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[04 June 2010 @ 5:55pm] |
I welcome myself back to the land of the living.
And by the living I simply mean Los Angeles.
I've left my floating oasis and made my way back to this crazy city to begin filming the next season of Grey's Anatomy. Anyone who saw the finale for this season will know that going into our next season is hard. There is so much emotion left to dig through, so many wounds to heal. We, the cast, still don't exactly know what lies in store as we have yet to see a script. We've heard rumor and ideas, but nothing concrete. We begin filming on Monday so I'll know something then. Of course I could be bluffing and know the entire arc of the entire season already, but I certainly wouldn't tell you that!
Sailing the seas with Stellan (how alliterate of me) was a dream. The weather was beautiful, the seas calm. I truly didn't want to leave. I'm not sure I've ever seen him so happy as when we left port that morning and all that stretched ahead of us was open water and days and days at sea. Spending so much time out on the sea has given me a greater appreciation as to why he enjoys it so much.
My time at sea gave me a lot of time to write as well. I think the crew thought the two of us were crazy, sitting with each other in silence, scribbling away. But I have stuff to show for it!
I give you, an excerpt from my project. The story is written as a series of letters between two friends, this is just a little piece:
Dear Rosie...
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[01 April 2010 @ 9:56am] |
I'm not old. I know that. I'm still in my twenties. But sometimes it feels like i'm older than my time. I think I've always felt like that, maybe its a hazard of the life I led. I remember hating Gabe for a brief period of time because his blossoming career made us move to the United States, when the only United anything I wanted to associate myself with was the United Kingdom. Despite all of the work I do in America I have never gotten used to the place. I am a tried and true European. I've been asked to apply for dual citizenship and every time I refuse. I'm already a citizen of my country, I don't need to be the citizen of another one, one that I don't wish to spend time in. Thats not to say that I don't appreciate what America has to offer. Hell, if I didn't I'd never have met Connor and spent many a lovely evening with him. Connor is a good man, someone I've definitely been missing over time. I appreciate the freedoms and history of America. But it's not my home and it never will be.
As my career progresses, as my life progresses, I find myself less taken in by the glitz and glamour. I love what I do, I love the projects I have lined up and I love working on Grey's, but I'm finding my priorities shifting. I think Stellan's insatiable love of writing has rubbed off on me. I've always been a writer, starting in the orphanage, but I stopped. I went through a very blocked period. I wrote something a while ago, something I never told anyone about. But I haven't done anything substantial since. There was a story I was working on for a while, something I started to get some of those old feeligns and thoughts off my chest and out of my mind. I revisited the story the other day and I realized, I am not the person who started writing those words. I'm stronger, I'm different, I'm older. I have different priorities and perspectives. So I folded up the pages and packed them away. Maybe I'll revisit them, maybe they'll remain hidden forever. But writing is something that I have rediscovered I love. I give that credit to Stellan. He's brilliant, in case you didnt know. He'll say I'm biased, but with the awards he won last night, I think I'm justified in saying that he is. Just let him try and say he's not.
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[01 March 2010 @ 7:51pm] |
We don't ever realize we have something to lose until it has been lost. I received a message from Gabriel the other day, informing me that our great grandmother had passed. To be honest I wasn't sure how I should feel. I never really knew her all that well. I had met her a few times, but as I grew older I tended to keep to myself, only really keeping contact with my parents and Gabriel, and at some points I wasn't even very good at doing that. I often wonder if that made me a bad child; if that made my parents think I didn't appreciate everything they had done for me, everything they had sacrificed. I know they would tell me they sacrificed nothing, but to me that isn't true. I know it was hard for them to let me leave and continue schooling in England. But it was where I wanted to be. My home country has shaped who I am, my adoptive family, my family, rather, has shaped who I am. I know I don't see Gabriel or my parents nearly as often as I should, but we all lead such hectic lives that I think we let it slide.
When I heard about my great grandmother I began to wonder: did my parents, my biological parents, realize what they had given up? Did they realize what they had lost by abandoning me all those years ago? Sometimes I like to think they do. Sometimes I like to think that they see me, see what I've done and know that I'm their child. I hope they don't think they had any part in how I turned out. In this case I believe in nurture vs. nature. I know that how I was brought up has formed me, formed who I am, not whatever genes I have. I know that the people who love me have shaped how I think, have helped me evolve into the woman I am today.
