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An interview with Kathryn Prescott

As many readers know, I am currently writing a book about the Naomily phenomenon and its significance in popular culture. My research has involved talking with the creative personnel behind Skins, and I recently released an excerpt of my interview with Lily Loveless inan AfterEllen.com exclusive. The reaction by fans was tremendous, as was the demand for a follow up featuring Kathryn Prescott.

Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I present this sneak preview of a conversation that covered a wide range of themes, including acting style, the Naomilystoryline and the many facets of Emily’s character, interaction with fans, career goals and the inside scoop on what was happening behind thescenes during the filming of some of our favourite moments from Generation 2. Special thanks to Kat for being so generous with her time and granting permission to publish this interview! Ann-Marie Cook: How did you get involved with acting? Kathryn Prescott: I’vebeen interested in acting literally for as long as I can remember. I always did amateur dramatics. I never got the lead part in anything, even in any of my school plays, but I was always in them. I joined a Saturday group or Sunday group called Grease Paint and did singing, dancing and acting. I was there for a couple of years and then realised that I didn’t want to sing or dance, I just wanted to act. I left there and I went to another drama school, Mountview, and that’s where I met Lily.

That was just a Saturday class as well. But we didn’t speak very much; it was really weird, we didn’t not get on. Then I joined another drama group as well, did a couple of things with them and then me and mysister both decided we should get an agent because we heard that was kind of how you take the next step. My dad knew someone whose daughter was in this agency, so we went for an audition and joined with them. A couple of years with him and didn’t get very much. We joined Spotlight [actors’ directory] and we got a couple of auditions and then we got theaudition for Skins.

AMC: How did your interest in psychology develop? KP: Iwent to college after I finished school and I was looking at the list of topics that they did. I want to act but I also want to have some qualifications. I did textiles and fashion because I wanted to do something arty, but I was bored with doing just sculpture and painting, so I did textiles because we got to make a lot of stuff and play around.I did philosophy because I always wanted to do philosophy.

We did religion, existentialism-it was my favourite subject apart from psychology. Then I chose psychology as well and I just completely fell in love with it. I kind of realised everything I was learning in psychology was really helping me with acting, you see all these explanations in people that you know. It just helps you match up loads of things within people and that obviously helps you portray someone else; you know what their family is like. AMC: How did your psychology background influence the way you understood and portrayed Emily? KP: Youlearn about certain things in psychology. You learn about relationshipswithin families and how they affect you later and how your experiences affect your behaviour. When you’re given a script it’s kind of like in psychology if you’re given a case study. You have to go through it and you’re like, ‘Right, this is what she might have and this is what she might be like.’

That’s what I do with a script. If the writers tell you what their family is like-like Emily was a twin and she was always overshadowed by this bossy, horrible twin and her mum is quite oppressive, so she’s kind of inverted herself. But it doesn’t mean she’sa rubbish person, she’s just completely inverted and so you can just see what kind of issues she might have. The only reason that I’m interesting in acting or psychology is the same thing: I’m fascinated bypeople and what makes them tick and what makes them change and all these other things. So they’re perfect combined. AMC: So did you psychoanalyse Emily as part of your preparation for the role? KP: Alittle bit. I’m not a master, but it definitely, definitely helped. Thetwin stuff, obviously, because I know how I would feel if Meg was really like that. Reading the relationship that Emily obviously had withher mum, you can kind of guess how that would make her. AMC: Emily has some serious mother issues, doesn’t she? KP: Ithink so, yeah, and she probably had dad issues as well. Because Jenna is so feisty and the way she is, her dad is quite reserved and quite passive and that probably annoys Emily because no one is sticking up for her. AMC: She certainly acquires the ability to stand up for herself, but judging from the shooting scripts for series four, she sort of swings to the other extreme by becoming rather controlling, possessive and jealous. Do you have any thoughts about the way the editing softened Emily’s character by eliminating or toning down scenes that portrayed those aspects of her? KP: I forget what we shoot and then when I see it, I mean when someone reminds me we that shot something else-I don’t know, I guess maybe it makes Emily easier to loveif she is not ever like, ‘What are you doing?’, possessive. But obviously people are like that. Even if you’re the most timid person in the world, if you’re like really in love with someone, you go crazy if they’re with someone, if you see them talking to someone else. I don’t know why they [the production team] axed only things like that. I definitely think it would add more to her character. Or maybe they just thought I was really bad in the scene.

