Alexa Davies

Best known for her roles in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and E4’s gamer sitcom Dead Pixels, Welsh actress Alexa Davies is now appearing on stage in London in Lady Dealer, a one-woman show about a female drug dealer. She talks to us about landing her first professional acting job, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe and how she relaxes after a day working.

How long have you been acting? When did you know it was the career you wanted?

I knew I wanted to do it when I was about 10 years old and there was a show on BBC3 called Doctor Who Confidential, and that was my first time seeing behind the scenes, seeing what a day was like for an actor, and I just fell in love with it, I just immediately knew that was what I wanted. Then I kind of went through the normal path, going to a drama group, tried to learn as much as I could - my plan was to go to drama school, but when I was 15 a film came to my hometown, Rhyl in Wales, and they needed some local kids to be in it, and I got a small role in that. Afterwards I emailed every agent in London and was lucky enough that these two wonderful men, Joe and Bill, contacted me and said “We’d love to take you on”, and then I started going out on auditions. That was when I was 16, so I’ve been going steadily since then - hoping it remains that way!

Are there many opportunities for actors in Rhyl?

There definitely aren’t. It’s not the smallest town or the most remote in north Wales - it’s a seaside town where there’s a lovely theatre that I performed at every summer with my theatre group. I think it’s more true to say that I actually grew up in a small village next to Rhyl called Rhuddlan - it’s very nice and quiet, there’s a castle, there’s a river. But no, there aren’t very many actors to have come out of Rhyl - I think you could probably count them on one hand!

What was the first professional job you got from your agent?

It was an episode of New Tricks, called Love Means Nothing In Tennis. I played a young tennis star - luckily I didn’t have to play tennis in the episode, as it was about my long-lost sister who was played by Georgie Castle and she *can* play tennis really well. When they first took me on Joe and Bill were very good and sat down with me and discussed what I was interested in doing, what I wasn’t so keen on, and luckily the first audition they sent me on was a successful one!

Are you now based in London?

I am. I first moved briefly when I was 17 - I was cast in a play at the Royal Court Theatre, so I moved down to north London for about three months, but this was while I was still doing my A-levels, so when that was over I had to go straight back to Wales. Then when I was 18 I moved into a house in Islington and lived as a live-in nanny while I carried on with auditions, and that family was just so lovely to me.

Audiences might recognise you from E4’s comedy series Dead Pixels, in which you played a somewhat unlikeable gamer - how did you get that role and what drew you to playing such a difficult person?

As young Rosie in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

It started as a short for E4 called Avatards, and when they were casting for that I was too young for the role, however the director Jamie Jay Johnson had seen me in something else and asked if I could audition. What really drew me to it was John Brown’s writing - it was some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever had the pleasure of saying out loud. So we made Avatards, then they got the greenlight to go ahead and make it as a series. Meg from Avatards was still there but everything around her was a bit different, so in Dead Pixels she has Nicky and Alison as her housemates, she has this kind of love interest storyline with Russell who’s just a bumbling idiot. I think about it all the time - it has one of my favourite lines I’ve ever got to say, in series 2 when Alison is thinking of asking the others to move out Meg says something about a poke bowl but pronounces it incorrectly, so Alison corrects her and Meg just says “Oh, big fat shits Alison!”. It’s that kind of stupid humour that I really enjoy. When it comes to gaming, I do game a bit but never the online side where you play with other people, I’ve never really dipped into that world.

The other role a lot of people might recognise you for is Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - how did you land that? Have you had to sing in many other roles?

I think just growing up Welsh I was brought up in choirs and singing a lot - I wouldn’t say I’m the strongest singer but I can hold a tune. It came about because Nina Gold had cast me in Harlots, which was a show for Hulu, and I did actually sing in that, then my agent called and said “Oh, they’re making Mamma Mia! 2, and they want to see you for a young Julie Walters”. I look nothing like Julie Walters, so my first reaction was just to laugh, then my first meeting with Nina, Ol Parker the director and Martin Koch the music supervisor went really well. There were a couple more meetings after that - I had to dance and sing every time, and it was tough but it worked out. Before shooting we had a few weeks of training, essentially, where we had to learn the choreography and the songs properly. I was already a big ABBA fan and a Mamma Mia! fan, so it worked out quite nicely!

