One of Scotland’s leading screen stars has revealed she is considering turning her back on acting due to a lack of work.
Shauna Macdonald, who made her screen debut more than 25 years ago, said she was “seriously considering” how long she would be able to keep acting.
Macdonald, whose most recent credits have included the dramas Mayflies and Shetland, and the sitcom The Scotts, said she was at “a bit of a loss” on how to continue in the industry when there was so little work.
Read More:
- The Future of Scotland on Screen - all articles here and all you need to know
- Future of first big-budget Gaelic drama 'hangs in balance'
- Outlander boosts Scottish 'screen tourism' value to £140m
- Scottish producers urge funding rethink to 'stay afloat'
- Why Scottish TV is held back by 'English wife syndrome'
The Edinburgh-based star said she only had 12 days of screen work over the last year, on the forthcoming Channel 4 thriller Summerwater, which she will appear in along with fellow Scots Dougray Scott, Shirley Henderson, Shereen Cutkelvin, James Harkness and Silvie Furneaux.
Macdonald, a BAFTA Scotland winner, she was considering going into education full-time after a decade with a “side hustle” as artistic director of the Portobello-based Edinburgh Youth Theatre project.
However she admitted she was concerned about how future generations of actors would be able to sustain careers in Scotland.
In an exclusive interview with The Herald, Macdonald said she was “really angry” at suggestions the Scottish screen industry is thriving based on the number films and TV shows that have been getting made recently.
She claimed many of the productions of film and TV in Scotland recently have been bringing in cast and crew from elsewhere, with roles going to actors who are seen to have appeal to “mainstream” audiences.
Macdonald said: “I’m not working very much at all now and mostly survive on teaching money.
“I filmed for 12 days on Summerwater in January and February, but that’s all I’ve had this year. That’s not without me trying to get work.
“Stuff is getting made in Scotland, but there is never enough, and production companies are not necessarily using cast and crew within Scotland.
“We may be hosting productions, but that doesn’t make a huge difference to people who are trying to live in Scotland and work in the screen industry.
“People think the industry is thriving, but among my friends in the industry everyone is despairing at the moment.
“I feel at a bit of a loss for the first time in a long while.
“I’ve spent the last 10 years working really hard with young people. But now I am thinking: ‘What are they getting into?’."
Macdonald made in her screen debut in 1999 when she won a role in the film The Debt Collector, starring opposite Billy Connolly when she was only 17.
She went onto to appear in the feature films Wedding Belles, The Rocket Post, Filth, The Descent, Moon Dogs and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. TV roles have included State of Play, Case Histories, Outlander, The Nest and Annika.
Macdonald has also worked extensively in theatre, most recently in the plays Mouthpiece and Two Sisters, at the Traverse and Royal Lyceum theatres in Edinburgh respectively.
She told The Herald: “There is not enough work for me now. If there’s not enough work for me and I’m considered to have done well how on earth can we support people who just don’t get seen for stuff?
“I’m a 44-year-old woman with kids. I’m seriously considering how long I can have acting work and also look after my kids.
“I’m very fortunate that I’ve had a side hustle over the last 10 years. My side hustle may end up taking over. I may end up just going into education, which would be a real shame.
“I’m meant to be one of the lucky ones, as I’ve got great screen credits behind me, but I can’t survive. I just can’t do it.
“It just makes me really angry. I have spent a lot of time feeling really energised by that anger, then feeling really impotent about it all. I feel like I am just shouting into the wind.
Macdonald said the Scottish screen industry needed “shaken up” to ensure that cast, crew and creative teams based in Scotland were able to sustain long-term careers.
She added: “I got my first job when I was 17 then went to drama college in Scotland.
“It was excited for me to go to London after I graduated. You had to do that if you wanted to have a screen-based career. The whole shebang was down there.
“You don’t have to do that now, geographically and logistically. We’ve got great casting directors and agents here.
“We’ve got productions that are coming here, but it’s about making sure that cast, crew and creative teams can live in Scotland.
“There seem to be no risks taken now. Creative choices seem to have been diluted. It’s all about safe bets.
“More needs to get made. Different types of things need to get made. One-off things and shorter things need to get made. People will watch lots of different stories. We are interested in so many different things.
“The industry needs to change. It needs to be shaken up. More doors need to be opened for everyone. It’s not just about getting more young folk work in. I’ve spent 10 years of my life creating spaces for that.
“But my friends and I need to survive. We love Scotland and we love telling stories here.
“We’ve got the talent, we’ve got the business sense and we’ve now got the studios in Scotland to have an amazing, thriving industry that can cater for everybody in Scotland and can welcome in people from around the world.
“I just don’t understand why we are not uber-focused on that as a country.”
Macdonald has spoken out a month after Monarch of the Glen and Granite Harbour star Dawn Steele told The Herald that she was experiencing her quietest ever period for TV work. She returned to the stage for the first time in more than a decade in a show at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Steele said at the time: “I’ve worked my whole career. I’ve not stopped. I know I’ve been really lucky.
“But it’s been really quiet recently. A lot of actors are not working at the moment. It is a bit of a buyer’s market. People can pick and choose who they want.
“There is less money around. People are being very picky about what is getting made. There is just less getting made and there is less work. It just filters down.”
Share