The Actor is, unsurprisingly, focused on an actor, Adam Sealey. He is the sole narrator in our book, switching from the present, where he is on the verge of realising his life’s dream; to the past where he was shaped as an actor at a highly prestigious acting school. The Conservatoire, and it’s notable teacher, Jonathan Dors, are enthusiastic proponents of method acting. Adam is the damaged product of his childhood. Aristotle’s quote, “Give me a child until he is 7, and I will show you the man” has never been more appropriate. While Adam’s brilliance is revered, his methods and behaviour are a huge cause for concern. As the story progresses, we know there is something big coming, a traumatic event that will have long reaching effects for many. I found it compulsive reading, as I was desperate to learn what had transpired. You can almost feel Adam’s and Jonathan’s brooding intensity seep through the pages into your skin. Rampant paranoia, professional jealousy and rivalry are rife. This book strips off the glamorous veneer of the acting world, and reveals so much ugliness and desperation beneath. Adam is a walking oxymoron, insecure, needy, with the possession of an underlying arrogance. There is such an intensity to this book. The story is compelling, disturbing, dripping with dark obsession, but the jury is still out on whether I enjoyed it or not. The thought of using past trauma and pain as a currency, is alien to me. Everywhere you look in this book, there is tension. I found the book to be a challenging to read, due to its emotional brutality. 4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In The Actor Chris MacDonald shows how well he understands the actor’s drive for that ultimate performance and his central character, Adam Sealey, devotes everything he has to achieving the most realistic performance he can muster. The Actor is a dual timeline story, beginning with the present when actor Adam Sealey is on the cusp of achieving the ultimate actor’s accolade – an Oscar. As he waits for the ceremony he is abruptly pulled back into the past to recall everything that has gone before and to understand what impact his training and behaviour has had on those around him. Central to his success, Adam believes, was his drama school mentor, Jonathan Dors. Dors is an unlikeable character. He drove his students hard, goading them and pitting them against each other in order to get the best performances. A proponent of method acting he drove his students to recapture and relive an event from their past and to pull out truthful feelings from that; to rise to an explosive moment, at will, in a scene. He challenged his students at the London Conservatoire to use experiences from their own lives to motivate their characters’ behaviour. As we look back on Adam’s life we understand his background, the life events that shaped him and how he is willing to go the extra mile to achieve his heart’s desire; eschewing everything else, even the people closest to him. Adam himself gave up his likeability to strive for the best performance. In this he was egged on by Jonathan Dors whose cruelty as a tutor is both manipulative and excessive. Even so, ro this day Adam still relies on him to get his best performance onto the screen. It is his past at the Conservatoire that Adam has to relive, when a secret from that time threatens to bring down all the success he has worked so hard for. Verdict: Chris MacDonald has written an incredibly raw and emotive psychological thriller. His characters are often truly unlikeable, but this is like watching a car crash – you just can’t tear your eyes away. MacDonald strips away the glamour of Hollywood and leaves the pain starkly in front of us. This is a bleak, tension fuelled read from a writer who understands both his characters and the craft of acting. It is raw, intense, powerful and compelling.

I found this title a little confusing at first and was not sure it was going to engage me BUT as I tuned in to the time frames and began to understand how Adam Sealey became his characters in his films I became fully engaged. The main characters were fully explored - Jonathan Dors would stop at nothing to get the best from the actors he trained. He was happy to pit his students against one another and would stop at nothing to draw out what he considered to be the best method of achieving what he wanted. It seems that the less talented students like Nina can see how much damage Jonathan causes and tries to stop the damage that is done. This became quite a compulsive read. Many thanks to Netgalley for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

Life appears to be going well for Method actor Adam Sealey, an Oscar frontrunner on the back of another stellar performance in his latest film. However, thanks to an internet tormentor, demons from the past are reawakened and Adam is determined to find out who this person is. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about Adam’s experiences at drama school and the gruelling methodology foisted upon the students. An enjoyable novel with plenty of twists and turns and interesting ruminations on how far the artist should go in pursuit of perfection in their art.

‘To Achieve Greatness, He Must Sacrifice Everything’ - cover tag line. My thanks to Michael Joseph Penguin Random House U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Actor’ by Chris MacDonald. British actor Adam Sealey has secured a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his edgy performance in ‘The Woodsman’, a film directed by his controversial former mentor, Jonathan Dors. Adam had studied ‘the method’ at The Conservatoire, a prestigious U.K. drama school that encouraged its students to dig into their darkest, most personal traumas in order to bring a role to life. Adam has a dark secret dating back to his time at The Conservatoire. He receives a message that indicates that someone knows. If they reveal it to the media, everything that Adam has worked for will come crashing down. The novel moves between two timelines: Adam’s present day and his time at The Conservatoire in the mid-1990s. The author plays his cards close to his chest with respect to Adam’s past. It’s hard to categorise ‘The Actor’ as it’s not a traditional thriller. I consider it more a psychological suspense with a perceptive peek behind the scenes of the acting profession from theatrical training to the glamour of Hollywood. Chris MacDonald is himself an actor and has written that his novel was inspired by his experiences at a prestigious drama school. This insider knowledge is apparent throughout the novel. While I didn’t find Adam a particularly sympathetic lead character, his journey through the hyper-competitive world of film production was certainly fascinating. Overall, I found ‘The Actor’ a compelling drama that held my attention throughout.