A Voice for All

It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you’re from, what colour you are, gender, creed, religion... nothing is more human than fear. And boy, am I terrified right now. I wish the people around me would stop stabbing at me, jabbing me, asking me questions, but this is my life now. I wish someone would ask me if I’m okay. I’m not ready for this. A very nice lady is still dabbing at my wet forehead with powder, but no amount of powder is going to stop the anxious sweating I’ve had since I can remember. No amount of lipstick is going to stop my lips from trembling. No amount of water will stop my throat from drying out. Nothing can stop my hands from shaking so obviously, or my fingers from leaving sweaty prints all over the thick, creamy paper of my speech notes. See, I went from Plain Jayne Cowgill to Super-rich-and-famous-Jayne in what feels like overnight. Nothing prepares you for something you didn’t even realise was happening to you. Now they’re annoyed because my dress is sticking to my back.  

When I think back to how I got here, I baulk. So many factors I could have said ‘no’ to, but I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t actively seek any of this out.  

I was twenty-six when it started. I was happy, taking a holiday from my well-paying job, spending time on myself. I had hobbies, about three different friendship groups, and enough enjoyment in my life that I felt contented. But I'd perhaps become a little too contented. A little too safe in my little comfort zone.  

It was a beautiful morning as I walked around the town. There was a buzz in the air that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I didn’t care so much about it. I walked, listening to the sounds of the town, the cars, the bicycle bells, the shouts of shopkeepers to their friends on the other side of the road. Life. Sounds of life. I turned down a street, meaning to go to the local library for some more books, since I was doing a social media cleanse and had rediscovered the joy of reading. As I turned another corner, I noticed an exceptionally long queue outside the local sports stadium. Odd. I hadn’t seen any upcoming sports matches, and our town was renowned for rugby because apparently our team was incredible, for a small-town team anyway. I walked along the line, not wanting to cross the road... until I saw how long the line stretched on for. And, as the library was blocked off by the line... I had to follow it. Barriers had been set up, so someone obviously expected this.  

“Excuse me? What’s happening here?” I asked someone as I approached the bit where I was supposed to be able to get through.  

“Open auditions,” the girl smiled toothily at me. “People have camped out for it.” 

“Oh... what for?” The girl didn’t respond to me because the line moved, and apparently the thought of being three steps closer to the entrance meant more to her than clarifying. I shrugged, and asked if I could get through so I could go to the library.  

“Sorry, love, you have to go round that way. There are signs. You’re the fourth person in the last half-hour to ask,” a man smiled at me. I thanked him, grumbled, and continued walking. As I went, I saw a man talking to people in the line, and a woman holding a clipboard. He was chatting with people as they went, asking them things by the looks of it. I sighed, beginning to cross the road when he spied me. I didn’t have time to add another charity to my monthly outgoings, I was stretched to the limit as it was...  

“Hey! Hi! Excuse me! Red bag!”  

I stopped, and turned. The man was running at me. I wasn’t afraid. There was about fifty thousand people in a line behind him, watching us.  

“Can I help you?”  

“Hi, yeah, sorry – were you waiting in the queue?”  

“No, I wasn’t.”  

“Oh... it’s just that you are EXACTLY what we’re looking for!” The man gave me a huge grin. “Are you busy at all today?”  

At this point, words from my best friend rang loud and clear in my ear. ‘You’re such a No Man. Say Yes more! Be a Yes Man!’ This had all started with Nellie since we’d had a Jim Carrey movie binge one weekend, and since then she’d become a ‘Yes Man’ and started living. I still loved the word no. As this man looked at me with hopeful puppy eyes, I found myself saying no... 

“I’m not busy, no.”  

“Excellent! Would you mind coming for a short audition, then? It’ll take an hour or two, tops!”  

“Sure thing.” I never openly said ‘yes’, but I still found myself being frog-marched past the line of people into the stadium’s large double-doors. A woman took down my name and my date of birth, and another man took my photos, one from the front, one from each side (all close-ups), and then a last one full body from front and both sides. I was glad I’d worn my nice jeans, for a change.  

The first man, who’d introduced himself as Mick, short for Mitchell, handed me a paper and told me to sit on the chair directly in front of a camera, and a table with two people – another man, named Christopher, and a woman named Maria, who was Greek.  

“Alright, Jayne, thanks for being here today. We’re going to record you today, just to see how you come across on camera, but also so we can look back at your audition and make a judgement later on. Do you consent to that?” 

“Yeah, I signed all the forms earlier.” 