AMC: Perhaps they just felt that the scenes didn’t really offer anything new or important. KP: Yeah.

AMC: Ido wonder how our perceptions of Emily might differ if we had seen her lashing out at Jenna, Katie and Naomi in a far more aggressive way than what’s shown in the version that aired. KP: I definitely think less people would be on her side. I think of Emily as a certain way because Iknow all this stuff that we shot, but I forget that that doesn’t go into the show. I definitely think she would have less fans. She shouldn’t have less fans because people get like that when their relationship is breaking down; it brings out the worst in everyone. But maybe they liked the contrasting thing between Emily and Katie and between Emily and Naomi, that one of them was so strong and then the other one was kind of passive and would just get upset a lot about everything that was going wrong.

AMC: What was your experience at Mountview like and do you feel like it gave you a good start as an actor? KP: Wehad a teacher called Eddie Gower and he was the best drama teacher I’veever had. I think a lot of drama teachers that I’ve met have been a bitlike-they seem like they gave acting a shot and then they couldn’t quite do it. They became an acting teacher and they just got really bitter with everyone and weren’t very nice. Eddie Gower was amazing, a really good actor and really good comedian.

He actually gave me advice that I still use today. Little pieces of advice, like never practice your lines in a mirror because when you’re living and you’re actually saying words to someone, not lines but words that you made up, you’re not focused on what your face looks like; especially if you’re angry or upset, your face is hideous usually. Then, if you know what you look like when you are upset, you’re going to think in the scene, ‘Oh my God,I have to keep my face from contorting!’ And the way he explained Shakespeare-because I love Shakespeare but I don’t like Shakespearean actors, or a lot of how it’s done because it’s made into this really bigdramatic bit when that was just how people spoke at his time, it wasn’tmeant to be this big thing. AMC: Do you subscribe to any specific established acting technique? KP: Iguess Method Acting probably because you just have to be it. If I have ascene where I have to cry, I think I’ve used tear stick once because I hate it. Because you’ve got water running from your eyes doesn’t mean you’re really sad, it means you’ve got water in them. I’ll make myself really tired and basically depress myself all of the day. That scene where me and Lily were in the carpark in Bristol-Lily’s the same, Lily cries for real-and we were there for four hours on a Friday afternoon, crying the whole time. And by the end of it, on the train back to Londonthat night, me and Lily sat in silence because we were really depressed. Yeah, Method Acting, because makes it easy for yourself if you just are and if you actually can feel those things.

AMC: How long does it take to come down emotionally from those sorts of intensely dramatic scenes? KP: Ifyou’re doing it on Friday evening, I think you stay that way for the rest of the day, really. At least you’re a bit, like [mimes depressed expression] especially because you know when your eyes have been crying and they’re swollen and horrible and then you’re just shattered. I reckon that day it probably took me until Saturday lunchtime to come outof it and that’s only because I woke up at Saturday lunchtime. It’s difficult because once you’re in there, you got yourself there by thinking about certain things which you can’t then just shake off because they’re serious things. AMC: What sorts of things do you think about? KP: Itsometimes helps if I contrast what Emily is going through in the story to something I’ve been through because then I can make the connection and remember how I felt and then remind myself of that feeling and then try and make what I was feeling in the past about that, try and project that onto what Emily is feeling, like it’s happening to me again, if that makes sense. So I just have to try and bring feelings from there and the story from here now.

AMC: The challenge is in doing that over and over again on cue. KP: Oh my God! Once they tried to make me-there was this one bit where I had to use tear stick or actually they just put drops in my eyes. I was talking to Naomi and she said literally a line to me and in between her line and the next line I had to make a tear come out of this eye and roll down my cheek. I really don’t know if I can control which eye the tear comes out of or if I can get that upset in one line. That was definitely necessary for a tear stick.

It’s okay if you can be crying from the beginning of a scene. There’s a scene that scene just made me cry because it’s so sweet: at the end of Emily’s episode in the second series, everything crazy has happened, and John Bishop who plays my dad,who’s so cool and lovely, he comes in in his bathrobe and I’m sitting crying on the counter. And when he comes in and gives me a hug, every time he hugged me that made me cry anyway because I was already in that place and if someone gives you a hug, you’re like ‘wah-hah’ [mimes tears].