You’re now performing Lady Dealer at the Bush Theatre, a one-woman show which started life at the Edinburgh Fringe - how were you cast in this?

It was a very organic casting process - they sent the script to my agent and asked if I would be interested in auditioning with a few pieces from the script. I read it, fell in love with it, but was immediately terrified of the responsibility - it’s a one-woman show, it’s really high energy, the writing is really lyrical. I met the team on Zoom, did a couple of pieces as an audition and they offered me the role the next day - I took it after about three days wondering if I could learn an hour’s worth of lines! Edinburgh was brilliant - we had about two and a half weeks of rehearsals, and I didn’t know what to expect from the festivals, but it was the greatest thing, everybody is so supportive of each other, everyone wants each and everyone of us to succeed. It’s such a unique experience, and I’d definitely recommend it to any creative, go and do it.

Did you approach this differently, being a one-woman show, as opposed to something where you’re performing with other actors?

I think I’ve approached it the same way I normally do, in that my goal is always to find the truth in something, and I’m lucky as Martha’s writing is brilliant on its own, so that does half the work for me. She’s an incredibly funny writer, so the jokes land easily without me having to worry about it too much. Obviously the difference is that once I start nobody else will take on that work for me, so I have to make sure I’m completely focused all the time and that I maintain everyone’s attention for a whole hour.

Did you find it a challenge to learn a full hour of dialogue?

Yes, definitely. I do have an advantage this time as obviously I’ve done the show before, but it is slightly different this time. A hundred percent though, I had to make a full, concerted effort to sit in my own free time and run it and run it and run it, whereas most of the time, because I often work in TV, I can turn up and say three lines in a day!

Performing Lady Dealer

Had you done much theatre before this show?

No, before Lady Dealer the last show I did was the play at the Royal Court, which was in 2013, so it’s been a while!

Is there anything in particular that draws you to a script or a character?

Mostly just good writing, or anything new - you do tend to see stuff that you’ve seen before, or if a character fits into a kind of stereotypical box, is a kind of cog in the works, I’m less drawn to that stuff. I like anything new and exciting - I’m always easily won over by something that’s genuinely funny. But I’m open to anything, I try to keep an open mind.

Would you want to write or direct yourself?

I’d love to direct! I think I need a few more years under my belt, but I’d love to direct TV - I wouldn’t be able to direct theatre, I’d have no idea what I was doing. Emily Aboud, our director for Lady Dealer, she’s won an emerging talent award from the Evening Standard, so she knows what’s going on! I have started to dabble in writing little bits, but I think writing takes such great commitment and effort to sit and work at something for ages - I don’t know if I have the attention span!

Have you been to see anything on stage lately? Did you get to see much during the Fringe?

I definitely should’ve seen more at the Fringe. Lady Dealer ran at 4pm every day, so I had the option of seeing something before I arrived or staying out when I was tired afterwards - I saw a few bits though. I’ve seen a few musicals this year - I saw Standing At The Sky’s Edge, which I loved, I saw She Stoops To Conquer with Freddie Fox and Tanya Reynolds, which was brilliant. I’d like to do something like that, with a nice ensemble cast, very funny, very tongue-in-cheek. What puts me off a lot these days is that theatre prices can be so expensive. One of the great things about doing Lady Dealer at the Bush is that tickets start as low as £15, which is very different to paying about £100 for a good seat in the West End! I’m terrible at watching films, but I love telly, I watch it every day - it’s so accessible, it’s just there! What I find relaxing while doing this show is not watching anything that’s too cerebral, so I can just enjoy myself at the end of the day - I’ve been watching Race Across The World on the BBC. I’m looking forward to the new series of Doctor Who, seeing this new iteration, that’s very exciting.

Words: Scott Bates

Third photo: Harry Elletson

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Lady Dealer runs at the Bush Theatre until June 15th - more details and tickets here