Aspirations
Goal Setting
Resilience
Motivation
Graeme Hawley has worked as a professional actor for 30 years. He has appeared in some of the nations favourite TV shows and performed in major theatres all over the World.
Graeme now uses his vast experience in performance to help people communicate and express themselves with confidence, using techniques and exercises he has learned and used throughout his career.
He also speaks to young people about his experiences growing up and the choices that eventually led him to becoming an actor.
Q: If you weren’t a speaker, what do you think you’d be?
When I was young I wanted to be a pilot. That was what I really wanted to do when I was a kid but I found out when I was quite young that I was blind in my right eye. I had about 20% vision in it…plus i’m now scared of heights so I guess it’s a good job I never became a pilot.
Q: What were you like in school?
I was quite a mouthy kid. I was a clever lad but my reports would continuously say, “Graeme could be very intelligent if he could be quiet for five minutes,” and I could never be quiet really. I had a bit of one on one tuition when I was away that helped me because I used to be in all the bottom sets for everything for a long period of time.
Q: What does success mean to you?
I suppose if were to speak specifically about a piece of work, somebody sends me a script, I’m going up for a job and I read it and it frightens the life out of me, I know I’m onto a winner. I mean that. It immediately sets something off in me.
I immediately go, “This is brilliant because I’m terrified of this. I don’t know how I’m going to do this and the potential for me to fall flat on my face with this is huge and that’s really exciting. That feeling of absolute terror is mixed with that feeling of incredible excitement of the exhilaration of what’s about to come next. I know I’ll success if the thought of the task terrifies me and excites me all at the same time.
British Values covered
- Individual liberty