I was gone from the film industry… but was I?

Many, many years ago, when I first got in touch with the enigma and wonder that is CJ Walley, we were both on a similar trajectory, except that man was about 20 miles (and half a decade) ahead of me. 

But I was just starting out in film. I had written a few scripts, made a few shorts, met a few people. And things snowballed (as they are supposed to in our careers). 

And then I got to make films, and then I got to run a film festival, and then I was involved in an agency, and then I got to be a judge at a prestigious screenwriting festival, and a guest lecturer at a film school, and suddenly I was hired internationally on blockbuster projects, and suddenly I had an Oscar winner’s phone number in my Whatsapp contact list. And zooms with Hollywood execs. 

And then… 

A project failed, and then another. And those failures would not have bothered me so much, I was still being hired, I was still working, I was still dreaming and achieving. Failures are a part of the business, and they shape us. 

So one morning in July last year, I was on a zoom call with a promising young French actor about a project in France. It was the usual: an independent film with high potential. We’d have to be plucky about it. We’d have to be artistic about it. Make bold choices. 

We talked shop, expressed mutual admiration and the hopes that we’d soon be working together and on set in the French countryside. 

I closed my laptop, looked outside into the peaceful Irish countryside. And cried. 

I had been working to get into the industry for four years. My early successes came so quickly. I optioned my first script only a year or so after I started writing screenplays. My third ever script got into the finals at Nicholl. I was working with that Oscar winning producer three years into my career. 

I had been to Cannes, I had been introduced to the great and the good. I was… here, I had arrived, I was making a film in France… surely, this was… it? This was what I wanted? 

I had wanted to be in film since I was a tiny babychild, watching Bollywood films in an overcrowded cinema in the baking heat of India. I had wanted to be a filmmaker since I could remember. On my bedroom door when I was 15, there hung a printout of a job description for “director”. 

So why could I not stop crying? 

Why did the thought of having to go through the entire process of making that French film not make me happy? 

I was creatively not burned out. I had fresh ideas pouring into me and out of me at every turn. I didn’t feel burned out by work, either. I felt as though if I could get projects started, I could surely finish them? 

But something held me back. Something in me told me that, no. Not now. Take a breath. Take a moment. 

You need a break. 

We often underestimate just how absolutely difficult life in our industry is. It is soul-destroying, bone-crushing work. And that’s why so many of us don’t do it for the long run. We get chewed up. Thrown out. Give up. 

And you know what?
That’s okay. 

Yes, really. It is. 

It is okay to not do anything for a minute. It is okay to say NO to a project (yes, really, it is). 

An old friend of mine once said these words to me, and they’ve stuck with me for ever. He had just finished working on his first feature, and was also slightly crushed by the experience. So was I. I was a bit down in the dumps, I hadn’t written anything in a few weeks, and it was starting to bother me. 

And he said. 

If you don’t write or do anything, ever again, I will still love you. You will have still been an artist.

I will have been an artist, at the end. I will have been a filmmaker. 

So for the 12ish months that followed, I wrote very little. I was not on a single film set. I barely got in touch with industry people. 

I was still teaching film and screenwriting, and I was still being hired here and there. The commissions, I finished to the highest standard I possibly could, but I did not pursue any fresh projects out of my own passion. 

It wasn’t that the passion was not there. I love film. It is my entire lifeblood. Writing is who I am. But I very deliberately hit the pause button. Not because I had no energy. But because I very deliberately and with a purpose wanted to make sure that the energy I did have would last. I was taking stock of my reserves. I was evaluating just exactly what I wanted. 

Not just from my film career, but from my personal life as well. 

And in that year, I moved back to my favourite place in the Irish countryside, after having spent the last 3 years travelling the world. I started a committed relationship. Saved money. My father died. I came to terms with a lot of other personal things. I took up more activism and worked with more charities, and did a lot more of my advocacy work (I work with people who have come through sexual violence). 

But does that mean that I am now no longer a filmmaker? 

Absolutely not. 

I can feel the pause ending, now. I can feel something shifting in the air. Next month, I am meeting an interesting artist from Paris. And I might just give that promising young French actor a call. And… should I book Cannes? 

I think I should. 

We don’t become less of who we are just because sometimes the path diverges. It’s toxic to think that the hustle and ONLY the hustle is what gets us there. Your path will get you to where it needs to go. Trust the process. Trust the pause. 
 

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When we think about the continuous hustle, we often forget that the pause is just as important. In the last year, I have done many things, but most of them below the surface. Most of them on the inside. 

Art comes from energy. And that energy needs to be harvested and given room to grow and prosper. 

I always find that when my life is full, when I get to do things… that sparks more within me. So when our lives become soft, and when they become mellow, it is a good opportunity to take that time to recharge. 

I am working on lots of exciting things for the rest of the year, but looking back to a time when most of my work was internal is just as gratifying. Even if it’s hard to post snapshots from internal milestones. 

Tomorrow is a very external milestones, so I’ll finally have some actual snapshots to share.