Don't worry, be successful

By JULIE MIDDLETON

You might have more in common with actress Danielle Cormack than you think. Okay, so your CV doesn't include performing hilariously realistic orgasms on stage in front of hundreds (The Vagina Monologues) or swimming in vats of milk for the cameras (The Price of Milk).

Cormack, 31, is one of 300,000 New Zealanders who are self-employed; like any engineer, consultant, artist or musician working for themselves, she hopes there'll generally be more flow than ebb.

The prospect of slow times used to wind the West Auckland-based actress into knots of anxiety. It happens infrequently now.

Fretting and feeling "incredibly anxious about where your next job is going to come from doesn't do you any favours at all", says Cormack over lunch at Auckland's Viaduct Harbour.

"It disables you creatively - it disabled me creatively [in the past]," she adds. "And it's not a very inviting kind of energy. Desperate people get a very wide berth - it's human instinct."

She laughs. It's a throaty laugh, self-deprecating. Worry "didn't get me anywhere except further away from where I wanted to be, which was relaxed and open enough to stumble across jobs - or open enough for people to approach me about work".

And when she is working, it's go hard or go home. "When I'm working now, I like to work bloody hard. It gives me satisfaction to work hard. While I'm there I put my all into it - constantly thinking of the job, the role, the characters, the story as a whole, not just my part in it.

"When I'm not working, I'm not working! Where does worry get you? It's never got me anywhere."

But Cormack - tawny hair tumbling down, wearing blue denim jeans and jacket - admits that despite a fairly unshakeable self-belief, she does still have a plan B for the days when confidence takes a dive.

Then, she says, "I've gone back to myself and worked out what it is I really want, what I really need to have in my life.

"I know that I'm one of the luckiest people in the world - I have health and a roof to sleep under."

If finances demand it - she has a 6-year-old son, Ethan, and a mortgage - she can dig drains, she says.

"It's a matter of perspective - constantly adjusting your perspective to fit in with what is actually happening in the world.

"I know that I can act ... [but] if the work isn't there for me, I'll do something else until there is work."

For Cormack, something else has been about expanding her repertoire. To fill gaps between theatre and film, she's started doing advertisements - she has to like the product and the plan before she'll assent - and voice-overs.

And she's just completed some "experimental" work - which means she won't give details - in Wellington with double Oscar-winner Richard Taylor, boss of Lord of the Rings' special effects team, and Hercules and Xena producer Eric Gruendemann.

Cormack workshops plays with Auckland Theatre Company's Second Unit, and next April stars in the company's production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, based on the story of a male student and art gallery guard who becomes the unwitting subject of an art student's project of transformation.

Cormack is not a graduate of the New Zealand Drama School, unlike many of her colleagues. She was a drama queen - "it was just fun" - long before her first formal after-school drama class at the age of 9 or 10.

"Even at primary school I remember raiding my mother's wardrobe and taking all her pantyhose to school and dressing people up - stuffing the pantyhose full with other things and giving people extra appendages, writing my own plays for them to perform at school and directing my own plays.

"It's just my passion."

Cormack's first paid job was an in-house video - she can no longer remember who for - but doesn't recall ever making a conscious decision to be an actor.

What she does recall is the acting-is-not-a-real-job line from those around her. "But [acting] has always been a natural part of who I am and what I've done.

"It's constantly surprisingly to me ... that I've managed to stay employed thus far. And I don't mean that in a self-effacing way, either - I'm really happy because I love it and I'm encouraged that people find me appealing to work with."

Cormack left school a couple of weeks into the seventh form, trading Auckland's arty, liberal Selwyn College for several series of the 80s soap Gloss, which she'd been doing on and off since fifth form.

A few years of travel overseas followed before she joined Shortland Street for a year.

Cormack attaches the word "career" to what she does, though it's a sort of anti-definition: "Everything else I ever tried I've been crap at. "

She nods vigorously at a suggestion that the best thing about getting older is that others' opinions - on personal and professional matters - matter less.

She has learned to take scrutiny of personality and performance in her stride, though admits she's never been completely able to "live up to my personal embargo on reviews".

But "it's much more important to me that my friends and the people I do it for really enjoy it, not the critics.

"We look down strange avenues for confirmation that what we're doing is the right thing.

"You don't need to look anywhere else than at yourself: am I enjoying this or not? Do I believe I did good in this or not?

"It's pretty basic. Do I feel I gave it my best shot? Do I feel like this work is good? Do I not? If not, what can I do to improve it?"

Downtime for Cormack is shared with Ethan, whose gestation featured in the film Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, painting - "not seriously" - walking, reading and going to the movies. And sewing.

She just loves sewing - from cushion covers to clothes - and seems surprised that the person she's telling doesn't ridicule her.

She hopes that her personal journal will one day offer enough material for a film.

Cormack also volunteers for a social services charity.

Still, it's a necessarily frugal lifestyle. Enough is coming in to cover the mortgage and bills, and "I'm not in a position where I'm constantly anxious about my financial state".

Of course she daydreams of "having heaps of money ... fantasising about having property up north, my town apartment and a flash car.

"But if it doesn't happen I'm not going to break my back. If it's meant to be it's meant to be."

Ask Cormack what values drive her work and the answer is immediate: "While you reach for the stars, don't forget to smell the flowers at your feet."

It's a line from one of the last letters a late friend sent to Cormack: "That kind of attitude resonated with me," she says. "And you can paraphrase it till the cows come home - 'stay real, brother', or 'keep your feet on the ground'. I believe in that. It's the only way I've managed to get this far.

"I respect myself more and in turn I respect other people more, and they respect me more. It doesn't matter whether you're an actor, an artist, a banker - it's really important, knowing yourself."

Danielle Cormack's guide to being your own boss

* Diversify; define what you do more broadly to attract more work.

"What else can I do with what I know?" Cormack, for example, sees acting as another 'department' within a wide range of creative industries.

* Have faith in your skills. The things that most scare - rather than disinterest or bore you - are precisely the ones you should try, says Cormack.

"That's an indication you've got to give it a go. It might liberate you".

* Understand that everyone works at different paces: "Everyone has their own journey and does [things] in their own time."

* Go hard or go home.

"When you work, work hard. When not working, stay real."