Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors. --Konstantin Stanislavsky

Pat Heywood was a Scottish character actress who died last year at 92. She trained as an actress at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and started her acting career as a stage actress. She was a character actress cast in supporting roles throughout her career. She was active in stage, screen, and television roles from 1954-1993. She is best remembered for her performance as the Nurse in Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet in 1968. She had a small, uncredited role in the Battle of Britain in 1969. She played Ethel Christie, the wife of the British serial killer John Christie, in 10 Rillington Place in 1971. I remember her in these roles, seeing her in Romeo and Juliet, The Battle of Britain and 10 Rillington Place in the 1970s  at the cinema and on television. She had the characteristics of a successful character actress--someone you knew you had seen before when you saw her on screen but could not readily recall her name. She was good at what she did.

I am a kindred spirit. I am a character actor trained in stage and screen acting techniques. I am good at what I do; I am a capable character actor. I audition for supporting roles and character parts in theatre and film. I relish the challenge of bringing the characters to life in scenes whose roles help advance the plot. I took to heart what Konstantin Stanislavski noted more than a century ago: "Remember: there are no small parts, only small actors." Mika and I attended a play at the Gladstone Theatre many years ago. As we stood in the lobby waiting for the house to open, two men looked our way. I wondered if I knew them from somewhere and could not place them. Eventually, they approached us, and one asked my pardon for staring. He explained that he was sure he had seen me on stage at the National Arts Centre and the Ottawa Little Theatre. At that stage of my acting career, I had done neither, but it felt like I was on my way to becoming a successful character actor--someone you knew you had seen before when you saw him on screen but could not readily recall his name. Like Pat Heywood, I want to amass some screen and television acting credits and be remembered as a successful character actor.