If you’re crying from the beginning of the scene it makes it much easier but if you have to, like, in the scene bring yourself up to it and then start crying that means that after every scene you have to bring yourself down, wipe the tears and be like, ‘I’m okay’, and then doit all again. And that’s really difficult.

AMC: What about the preparation for intimate scenes, like the lakeside and the cadet closet, where the challenge lies in putting yourself in the state of mind of being in love with another character? KP: Yeah it’s quite, well, Lily’s going to think I’m weird now if I said ‘Oh, it’s fine, I didn’t mind at all.’ Because I knew Lily from before and I do like Lily in real life it wasn’t, like, a huge struggle; I wasn’t uncomfortable with it. I could imagine someone being in love with her and just think of why, and then portray that as best as I could and just kind of forgetthere was a camera poking in your face.

AMC: Did it surprise you that so many of the people who interviewed you made such a big deal about that as something quite weird? KP: Yeah!I mean I understand when they ask was it weird doing the rolling around, taking off your clothes stuff for the camera because that would be weird either way. But when people go, ‘So what was it like kissing a girl?’, it doesn’t make me angry but me like, why would it be weird, I don’t get that all. I just don’t understand that.

AMC: What do you think it says about society when that’s the key feature of practically every interview? KP: Yeah,it’s like the first thing: “How did it feel?’ Like, girls are not aliens! It was absolutely fine. The only thing I didn’t like was I didn’t want it ever to come across like it was a lesbian fantasy scene and that’s the only time I ever got uncomfortable was when I felt like it was becoming something to draw people in to watch because it’s two young girls rolling around naked. But the actual bits where it was like two girls being in love that was fine because that’s just-I was really lucky to get that part-because that’s something really interesting and something that’s not been done too often on tv. AMC: Lily mentioned that in the cadet closet scene, Philippa Langdale directed youto remove each other’s bras but neither of you wanted to do it. KP: Wewere in the middle of the scene! Philippa just goes, ‘okay, you just doyour thing and if I think we need something else on the camera I’ll just say, roll over or something. We thought she actually meant she was just going to move us or whatever. We were kissing and she was like ‘Okay now, Lily, take off Kathryn’s top’. Okay fine, we’ve done this before, I don’t want to be prude, like, whatever. And so I did it, and then she’s like, ‘Now, take Lily’s top off’. Okay, fine. And then she said, ‘Now, Lily, undo Kathryn’s bra’, and Lily looked at me and I was like, ‘No!’. So we just didn’t do it and then Philippa’s like, ‘Okay, then, Kathryn undo Lily’s bra’, and I was like, ‘What!?’ and Lily’s like, ‘No, no, don’t!’-all on camera! So yeah, that is one step, I don’tknow.

AMC: Did you see that bit of nudity as unnecessary? KP: Idon’t know, I would hate-I don’t want to get in trouble for saying that, like…I think their storyline is really good and I think that the way they’ve shown it is different from other lesbian storylines of younggirls that I’ve seen because it shows their relationship. Their relationship starts off being about them being confused and maybe being lesbian, maybe not, not really knowing, and all the confusion and then it just shuts up about that bit. And it’s like, okay whatever, they might be two girls but they’re just two people having a relationship andit’s about their relationship, not about that [lesbian sex].

I would hate for it to have become-I don’t think it did-if there was too much sex and you saw boobs and taking off bras, that stuff, I thought it would become just like, ‘Oh, there you go!’ Of course, I would hate for the fact that there was too explicit sexual scenes with girls to overshadow the fact that the storyline was about love and not about sex between-I think the story was written so well and it came across on camera well. I think if there had been any boob, it would have become something different. AMC: At the same time, there’s the argument that, since we’ve had decades of increasingly graphic heterosexual sex in film and television, being more explicit with two women can send a very powerful message that it’s not taboo or abnormal. KP: Yeah, definitely, I think that’s true, maybe with slightly older actors.