On a happier note, I've been in Canada recently. No, sadly not for any of the Olympic events but filming a little project called Watchmen. Let me begin by saying the wonders of makeup completely terrifies me. They made me look so old! The young woman, who I'm barely older than, who plays my daughter is a complete riot. I have come to adore her, even though we have very few scenes together and she spends most of that disliking me! But now i'm pretty well set with my filming, and I await Stellan's arrival in this cold country for his filming schedule for his incredible project. To the cast and crew, I've had a blast, and I'll still be around, if you've the urge to have some tea with little ol' me. |
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[05 January 2010 @ 11:20am] |
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ONTD
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[27 December 2009 @ 4:51pm] |
It's almost a new year, which is always something I marvel at. Before the end of this year, I've already turned another year old, become a bit wiser and had some far away dreams come true. When the clock hits 12:00am in four days, a new decade will begin and many people will begin to try and keep up with their new year's resolutions.
I've stopped making resolutions that I never seem to keep. I find no joy in it. I always say I'm going to eat healthier, or exercise more often, drink less. And within the first month I'm back to eating complete crap, exercise is the walk from the trailer to the set and I don't drink more I just don't drink any less! I always turn the calendar to February and feel completely inadequate.
So this year I say bollocks to resolutions. I'm simply going to continue living my life better, as I have begun to do. I've had help. It was because of one person in particular that I decided to get past my hangups and do something I haven't done in years. On Christmas morning, I awoke extra early, snuck out of the house and met my parents at their church, surprising them for Christmas morning mass, something I haven't done since Charles died. Love, I have discovered, really can change people. The look on their faces was the best Christmas present I could have ever gotten, the breakfast we shared in a tiny cafe was the best meal I've probably ever eaten. If I can continue to grow this way, I know my life will be more enriched, that I will be a better person to those around me. I'm not a perfect person, I hope I never am. But I've made great strides in just the past few months. I know that I can continue down this path, that my love will only continue to grow.
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[16 November 2009 @ 7:52pm] |
A lot of things feel different in my life. A lot of things feel the same. I'm still in LA and still working on Grey's Anatomy, but not for long. I'm almost wrapped for my scenes. The production always ends a little quicker than normally because of the Thanksgiving holiday. I don't quite understand it but I am grateful for the prospect of being able to go home that much sooner. Because I'm not entirely considered a principal character and I don't have to do the loads of voice over work that our amazing Meredith Grey does, it makes the end of my scenes come that much quicker. Will I be sad when filming has finished until next June? Of course I will! Things have gotten much more familial, much more homelike. With the increase in Lexie's role, I myself as an actress have become much more welcomed. Its not that I was necessarily kept at an arm's length before, but as a character becomes more important to a plot, the actor or actress portraying that role becomes enveloped into the fold. Its almost a rite of passage. So I will be sad to leave them all, to leave behind a world of make believe and constant drama. But when I leave LA I'll be heading home. Home to a place that makes me feel completely sane and completely at peace.
Don't get me wrong. There are other aspects beyond the set that I will miss. I will miss Mel. And I will miss Caleb, whom I have had the recent pleasure of growing close to. They're both incredible, amazing people, despite some opinions and I encourage them to remember the happiness that they both have felt in the recent months and not to lose that. I would give them some advice that someone very wise said to me and tell them to stick with who they love and screw what everybody else thinks. This is advice that I will probably have to remember in the very near future. But it applies to Mel and Caleb and I hope that they both will be as happy in each other as I am for them.
I have a lot of time coming up, time in which I don't have any projects. I'm looking forward to spending that time with people that I love, spending time at my flat, rearranging my life in some ways. A sort of feng shui for the soul. I have a feeling some big changes are coming, changes that I'm ready for, changes that I want. I've always been afraid of change. It hasn't ever been something good for me. But now? I'm ready for change. More than ready.
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[13 October 2009 @ 5:40pm] |
I had a dream last night. Not so much a dream as a nightmare. My dreaming self had woken up and I didn't recognize where I was. I walked out of the bedroom and suddenly it hit me. I was in my adoptive parents house. The ones that had adopted me as an infant and hadn't told me I was adopted until their fighting had gotten so bad that I had to be removed from their care. Even in my sleep I felt the familiar fear washing over me. I could hear their voices, yelling. I could hear glasses breaking and chairs being pushed around the kitchen. I found myself in my old hiding spot on at the top of the stairs, listening, catching glimpses of them. They never hurt me, not directly, but the affects of their fighting is something I think I still deal with. Its a dream I used to have at the orphanage all the time. Where I would wake up crying. I haven't had the dream since...well I actually don't remember the last time I had it. I don't even really know what triggered it. Things are good in my life right now. Sure I'm in Los Angeles, the place I probably hate the most, but I'm spending time with Mel and her friends and that makes the fact that I have to be here less tragic. My work on Greys is feeling very fulfilling right now. The part has grown and become more developed and I am enjoying the long hours more and more. With Mel being a doctor I have an in house fountain of information. I love going home at the end of a very long day of filming and bouncing doctor ideas off of her. I've started imitating her too. Just the way she talks. It was hard, sounding American, after so much time off. For the first few days my throat actually felt like I was trying to rip my vocal chords out with tweezers. But its better now and the jet lag has subsided. So all in all I suppose you could say things are looking up.
