I was in the kitchen of my apartment staring down at a small rectangular black case that I believed contained a recorder. I believed it contained a recorder because I had been told as much, but I didn’t know for sure because I had never actually opened it. How had I let this happen? I had been tasked with one job in the summer vacation after my first year at drama school — to learn to play the instrument for the school’s tour of the Nativity play. I hadn’t. And the term was starting in T minus 12 hours. All I could do now was pray.

Then something amazing happened. God called me! Well not quite, but close enough. My agent. I had auditioned for a film early on in the summer holidays, had heard nothing for two months and had long since concluded that I had not been successful. Yet this was the call from Hollywood myth: “Kid … you’re in the movie.”

Luckily, I would no longer be showing up to drama school the following day hat in hand, apologizing for my incompetence. Instead I’d be apologizing for having to relinquish the role of Shepherd Number Three, as I would be filming an adaptation of “The Merchant of Venice” — playing the role of Lorenzo — with none other than Al Pacino.

As this life-changing news began to sink in, and on top of the relief from narrowly escaping detention, what was most exciting to me was the prospect that this job might be the point after which I could legitimately call myself an actor.