It’s a long way from Charleville to Hollywood but Jamie Kendall overcame years of bullying in the outback Queensland town.
Jamie has come so far.
When he was in Grade 6 a school bully spray painted “Jamie Kendall is a fag” on the underside of a bridge in the middle of Charleville.
Jamie said that, as a child, he was always interested in dance which isolated him from his peers.
“I guess it’s like any small town where you’re a bit different to the other kids around,” he said.
“My mum tells this great story of when she took me to go and play cricket when I was younger and rather than trying to catch the ball in the field I was doing cartwheels.
“I was out of my depth, I felt a bit unsafe, I never really had a friend from grade one to grade seven.”
Later this month Jamie will perform a routine in Los Angeles called Just a Girl, which is based on a script written by former Bachelor contestant and actor Heather Maltman.
Jamie said Just a Girl is a compilation of the types of issues girls experience.
“You’re put into this particular box and you have to act a particular way,” he said.
“If you’re too masculine then you’re wrong and if you’re too feminine then you’re wrong and it’s just constantly walking this tightrope.”
Jamie said while he was studying psychology in Brisbane, he wrote a performance based on British psychologist John Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment.
“It basically outlines three different styles of attachment, as an individual you usually stick to one style when you meet people,” he said.
“I wanted to develop a play that was based on those three styles because I’d been working with physical theatre since I was 16.”
Ms Maltman saw the play and approached Kendall and fellow actress Gina Limpus. She gave Jamie her script and asked him to see what he could do with it.
“Heather mentioned at that time that the show would be put on in Hollywood,” he said.
“You kind of just hear that word and you think really, Charleville to Hollywood?
“From then we have been working together to create material for the show based on the script she sent us.”
Just a Girl is unfunded and they have started a crowdfunding campaign to cover their expenses in LA. Currently, $2195 of their $2500 target has been pledged.
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