Rosie Steel
Northern actress Rosie Steel is currently starring in All Is Vanity, a fantasy drama about strange events occurring at a fashion shoot. She tells us about her experiences taking the film to the London Film Festival, her plans to start a charity and what she thinks the industry needs to do to support the working class.
How long have you been acting?
On and off since I was about 6. I mean obviously not professionally when I was 6! I started because I wouldn’t speak to anyone but my immediate family, and I went to this kind of Stagecoach Saturday school place, which I hated. At uni I did Musical Theatre, and afterwards I began to think that acting could be something I could seriously pursue. I did some Musical Theatre - American Idiot, Dogfight, Rent - but ended up getting a new agent which led me to more straight acting.
What was your first professional acting job?
It was a feature film called Seagull with Jessica Hynes, playing my mum. We shot that in 2016 - I had no idea what I was doing and learnt on the job, which I think is best, to be honest. It was a great experience and it’ll always stay with me, learning from people who’ve been in the business for years and years.
How did you get the role in All Is Vanity?
I was asked to audition back in the early days of the self tape. I had no reader - so I left gaps where the other person in the scene would speak, I piled books and boxes on a table and rested my phone up at the top of it all, clearly before I'd realised tripods were a thing. It was absolutely shambolic, looking back. But much to my pleasant surprise, I was everything Marcos had written in this role, which is always the best thing for any actor to hear.
Your character is a make-up artist - are you any good at that kind of thing?
Haha, not at all! Honestly, I ask everyone what to do, I have no idea what contouring is. I try!
The film played at the London Film Festival last year - what was the experience of having your film play at such a huge festival like?
It was crazy! So someone described it while we were there as being like a summer camp - there are events every evening for people who have films there or have an industry pass, and you stay as long as you can because the people are all amazing, then you go to bed and you get up the next morning, see as many films as you can and are back in with the drinks at a different rooftop bar, and then it all comes to an end and you never see these people again! But it was pretty magical.
Did you meet anyone you have seen again?
Yes, actually, a few people who work for the BFI and a couple of charities, who I’ve been working with to make a short documentary film about relationship abuse, based on my own experience.
How has that experience been, making a film about something so personal?
It’s been an exhausting process, but I feel I went through that experience in my life for a reason, and it is to help other women. I would eventually like to own my own charity, but obviously it takes quite a while. This short film is a great stepping stone though. This has been so rewarding, because I know personally how many women and men have been affected by abuse, and it is so important to reach those people in any way we can.
You’re originally from Yorkshire - how long have you lived in London?
Yes, I’m from near Middlesborough. I went to uni in Brighton, and stayed there for a few years after, commuting to London for auditions - I moved to London in 2016.
Did you feel you would need to leave the north if you wanted to pursue a career in acting?
Yes, I mean there weren’t really any resources at the time, and I’m so happy to see now how things are changing. I went up to the North East Comedy Festival in Newcastle in May, and it was so nice to see so many northerners and see what they have now. I’d never heard of drama school when I was 18, I had no idea what it was! I’m really glad that times are changing now.
Is there anything you think could be done to make this career more accessible to people outside London?
I think it is becoming more accessible now thanks to both the money being pumped into the lesser-represented communities and the pandemic, and I think we just need to stay on that wavelength. There is so much talent, and now working class people are getting a chance. It is happening, slowly but surely, we just need to keep going.
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Words: Scott Bates
Photos: Amelia May (excl still from film, courtesy of Verve Pictures)