“Great, we just want to make sure you’re still comfortable doing this, is all.” He treated me to a kind smile. “You’ve a script there, we just want you to take a moment while we set the camera up on you, just read it over and see what you feel the words are saying to you. Figure out what this character means to you.” I nodded. “And then we’ll have you read it to us in character. And then after, if we ask you some questions, we want you to stay in character, alright? We’ll tell you when we’re done.” 

“Alright.” I looked down, the words typed out neatly and clearly. It was a short monologue, and while there was no guidance for any emotion or movement, the words made me feel like the person speaking them would be passionate, perhaps angry, perhaps starting a movement for change. This person was powerful, but also trapped, trying to break free. It reminded me, in the end, of the scenes in the final Hunger Games movies, where Jennifer Lawrence has to rouse the people to fight the Capitol. But I wasn’t Jennifer Lawrence. I am Jayne Cowgill.  

As I read those words, I felt something change within me. I became the person who’d written those words. A young female, trying to fight for her freedom after being captured during a war. I was tired, hungry, abused, beaten down, and I’d been in captivity for weeks. I was sick, I wanted my family... and by the end of my first reading – which was five minutes long – I felt like I was fully in tune with this person.  

Several minutes of questioning later, and Maria started clapping. She stood up and grinned, even though her face had remained scarily passive the entire time. Christopher was grinning and nodding. I felt a rush of excitement after I’d left the building. They’d make their decision by the end of the week, and although I had that elation, it didn’t last so long as life settled back to normal. I went about the rest of my week, enjoying my last few holidays. I didn’t actually think about the audition again, because I’m not an actor. I’m Plain Jayne.  

So you can imagine the shock I got when, while out with Yes Man Nellie that Friday Evening, I got a phone call informing me that I’d been cast to play Abigail Fleetwood, in an upcoming movie titled Big Bang 4 - I was informed this was the working title, for the time being. Nellie stared at me until I accepted. I said a flat ‘yes’, and was given the details of the following week, what I’d need to do, whether or not I already had a job they’d have to inform... I of course said that job took precedent, which they were okay with, because suddenly my evenings and afternoons were filled with hair and makeup tests, screen tests, costume fittings and script line-learning. I was grateful to learn that I only actually had about ten pages of script to learn, and since Nellie had done screenwriting at university, I wasn’t totally lost – long evenings spent doing readthroughs of her pieces had inadvertently prepared me well. I obviously took Nellie along with me so she could network, but the whole process was still a little overwhelming.  

We shot the movie in London for a couple of months. It involved me taking a few weeks away from work, bouncing back and to between London and the North of England. It was a precarious balancing act, but in the end the movie wrapped, and it went into a few months of post-production. I’d done my bits well enough, and apparently it was a good thing that I wasn’t recalled for any reshoots (or so my new agent said), but again, I forgot about the movie, and certainly didn’t keep track of anything. Not that I didn’t care, I just... didn’t want to be the needy new person with zero acting training.  

The movie was apparently a bigger hit than planned, though, and even though they wanted to do a soft release at the Cannes Film festival, critics who’d seen previews of it were astounded, and a larger studio picked it up and launched it on a bigger scale.  

That meant cinema release.  

That meant a proper premier.  

That meant I got to go back to London and wave at cameras.  

I fucking didn’t want to do that.  

See, the reason I took this thing on was because it was a small, low-budget movie, and I wasn’t needed for the full six-months of shooting. My scenes were done on a set, over a couple of weeks as the other actors became available and as the script changed a little, but they constituted only a small percentage of the movie. Not a whole lot, and considering the biggest scene I’d had was of me boarding a plane, sitting on the plane in shock, and then getting off the plane to a ‘huge crowd’ (only ten people on set that day, the rest added in post), I knew I wasn’t going to be a huge movie star. But it crossed a huge thing off Past Baby Jayne’s bucket list. And it shut Nellie up.  

Nellie, on the other hand, was raving about the release. She’d said all along the movie would be huge, but I’d been stupid and hadn’t listened. It was huge. It didn’t win any Oscars, but the message resonated with a lot of people. Not the message of the entire movie... no. The message Abigail Fleetwood passed on. That there was change to be made. That there were global issues that needed to be corrected. That humanity wasn’t human any more, and that we needed to work together more. Stuff I knew about – human resources was a part of my job description – but I did have an interest in world politics, to a degree. I wasn’t obsessively consuming every single Politico article, or binging The Economist, or doomscrolling for hours on The Times. I had opinions though.  

