Mark Gallie
Actor
The Tower (2019-)
Role
“Ike.”
Bio
“Mark Gallie is an Edinburgh-based Actor, Poet, Producer & Writer.
He is one of the Directors of I Am Loud Productions and has been performing since he was young. He has performed across the UK and Internationally as a feature performer, organized & hosted multiple Fringe shows & monthly events.
By day, Mark can be found exploring, performing and writing about Myths & Legends, Fantasy, ‘Geek Culture’ and the weird & wonderful. By night, he tries to take over the world.”
“…you never know where you might find your next project…”
How did you become aware of The Tower?
“I became aware of the show through its creator. We had worked together in the past and I have been a fan of their work since we first met. From the get go I expressed my want to work together on any future projects Dev might have - and when they came to me with the project, I couldn’t say no.
When you find someone that you can work well with and brings out your best performance, you find any opportunity to work together.”
What was your aim in getting involved?
”My aim in getting involved was to get to create something cool - the project immediately sounded like the kind of show I would listen to, and was too fun and creative to pass up.
An aim I have for any project though, is finding ways to improve myself, whether that’s trying roles I’m less familiar with or finding ways to improve current performance techniques.
I’m also always looking for an excuse to meet other creatives, you learn so much from other people in so many ways and so getting to meet and work with Katrina Allen and David Pellow was an utter joy.”
What was the biggest challenge?
“My biggest challenge was portraying a character where I didn’t know all of their story.
Over the parts of The Tower I have learned more and more about the character and, while that certainly works well within the narrative, it did mean I had some anxiety around doing the character justice..”
Have you continued to work in the field?
”I have indeed, I love performing and actually got to work with Devereux again on Anamnesis where the audio drama was developed from start to finish all on Twitch.
As well as getting to lend my voice to that project, it also served to educate on how to go about creating one's own audio drama which is something I have wanted to do for ages.”
What would be your dream project?
“There are so many projects that would be a dream to work on but if I am going BIG BIG dreams, I guess I would love to work with Blizzard or Funimation.
On a slightly different note, I am a big fan of TTRPGs so getting to provide a voice to one of the Vox Machina Animations or other RPG projects such as Critical Role, LA by Night or Dimension20 would be a crazy dream come true.”
How did you land the role? Any tips for a strong audio reel (or virtual audition)?
“I landed this role in a bit of a different way, in that, the director heard my voice through performance poetry.
I co-run a production company called I Am Loud, and we were hosting a poetry evening where both the director and myself performed. From there, I learned of their involvement in the audio world and reached out to properly introduce myself as an actor.
I guess my advice is a bit different - while a strong audio reel is certainly important, don’t miss opportunities to perform locally or in person. The world has so many awesome creatives in it and you never know where you might find your next project…”
How does acting for audio compare to other media, for you? Any skills or techniques you’d recommend learning?
“Acting for audio’s main challenge is you have to convey everything using only your voice. This can be limiting - as humans we find body language very telling, and you can say a lot with just how you hold yourself. Conversely, it’s hard to convey emotions in silence - which means particular focus must be paid to how you sound.
One artform that I think lends fantastically to good audio performance is Spoken Word Poetry. Spoken Word really trains you to convey both powerful and subtle emotions in a short space of time. It helps you with pacing, as well as body language (also important, even in audio only formats). I actually have a Youtube channel where there are hundreds of poetry performances (including some of my own). Check out https://www.youtube.com/@IAmLoudPro to see what I mean..”
If your character was an occasional part, how did you characterise them quickly and memorably?
“With the character of Ike, who appears in most episodes of The Tower, there was a bit of a balance to manage. Ike is kinda the unfamiliar element in the show, which means there’s intrigue around him - he can both provide answers to questions, as well as new questions - which keeps listeners paying attention to him.
I wanted Ike to be likable, as he’s a helpful element to protagonist, Kiri, and I actually drew alot on my experience in Call Centre work (also a handy job if you want to work on purely vocal information and emotional delivery). I drew on small moments like talking to himself (to show he isn’t used to talking to people) as well as talking through things he is doing (to show he knows what he’s doing but perhaps isn’t all-knowing) and speaking under his breath (showing he thinks out loud).
I really like using small moments to indicate or foreshadow larger things, it’s something I learned from things like Horror, Spoken Word and Professional Wrestling.”