AMC: It’s really an age issue here, isn’t it? KP: Yeah,that’s the only thing because a lot of us look younger than 18. It kindof, it would visually look a bit wrong if it was too explicit. But thenI think the same thing about heterosexual sex scenes in Skins. AMC: Ininterviews, you’ve talked about the awkwardness of filming the lakesidescene in 306, but my question is how you managed to concentrate on anything and produce such a magical moment on a cold, wintery evening just hours after you’d gone into hypothermic shock from jumping in the lake? KP: Well, it was a long time after we went in the lake. I jumped in and went into shock, and it was literally the scariest thing ever. They told me afterwards my heartbeat had gone to dangerously low. The had to put me and Lily-they drove us to a hotel room; we were in a bed together for body heat and one of the paramedics standing there feeding us biscuits and blowing a hairdryer under the sheets. It was so funny! Then I had to have a warm shower for about an hour, I was crying in the shower and couldn’t breathe.

It was a long time after that. The costume department were feeding us biscuits. I think they wanted us to go back in the lake and Ed[ward K. Gibbon], the costume designer was like, ‘No you’re not putting them back in, no, no, no!’ There was a whole other scene in that lake that was supposed to happen and they justdidn’t because they couldn’t. That gave me some kind of calm afterwards, when I calmed down after all of that and like eating a shitload of biscuits, me and Lily were just like, it’s nice to be wearing some clothes, sitting on a rock. That was actually alright.

It kind of gave me some measure of-kind of centred. Just knowing I didn’t have to jump into a lake in my knickers was calming. And I knew that wasthe last scene we were doing. There were like forty men standing aroundwatching us, so I just had to look down and like, you know, but it was cool. AMC: Do you feel like working on Skins made you a better actor? KP: Definitely!Well, hopefully! I think acting is all about that confidence and beforeI did Skins I didn’t know what the bloody hell, like, what was going on. I didn’t know if I was, you know-even just getting the part was-and Istill don’t know whether I’m good or not because you never do because you can’t judge yourself. Acting is about having confidence, a lot of people who are really good actors sometimes come across as bad actors because they’re having a confidence dip, which is really annoying. But yeah, I think I learned a lot from it.

I know what you learn in drama school is completely different. But I was thinking about going to drama school for ages but then I did Skins and I realized that I didn’t want to go study it, I wanted to do it and because I’m interested in tv and film, more naturalistic acting, I thought that it was the best drama school I could have gone to. By doing Skins, I met amazing people. AMC: Afterspending some time in the US this summer, do you have any thoughts on how the American film and television industry compares with what you’ve experienced in Britain? KP: I don’t really have enough experience with the American one to judge it. So far as I can see, it’s maybe a little bit more cut throat just because America’s bigger therefore there’s more people to contest against. But then in a way it means you’re kind of different because you’re English, but then there’s loads of English actors. I don’t know, it scares me a little bit but it’s really exciting at the same time.

They seem to do things on a bigger scale, obviously, because the base of the film industry is in Los Angeles. So it would be cool just because-like I don’t want to go and beall Hollywood-but it would be cool just because they seem to have on certain things, not all things, but just bigger budgets for things. So therefore, they get to be more experimental and as an actor, I guess yougain more experience from the things you do. That’s something I really,really want to do. AMC: Do you worry that people will always see you as Emily and that it might impact the sort of roles you get offered in the future? KP: Yeah,when I go into certain auditions they say, because my voice sounds a particular way, it just reminds them of Emily, which is difficult. I don’t think I’d get stuck as Emily because I want to play different things and also because I got rid of the hair, which is the main thing. Ithink it was good that they gave me such a particular haircut because Icould easily change it. But that’s not something I really worry about, Iworry about getting stuck in typical teenage girl, middle class thing, like Emily was. But I think when you get auditions for stuff you just have to prove yourself in the auditions and as long as you do that, you won’t get stuck. AMC: When people look back on the Naomily storyline, how do you want it to be remembered? KP: Hopefullysomething that portrayed something in an honest way and was the first thing of its kind, really. Something that was just portraying a beautiful relationship between two young girls who weren’t sure of anything but were still really in love.

AMC: Of course, the question on every fan’s mind is what is happening with the film and will Naomily be in it? KP: Literally,I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on. I want it to happen, like it would be cool to work with those people again and kind of have that experience because obviously I’ve never been in a film before. Also, because I just want to get back into acting and working with Lily again would be cool.

Follow Dr. Ann-Marie Cook on Twitter to get the latest updates about her forthcoming Naomily book.

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