I'll be headed back to London in about a week. I'll be on a hiatus from filming and want to spend some time at home. After so long on the yacht I feel like my poor flat has been neglected and needs to be shown some TLC. Not that I didn't utterly enjoy being on the yacht. I haven't spent any amount of time at sea since I was a very little girl, since before the fighting started. So to be back there was, almost like going back to the better parts of my early childhood. Home is something I like to take care of, home is precious. Home is not just a place, its an escape, a feeling of utter contentment. I want to go home. I want to feel surrounded by it.
I haven't decided if I'm going to break up my mini vacation with a trip back to the states for the TCAs. It would be a blast to see Connor and Lucas all in one night, especially since I haven't spent any amount of time with them in what feels like forever. But like I said, I am as yet undecided. I am up for a few awards but I never going into awards season thinking that I'm going to win anything. I'm not a powerhouse so I understand when awards go to more deserving actresses. But its always nice to win, even an ensemble award is nice, which I'm crossing my fingers for for Greys.
Home has a new meaning for me. I don't know when it changed, or when I allowed it to change, but I'm glad it has. I feel different, more fulfilled. And for that I am grateful. More than I can say.
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[19 August 2009 @ 11:25am] |
I'm not going to lie. I've been drinking on and off since midnight. Before anyone freaks out, I've been sitting in Mel's bed drinking. So there's no way that i'm driving or causing anyone harm. Except my own liver. But even my liver doesn't mind. Its better than the alternative.
But I'm in a slightly sober moment and feeling the need to talk. Or type. Write things down.
What is it about love that drives people crazy? I know its supposed to be the most incredible feeling in the world. I know that people yearn for love, strive for love but what does it actually get us? Five years of life practically lost because of paralyzing grief? The abandonment of a child because of the lack of love? How does that make love a good thing? How does that make the need for love important? The thoughts in my head are just swirling around and around and I don't know how to make sense of them. On the one hand I know that I need to just let go and live my life again. Part of me has. But I'm still stuck in the past, still that twenty three year old who was given the most devastating news of her life. I feel selfish for stealing our future from us. If I hadn't wanted to try and become someone, we would have been together. We would have been married. But I continued to work. I continued to pursue my dream. And he wanted it for me. He wanted me to work and to live. But I still blame myself. If I hadn't been in New Zealand, he wouldnt have been on that plane coming to see me. He would have been safe in our flat in London. But I was in New Zealand. And he was on that plane. And he died. For five years I have felt like I killed him. Every year I have lain awake waiting for the clock to turn from 11:59 on August 18th to 12:00 on August 19th. And every year it is always the same. I dont sleep for 24 hours. Not that I sleep all that much the other 364 days of the year. But for one whole day I don't sleep at all. I don't nap. I don't catch any winks. I'm awake. And grieving. For one whole day my grief is overwhelming and I'm completely incapacitated. I know Charles wouldn't want me to do this. I know he doesn't want me to hold on to him as tightly as I do. That he would want me to let go and live. But I can't help it. I know I will always love him.
This year is a little different. When the clock changed and the overwhelming feelings hit me like a ton of bricks, I wasn't alone. Mel was right there with me, with the alcohol that I requested. She drank with me. She hasn't left my side which is oddly comforting. Normally I revel in being alone on this day but her being here has been a giant comfort. I don't know how she puts up with me. But I'm grateful to her. I wish I was back on Stellan's yacht. Its so peaceful there and I think being in the middle of the water would have been a wonderful place for me to fall apart. But I'm not there. I'm here in LA, a place a hate, with a woman I love to death. I want to grieve today and then I want to wake up tomorrow with an open mind and an open heart. I want to be able to hold on to Charles' memory but be able to move forward with my life. I want to go back to Ireland and spend time with one of my best friends. I want to get to know his friends, who I know are taking good care of him when I cannot. I want to be able to open myself up to love again.
I'm going back to drinking now.
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