Coming to America

North America’s film and television industry is being hit with a tidal wave of enthusiasm named Ailsa Walsh.

Part-time actor Ailsa has set herself six weeks to make herself known to the people who matter.

“I’m realistic — I’m not going to land a role on the next Batman movie, but my main goal is to meet people and talk to them and know they’ve seen my face,” she said.

“I’m six foot, I’ve got long hair, I’m quite loud and always got something to say. I’m hoping I’ll stand out enough that they’ll remember me.”

Her ‘shock and awe’ game plan is to cram her presence in agents’ minds as well as their contact books, and then wait for an opening.

Ailsa’s shot at the big time began in the first week of June. She enrolled in a month-long, intensive, acting-for-film workshop at the prestigious New York Film Academy.

Actors Al Pacino, Melanie Griffith, Val Kilmer, Jodie Foster and Sharon Stone have all sent family members there to study.

“I wanted to study in New York — that’s where the film schools are, and that’s where Broadway is,” she said.

The Australian Council for the Arts is covering her tuition costs with an ArtStart grant. In fact, Ailsa is the first Indigenous recipient of the grant.

“Professionally, I just want to gain more confidence (with my) screen acting and my speech,” she said.

“I want to gain more confidence and grow some more skin. In Australia, you might get to audition once every few weeks. In New York, there are auditions going every day.

“I want to gain some experience in being competitive and working hard. In New York, everything’s so brutal and up in your face.”

Ailsa’s New York training will be followed up with two weeks of meeting and greeting people from the film and small screen industries. Potential targets include the Canadian television industry in Vancouver — “it’s the end of the television season, which is when they’re looking for fresh faces” — and the movie and TV heavyweights of Los Angeles.

This second phase will range from meetings which her Australian agents have set up with the US counterparts, to “cattle auditions” — auditions where anyone can turn up and try to catch the casting directors’ eyes.

Ailsa will be backed by a suite of professional photos and a show reel. She’s even made up postcards with her face on the front and details on the back, for the people she can’t see face to face.

“My main goal is not to spend one minute sitting down,” she said.

Ailsa is negotiating to have her trip made into a documentary, to show other people how it’s done.

Ailsa’s journey

Acting didn’t enter Ailsa Walsh’s life until she was 19 and saw an ad for an agency that wanted people with “different looks”.

Her first role was in a Beyond Blue video about students with depression.

After other jobs through the agency, she enrolled at the Aboriginal Centre for  the Performing Arts and completed a Certificate III & IV in Performing Arts and a Diploma in Acting. There were several performances at Queensland Performing Arts Centre during her two and a half years there.

Ailsa’s also performed at NAIDOC Week celebrations, at Brisbane’s Metro Arts theatre, and in a lot of community works.

And while the stage work has been a good grounding, Ailsa hopes her acting future lies in television and film.

Curiously, although she’s Aboriginal, Ailsa says she has trouble getting Australian film or screen roles relating to her culture.

“I’m very fair-skinned; I don’t get to play Indigenous roles,” she said. “(Producers and directors) seem to have a particular idea of what Indigenous (characters) should look like.”

Ailsa’s bread-and-butter job is in administration at 98.9 FM Murri Country, Brisbane’s first Indigenous radio station.