Tip Cullen, Royal Marine and Actor

Land, Sea & Air - Stories from the Armed Forces

“It's a bit like what we used to call in the Royal Marines… 'babbin’ your wack'… when you're proper pooing yourself before you go and do something.”

Royal Marine (RM) turned professional actor, Tip, is a ‘story-teller’ and as a young man in Belfast, he had an epiphany, “I knew that I had to become a Royal Marines Commando.” 30 years later, RM Captain, Tip, having achieved his goal of being a Mountain Leader, had another epiphany, “Be a storyteller… I thought, ‘Acting... that's a form of story-telling isn't it?’”

Fast-forward 3 years and Tip graduated with an acting degree. Enter, The Actor’s Fear… “I was like that, 'Ummm fear...?' It's a bit like what we used to call in the RM, babbin’ your wack…”

Tip’s memories of RM friends that he’s lost, help him, “I just have this memory… I've got my gang of friends sitting there looking at me going, 'So... you're nervous? So somebody can shoot at you from 30 yards away with a Kalashnikov and you're not bothered about that. What you've got to do is walk on there and stand and talk. And you're nervous?!’ …And I'm going, 'Gents, I am happy with that. I shall move on task!’ …Those people… that are gone, they're always with me.”

That said, learning to draw on Tip’s experiences as a RM has been a challenge. Currently, he’s playing Echo 1 in Sunray, a film co-written and co-directed by previous podcast guest, Sam Seeley, “A troubled character who's post-operations, has been suffering massively from Survivor's Guilt, potentially PTSD, and all these issues, get compounded when he's transitioning back into society… he's a very vulnerable person. He's massively broken, and he's lost everything he loves in his life including friends on operations. So I can empathise massively…”

No spoilers, but what does the future hold for Tip? “What I want is to be able to tell stories. Fame and fortune? I don't need that. I've got everything I want in life… and I just want to be telling stories.”

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