So when the movie went global, I too went global. My agent at the studio was changed to a bigger agent, and my pay packet increased too with the success of the movie’s box office takings. I was introduced to the fun world of royalties, and interviews, and press releases, and all manner of other things which thrust me further and further onto the world stage, right into the searing heat of the spotlight. Young impressionable girls looked up to me, men suddenly took interest, and my body was now a source of inspiration or a source of disgust, depending on who was looking at it. My social media got locked down instantly, for fear that I’d once tweeted or posted something that would now offend someone, and my friends and family were fair game. Paparazzi were constantly outside the door, one of them having followed me home one night. Everyone wanted to know what made the strongest female voice on the planet (or so it felt) tick. More interviews, article-writing, camera pieces, school talks, university lectures. What were my views on the treatment of women in the Middle East? How did I feel about FGM? What were my opinions on the modelling industry? What did I think about racism? How could we resolve the issues of world poverty? Why did I always wear black? Was it a statement? Was I in political mourning for the female lives lost just so we can live our lives as we do?  

In the end, I had a breakdown to Nellie. I couldn’t cope with it. I couldn’t go to a restaurant without being harassed by anti-feminist bullshit-spewing racists who got in my face and made me feel tiny.  

“You can’t let this get to you, Jay. This is huge. You are huge. Your voice means something now. Use it.” Nellie took a sip on her coke and I sighed.  

“I didn’t want to have a fucking voice, though, did I? I wanted to do a fun thing, have an experience, and then go back to normal!” I palmed my face. “I didn’t want to become a pariah for women’s rights! What do I have that someone else doesn’t? People have devoted their lives to this and here I am, saying fucking YES TO SOMETHING THAT GAVE ME ALL THIS POWER!” Admittedly, I was bitter about losing my nice safe job and my nice safe life. People would kill to be in my position. I felt wholly unqualified.  

“I know,” Nellie said quietly. “But Jay, you can either wallow and trip up and do yourself no favours, or you can do what you do best. Research. Connect with people who’ve dedicated their lives to this. Give them a voice by speaking for them. Shine your light on them. You’re making history, Jay. You’re the first female actress to be paid by default the same as the males on set. You’ve portrayed a real-life struggle, too – she wasn’t called Abigail, though. She was called Anja, and she was captured for refusing a husband and choosing to fight. She wasn’t Middle-Eastern, either – she was -” 

“I know, I know. She was British-Danish. I know. I got educated live on fucking TV, didn’t I?”  

“Yeah, and you handled it amazingly.” I rubbed my eyes. Nellie wasn’t a bullshitter. She told me the truth even if it was painful. I looked at her. “You’re going to kill this speech. People are listening to you, Jayne. Give them something to take home with them.” 

Boarding the flight for the conference in America was hard, but Nellie had agreed to go along with me as both my manager, and my best friend. She’d be there in the front row, watching me, cheering me on. She’d be there backstage, making sure I had everything. She’d handled the phone calls, the planning, the flight booking, the accommodation. She’d helped me research for my speech and she’d grammar-checked everything before we’d submitted it to the experts in the field for approval, to make sure I didn’t incite a riot. They didn’t make a single change, which made me happy.  

I stepped out of the car at the arena where I’d be talking. My entire body shook so much I thought my knees would buckle. The hours I’d spent being preened and polished and poured into a dress felt like years ago. I had to walk along a red carpet, pose for some photos, and then once I was inside, it was meeting the important world leaders who’d be listening. The crowds were already being let inside, and I had to go and prepare myself.  

And so, we’re here. The host for the evening is introducing the speakers. My name is in the middle. Jayne Cowgill. Such a plain, boring name. Not newsworthy, but representative of the plain Jaynes out there who don’t have a voice. I’m ushered towards the wings, ready to step out into the spotlight. Millions are tuning in to watch this tonight. Hundreds and thousands of people are in the arena, watching too.  

“It gives me great pleasure to present Miss Jayne Cowgill!”  

I step forward, the roar from the crowds deafening. The lectern seems like it’s miles away, but I’m here now. The lights are so mercifully bright that I can only see the first ten rows of eager faces, some of them journalists, waiting to take their notes. I place my papers down and smile through chemically-whitened teeth.  

“Good evening, everyone. It’s an honour to b-be asked – to be here tonight....” 

The headlines the next day were unignorable.  

PLAIN JAYNE MAKES HISTORY FOR MILLIONS 

An average woman with a not-so-average voice: How Jayne Cowgill fronted movements for equality on a global scale 

EQUALITY FOR ALL! 

World leaders sign treaties to end poverty and inequality 

STRIKING A BALANCE – AND A POSE! 

Jayne Cowgill’s movements stir the world up as peace reigns, equality leads, and racism, homophobia and the patriarchy crumble.