Spotlight on Clevedon People - page 16 The Clevedon Spotlight talks with
Tuppence Middleton
about her early life in Clevedon and becoming an established actress of stage and screen
Photo courtesy of Matthew Attard Navarro M
any people will recognise Tuppence Middleton from her appearances in films
including Tormented, Chatroom, Cleanskin, Trap for Cinderella and Trance, for her numerous works on television, or recently for her appearance in The Living Room on the London stage. However in Clevedon some among you may also remember her during her early years growing up in Clevedon. We asked her a few questions about how a girl from Clevedon became an established actress of the stage and screen...
Q. When did you first decide that you would like to be an actress?
A. I first started acting in the local theatre group ‘Clevedon Comedy Club’ doing Pantomimes every year and attending various theatre groups outside of school whenever I could, including Stagecoach and Bristol Old Vic Youth Theatre. At first it was very much a hobby but as I got older and began to perform more frequently in school plays and whilst studying for my theatre studies A-level, I realised that I wanted to try and take it seriously as a career, so took the steps towards doing that in my final couple of years at school. As I went to quite an academic school, it wasn’t the usual career path to follow but I was so lucky that the school supported my decision to audition for drama school in London and my teachers there even helped me prepare for my auditions. The idea that you could
do something that you loved so much as a job seemed like a dream come true to me and even now it never feels like work. I moved up to London after finishing my A-levels to start my 3 year acting training.
Q. What sort of challenges have you had to overcome to get to the position you are in today?
A. I am so fortunate to be in the position I am in and I am sure there is an element of luck in that but it has also been very hard work at times. It can be a really tough industry and there are a lot of people in it! You have to have a pretty thick skin. Everything about this job is very uncertain, you don’t know where your next job is coming from, you don’t have much control over things - particularly in the beginning stages of your career, and you have to be able to accept rejection as that is a daily part of a jobbing actors life... there are far more actors than there are jobs so you have to work hard to get the work that you love and want to do. However the things that are sometimes difficult about the job can also be positive, for example you have to be ready to drop everything to take a job if it comes your way and you could find yourself twiddling your thumbs one week then jetting off to a different country to start a new job the next! Moving to London to train and then staying on to live there has been really important too. The majority of good work is cast in London and it really is the centre of the industry in
the UK, I imagine it would be a lot harder if I was living outside the city.
Q. What advice would you give to people wishing to follow in your footsteps, who would like to pursue a career in acting?
A. Well firstly I would say to make sure you really are passionate about wanting to act and that you love the job itself as opposed to just wanting fame and fortune! The percentage of actors who regularly work is surprisingly low, and the journey to doing good work can be long and arduous, with the ‘fame’ side of it often being the worst part. Of course if you are doing good, high-profile work consistently then fame can be a by-product of that but you have to know that you would be just as happy spending your days in fringe theatre performing to small audiences just because you really love what you do. Saying that, it is such an exciting, wonderful job that I would recommend to anyone who is serious about pursuing it. I would absolutely advise paying attention during school (!) although it may seem unrelated, it is so important to have an understanding of the world around you in order to portray people from all walks of life and I think the temptation with acting is to start as young as you possibly can, you often hear people advising young actors to go and get some ‘life experience’ and wait a few years... I do think this can help sometimes, it is different for everyone but in some cases people
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