‘Even living in a tent it has kept me quite positive’
Just months ago Ben Symons was acting alongside big stars, now he is homeless. He tells Marcus Hughes how he went from being on set to being on the streets...
LAST summer Ben Symons was living his dream acting on the set of a major film alongside huge names.
The 34-year-old was lucky enough to bag a role in Dream Horse, starring Toni Collette, Damian Lewis, and Joanna Page after impressing casting directors at an audition in Cardiff.
Dream Horse premiered at the Sundance film festival last week and will hit UK screens in April, and it has already been tipped as a hit.
But yesterday Ben spent another night sleeping in a tent at the side of a busy main road in Newport with numerous others who have found themselves with nowhere else to go.
His current situation is a far cry from the days he spent rubbing shoulders with some of the best onscreen talent in the UK, but he says the memory of it is helping him cope.
“It’s kept me quite positive. Even living in a tent it has kept me quite positive,” Ben said.
“It’s allowed me to keep thinking about life in a good way.”
Dream Horse tells the story of a 23-member Blackwood racehorse syndicate and their horse, Dream Alliance.
Oscar-nominated actress Toni Collete plays Jan Vokes, who along with fellow syndicate members paid in £10 per week for the horse’s training and went on to win a small fortune.
The Hollywood Reporter described the film as an “endearing, determinedly crowd-pleasing adaptation” which has “every chance of sprinting to victory at the box office” in a review published this week.
Ben Symons has a small speaking part as a local builder after chancing upon a casting search in the summer of 2019.
The 34-year-old was born in Plymouth and was adopted by parents who raised him in Bodmin Moor,
Cornwall, and later Bristol.
Ben said he has previously been addicted to crack and heroin but has been clean for just over two years. He says he still struggles with an addiction to alcohol.
Last year Ben was temporarily staying on the sofa at his mum and dad’s house in Blaenavon and was making money doing gardening work in the local area.
“I was living with my mum in rented accommodation,” Ben said.
“I had a lovely couple of months hiking and writing. I did a lot of that up there but it kept me away from beer, it got me off my script and it got me clean.
“One day I just had enough. I nicked my dad’s bottle of Captain Morgan’s and sat on the bridge ready to do myself in that day.
“I was suicidal. I was ready to do myself in.”
While he was sitting on the bridge Ben said he was handed a flyer advertising the casting for an upcoming film production.
He said he saw the same man about three times in the same day and began to think about auditioning.
Ben attended an audition in Cardiff alongside hundreds of others.
“I was one of four out of 190 who auditioned for a part in the project and was successful,” Ben said.
Ben said he shot several scenes in a single day in May 2019, and was asked to return for a second day several weeks later.
He said he plays a local builder in the production who is sceptical about the alliance’s plan to make it big.
Ben said he mixed well with the stars who were around on set, including Toni Collette, Damian Lewis, Owen Teale, and Karl Johnson.
“I think what got me by is I didn’t look at anyone as any more special than anyone else,” Ben said.
“We all have to use the toilet, we all have to live on this ball, just because someone gets paid bigger numbers that’s not you, is it?
“You’re your thoughts and your feelings, not what you wear. I think that’s how I ended up interacting with so many of the other actors.”
Ben said he has recently met up with an outreach worker and there are promising signs he could be housed in Risca very soon.
He hopes he can get more support for his alcohol dependency and reduce his reliance on anti-depressants.
But above all, he would love to get more work in film and television.
“I only have to look at myself in photographs with Toni Collette and that on that day and that boosts me,” he said.
“I hope I can get more work in film or television. Absolutely anything. Put me in the corner and I will find it absolutely amazing.”