Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jacqui Sim. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jacqui, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

As an actor, one of the key things I have learned (among many others!) is how acting is not just about the craft, but having knowledge of technical aspects.

In one of my first TV guest roles I landed, I had very little on-set training and experience. I remember starting to talk when a scene was still rolling. It was a scene where I was being filmed through a window and the actors on the other side of the window were still delivering lines. I was asked by the actor I was with to wait til they said “cut.” In that same show, I was laughing between takes and my head would move and my hair got slightly messy. I realised each time I did that, the hair and make-up person had to touch everything up again. I also moved my chair a bit to ‘be more comfortable’ and learned that once you have your mark, you can’t just go about moving it as they have to either redo everything or get you back to your spot. These were a few of the simple lessons I learned that day. I came away thinking that I was happy the director was pleased with my work, but how it’s not enough to know how to act. I needed more training on the technical aspects so that I could be respectful to the process and not waste too much time.

Since doing other acting jobs, I’ve also realised the importance of communication. Sometimes people forget things or I would be doing a summer scene in the midst of winter. Alerting an assistant that I need a jacket in between takes is okay. Or doing another job in the sweltering heat to have water between takes if needed. While I don’t want to be asking for things all the time and interrupting everything, it’s important to speak up if you need something. Also getting to know the director’s style. Some directors have very specific ideas and some have wanted me to just use my creativity to ‘see what I would come up with.’ Being flexible as an actor helps a lot.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am an actor who has also worked in other industries at the same time as pursuing my acting career. I feel this gives me a greater understanding of various roles, having worked in so many different areas. In Australia I worked as a locum social worker as well as an actor. Being a locum meant I could help out various companies who needed support for a few months here and there but had the flexibility for me to take time for auditions and acting work at the same time. In the UK I worked as a joint investigations child protection social worker (working in collaboration with the police) and also did stage productions. In LA I’ve had various jobs while also pursuing acting, such as teaching improv to adults, working in a preschool, video editing, curriculum development, voiceover and more.

I started acting as a child when my mother showed me a commercial on television and asked if I wanted to do what that child was doing and I said yes. I continued with classes, TV and stage work and auditioning. I took a break for some years in my twenties while I went to university and when I got to the UK I realized that I missed acting a lot. A friend encouraged me to start pursuing it again to see where it took me and I’ve been acting ever since.

While I do enjoy the stage, my focus is more so on TV and film work. I have had about 9 years of training in improvised comedy, which I think really helps with auditions and acting, especially in some jobs where I have been asked to improvise and some of those scenes have been my best work.

Because I love both drama and comedy, I feel a dramedy would be my ideal job, the best of both worlds! I have been in a number of commercials too and I love the freshness that each opportunity brings and enjoy bringing my natural energy to each new role. Something that I feel is important, regardless of the role, is that I am true to myself and part of doing my best work is feeling authentic to the role, finding truth in the story and reasons to justify being that character so it comes across naturally.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn comparisonitis. Over the years I would compare myself to others, feeling worse if someone was better at me than something. Sometimes I opted not to do something because someone else wasn’t doing it, or someone else was doing it but I thought they were better than me. Or I would get FOMO (fear of missing out) if someone did something I didn’t feel was right for me; I would then suddenly get interested, even if it wasn’t the best fit for me. I finally learned to compare myself to myself. It’s easy to find someone more experienced and talented than me but it’s also easy to find someone who is behind me in their journey. My sense of self-worth and esteem should not be based on others’ journeys, success and failures, but on my own.

A key question I decided to ask myself is, “Have I improved from where I was a month ago?” Usually the answer would be yes. This is because I have worked hard, I have learned lessons and skills, I have moved the needle forward on my growth journey, not just as an actor but in personal growth too. Also, what we see on the outside of where someone is at, regardless of whether we judge it as “good” or “bad” is only the surface. We don’t know what they did to get there or what struggles they have faced. Their journey is theirs. And my journey is mine. My journey is unique to me.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

A question I have heard often (and I know other actors have heard this too) is, “what have you been in lately?” and a belief that seeing an actor on screen or stage is the only work we do. There is so much more that goes into acting. The audition process itself takes time and planning and creativity, especially since the pandemic where so much audition time is spent doing self-tapes. Now the actor is not only auditioning, but often directing, setting up their filming space, sourcing a reader, editing and producing, and that is just the audition before even having a guarantee of the role. There is also a lot of time spent training, not to mention marketing and updating websites and networking, among other things.

I have also had people not understand that an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) means we literally cannot tell people what we are working on. Yet, we respect other industries that have privacy agreements. I would love for people to understand that as an actor we can’t always share information, as much as we would love to. It also means sometimes working unusual hours or not being able to attend certain social events because of the other commitments we have. It doesn’t mean we don’t care about other people, it’s just the nature of the job.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jacquisim.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacquisimhirsch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cheekyjacqui
• Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user136845493

Image Credits
Headshots by Ryan Stroud On set for “The Society” On set for “Hidden Beasts” “What’s Cookin’?!” at TwoTopia Show, The Clubhouse Zoom improv show with Hardly Working Improv at We Make Movies Narrator – ArtwoRx