insideKENT Magazine Issue 74 - May 2018 | Page 38

ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
A Q&A WITH RISING STAR
HANNAH ARTERTON
Photos © Gareth Cattermole at Getty Images
RADA TRAINED ACTRESS HANNAH
ARTERTON IS BEST KNOWN FOR
HER LEAD ROLE IN THE MUCH
LOVED ROMCOM, WALKING ON
SUNSHINE, IN WHICH SHE
STARRED OPPOSITE LEONA LEWIS
AND WAS SET TO THE MUSIC OF
POPULAR HIT SONGS FROM THE
1980S. OTHER FILM CREDITS
INCLUDE BURN BURN BURN, WE
ARE TOURISTS AND SHORT
FILMS OTHERWISE
ENGAGED AND AT FIRST SIGHT.
NOTABLE TV CREDITS INCLUDE
ROLES IN BBC’S ATLANTIS AND SKY
ONE’S THE FIVE. HANNAH WILL
NEXT STAR AS A LEAD OPPOSITE
AMANDA ABBINGTON AND
MICHAEL C. HALL IN NEW EIGHT-
PART NETFLIX THRILLER,
SAFE WRITTEN BY SHAMELESS
WRITER DANNY BROCKLEHURST.
THE SERIES WILL AIR GLOBALLY ON
NETFLIX EARLY THIS MONTH.
Hi Hannah, tell us a little bit about you and
how you started out.
I grew up in Gravesend, Kent and came from
a very creative household. Initially, I was drawn
to music and became a singer in my first band
when I was 14. At 16, I went to the Miskin
Theatre, which is a performing arts college in
Dartford, and was already torn between acting
and music, but stuck with music until I was
18, when I decided to stay on at Miskin for an
extra year and study acting. I played the lead
in a Ch ristmas show and was encouraged to
audition for drama school, to which my initial
reaction was ‘no, I’m not really an actor…’, but
I spoke to my dad who encouraged me to go
for it and I ended up getting into the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which was
simply unthinkable – I never thought I’d get
38
in, which is perhaps the attitude that helped
me as I didn’t put unnecessary pressure on
myself.
I was at RADA for three years and loved every
minute. Graduated, got an agent and started
working straight away – I got my first job
starring in Stephen Poliakoff’s My City
at the Almeida in London’s West End towards
the end of my final year.
Tell us about Safe – what’s it all about and
who do you play?
It’s a crime thriller and I play a young detective
who’s just moved to the town that Safe is set
in. Initially, her and her detective partner who
also lives in the town are looking for a missing
teenager, but it quickly starts to unravel and
lots of secrets begin to unfurl. It’s a real edge-
of-your-seat whodunit. There are four main
characters and each has massive secrets –
including my character – so there are huge
plot twists in every episode.
Before I did Safe, I worked with the same writer
and producers on a TV show called The Five
in which I played a detective, but prior to The
Five, I’d done a musical romcom film and a
fantasy TV show, so playing detectives has
been quite a departure, but something that I
have absolutely loved – I was nervous about
taking on the role in The Five because I
considered it quite ‘grown up’, but I also felt
extremely ready for it; as a young actress, I
had grown quite bored quite quickly of being
cast as ‘the girlfriend’, so I was ready to play
someone a bit more ambitious and edgy,
which I certainly do in Safe.