when thinking about the moments he missed with his daughter due to work

I don’t know why but that makes me well up too

We cheers

After dinner

We walk past a guy on the street holding an AK47

Ed doesn’t flinch so I pretend like I see that every day

I put on a “No big deal” expression on my face

Day Three

I wake in the morning to find out India and Pakistan had conflict last night

Maybe the late night AK holder was in relation to that?

People are worrying about flights being cancelled out of Nepal due to the conflict

I decide not to tell my partner about the news and hope things will quell before my flight home

I continue to walk the streets

I see a monkey

A freaking monkey just hanging out on the road

I miss monkeys so much

They were a strong part of my upbringing in Africa

I miss chasing them with my Jack Russell puppy

They would simply climb a tree and laugh at me

Sometimes urinating on my confused dog

I head to set for a costume fitting

I have never seen so many people hanging out at base camp before

Fifty five caterers

Fifty five

I find a random tree house at lunch time

A Nepalese gentleman comes to join me as it has a beautiful view

I quickly realise who I’m sitting with

My jaw drops

I pretend to be calm

The extraordinary feats this Sherpa has achieved

He’s here to help with the accuracy of the film

He’s the authority on climbing Everest

My god

I seize the opportunity

I ask him

What are the biggest factors which influence summiting an 8000er?

He smiley peacefully

One

Listen to your body

Health is everything and you cannot afford to push yourself

Two

Weather

In other words

Chaos is simply part of the climb

You have to simply focus on what you can control

And keep adjusting around the things you can’t

And three?

Luck

He says you need all three

I take an easy breath thinking how this relates to the journey of an acting career

Without the deadly consequences of a slip up

Day four

I have my meetings in preparation for the shoot

Costume

Accent

History

With the lack of time I am being ruthless with 80/20

What are the most impotent things for me to focus on

That will help me most with giving work that will serve the scenes

As always

I’m an idiot

And on my best days

I’m a curious idiot

But as time moves on

I’m enjoying finding myself treat my colleagues

More like colleagues

Might sound silly

But I grew up in an environment whereby if someone was even just one year older than you

It meant they had status and I wasn’t allowed to refuse them or talk back

So as an immigrant to this country its been a challenge for me in the past

When working with anyone who is older than me (which of course is almost everyone when you’re a fresh graduate)

It’s a nice change

Just feels like its a bit easier to get on with the work these days

Rather than letting fear of speaking up get in the way

Day five

I walk onto set

My scene involves an actress who has been leading a well known TV series for the last eleven years

Immediately I am reminded how kind pros are to themselves

I doubt her kindness toward herself and everyone around her on set

Came after the money and fame

I am reminded of the poster in my old agents office

“Work hard and be nice to people”

On the couch next to me is Ed

They snuck him in for a cameo

We move into the process of rehearsals so the crew can see what they will need to shoot

My body begins its normal process of wanting to vomit

Or run away

Which ever gets me out of the situation faster

Ed whispers in my ear in his exquisitely RP accent

“I’m bloody terrified”

This makes me giggle

I begin to ask him to share some funny stories about historic cock-ups in famous expeditions

Of which I know he will have many

We begin rehearsals

Each take of the scene starts with him whispering funny things into my ear

He realises how easy it is to make me laugh

The whole experience reminds me how much easier it becomes when two things occur

One

Being honest and open about where one is at

And two

Putting ones attention on something, or someone else

The scene takes about 6 hours to film

For privacy reasons I won’t go into too much other detail until the film comes out

Day six

My last day in Kathmandu before flying home

I’m desperate to climb a mountain

I organise a guide

I meet Bikram in the hotel lobby

He was described to me as

“A golem looking creature with a wicked sense of humour”

It’s accurate

We hop in a cab

He makes jokes about Australians right off the bat

We stop for tea

Apparently we have to do this several times during the day

Sure seems like a lot of tea

We keep driving toward the mountains whilst listening to pop music on the radio

Bikram is suddenly half way through a story

About having to pay $10k rupee ($90AUD) to soldiers during the previous cicvil war

Instead of being shot by them

It’s in stark contrast to the song playing on the radio:

It Wasn’t Me - Shaggy

Bikram is worried about the conflict between India & Pakistan

No tourists equals no money for the country

That’s when rice becomes unaffordable

The breaks slam on as the driver narrowly misses hitting a feral dog in the road

We pull over at a check point just as we enter the mountains

Bikram gets out to speak to / bribe the guards in the outpost

I look to my right and see snow capped peaks

I jump out with glee

I pull my phone out and take a photo

Two guards approach me

They both hold M16 assault rifles

“No photos”

They say

I nod and smile showing them I agree

They see the binoculars around my neck and seem intrigued

I take them off my neck and offer them over

One of them takes them suspiciously

He looks out toward the mountains and raises the glass up to his eyes

His face lights up

Like he’s seeing magic

I laugh and nod my head enthusiastically

I pretend not to be nervous about their guns

The binoculars are handed back to me

I get back in the car

I can’t pretend that I’m not somewhat relieved

We get back out and start walking

We trek for a while

I see one peak that looks beautiful

I pull my binos out

“Beautiful mountain”

I say

Both Bikram and the cab driver

(who has decided he will join us for the day)

Burst out laughing

I learn quickly that in Nepal

“Mountains start at 6000 metres”

So I’m effectively looking at their version of a mole hill

Bikram takes us to a cliff

I peer into a valley

“Fucking fog”

He mutters

He organises us some tea from the locals

We pick some berries from the bushes around us

Like mulberries, but orange

I don’t really know what we are doing here

But am content with my berries

The fog begins to lift as the day gets warmer

Bikram lifts his arm and points in a direction

“There”

He says

I look into the distance

I see it

One of the fourteen peaks

I’m looking at an eight thousander

I spend 5 minutes staring at her in silence

She’s beautiful

I turn to Birkram

“Thank you”

I say

“I’m happy”

…

Hope this helps

X