Mark Evans Studio

Lately I’ve been listening to the West End cast recording of the Benjamin Button musical, and it’s been sitting with me in a way I didn’t expect.  I mean, it’s STUNNING! Really wonderful music. But, what I’m referring to is something else. Like the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the story follows a man who is born old and ages in reverse. Listening to the music this time, I found myself thinking less about the fantasy of it and more about the philosophy behind it. Imagine entering the world with all the wisdom you would ever possess. You already understand what matters. You already know not to waste time. You already know which arguments aren’t worth having, which fears are unnecessary, and which moments deserve your full attention. And then, instead of your body slowly failing you as you age, it does the opposite. Every year you become stronger. More capable. More energetic. More physically free. It completely flips the human experience upside down. Because for most of ...

  I’ve written about ambivalence before, and I’m writing about it again deliberately. Not because I’ve run out of things to say, but because I think it’s one of those emotional experiences we constantly try to rush ourselves out of. We want certainty. We want clarity. We want to know exactly how we feel so we can make a clean decision and move on. But life rarely works that way. It’s one of the most valuable things my therapist ever helped me to understand. Our relationships to people, places, work, versions of ourselves, and even dreams can be deeply complicated. You can love something and still feel exhausted by it. You can miss someone and know they are not good for you. You can be grateful for a place while also wanting to leave it behind. These truths can exist at the same time. Ambivalence is uncomfortable because it asks us to tolerate contradiction. It asks us not to flatten our feelings into something simpler just because simplicity feels safer. Often, when we experience c...

I recently found myself in a long, winding conversation about artificial intelligence and the quiet fear that seems to follow it everywhere. Not the loud, cinematic kind of fear, but something subtler - a shared uncertainty about what comes next. The truth is, no one really knows how much of an impact AI will have on our world. We can make predictions, build models, and speculate endlessly, but the reality is that we are stepping into something fundamentally unpredictable. What struck me most was how this uncertainty lands hardest on young people. Students are choosing degrees, investing time, money, and identity into specific fields, only to face the possibility that those roles may not exist in the same way - or at all - by the time they graduate. Entire career paths could shift or disappear. Jobs that once required years of training might be performed faster, cheaper, and more efficiently by machines. It raises a difficult question: what does it mean to prepare for a future that ref...

  I was listening to Desert Island Discs recently and heard an interview with Oscar winner Jessie Buckley. She spoke openly about her struggles as a teenager - how deeply she felt everything, and how hard it was to contain that constant urge for big emotional expression. It made me reflect on something many actors and artists experience: we’re often required to feel more intensely than the average person. Of course, that doesn’t make those feelings any easier. In fact, being a sensitive artist can feel overwhelming - big, heavy, and, at times, inconvenient. There are moments when it might seem easier not to feel so much at all. And yet, our work gives those feelings purpose. Ours is one of the only professions where life’s challenges - and everything we learn from them - can be transformed into something meaningful. A bank teller doesn’t need to channel grief to do their job. An actor does. When a character is grieving, we are called upon to access something real, something lived. ...

I kicked off Thursday night's class last week by asking everyone to share one time they have felt tremendous joy as an actor in their lives. It reminded us all why we fell in love with this thing we’re so passionate about and allowed the class to be laid back, fun and playful - Joy filled! As actors - myself included - it’s easy to drift into a mindset where we’re chasing outcomes instead of experiences. We start measuring ourselves by bookings, callbacks, or how we think we’re being perceived. In that space, joy becomes conditional. It becomes something we earn, rather than something we bring with us. But the truth is, when joy leaves the room, our work suffers. We tighten, we overthink, and we lose the very thing that makes our performances compelling. When we prioritise joy, everything opens up. We give ourselves permission to play again. We take risks without the fear of failure looming over every choice. We listen more deeply, respond more honestly, and allow ourselves to be s...

  Last night while teaching, a thought surfaced that felt simple but powerful and seemed to really resonate with the students in class: “If you find yourself questioning ‘Am I worthy?’ find a way to make the answer ‘Yes!’” Most people experience moments where their inner critic gets loud. It might sound like doubt, insecurity, or that quiet voice that asks whether we’re good enough. In those moments, the mind can become a courtroom where our confidence is put on trial. Too often, we let our insecurities present all the evidence. But what if we approached those moments differently? Instead of letting the question “Am I worthy?” spiral into self-doubt, we can treat it as an invitation to act. The goal isn’t to silence the question. The goal is to create an answer. When your mind asks whether you’re worthy, ask yourself a better question: “What can I do right now that would make the answer yes?” Sometimes the answer is small. Show up with integrity. Do the next task well. Help someon...