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tv, drugs and wardrobes words and photography faith mitchell from drugs to talking wardrobes, harriet hunter-purvis talks us through her passion for acting
Its fitting that the day I meet Harriet Hunter-Purvis we end up chatting in a café next to the Theatre Royal, a second home to the budding actress. A self confessed drama queen, she has just filmed a part in ITV’s Vera portraying a drug addict, something that couldn’t be further apart from the soft natured girl sat opposite discussing her future plans for university. Born to a Grandfather involved in an operatics group and an Aunt who performed in drama productions, Harriet has been living vicariously through theatre all her life. Performing in plays from the age of 6, she has just finished a sketch for Live Theater and is currently auditioning for drama school. I spoke to her about coping with pressure, preparation and portraying unusual characters. You recently portrayed a drug addict in Vera, how did you feel whilst performing? Did you feel under pressure? I felt a feeling I’d never really felt before, being part of something loved by so many meant that, yes there was a lot of pressure but it was useful, it meant I had an amazing amount of nerves which converted into adrenaline on screen and I felt it really enhanced my performance.
How did you cope with the pressure, did you find it overwhelming? I channeled the pressure in a different number of ways, but first and foremost I told myself I got the part because they liked me and thought I fit the role. This helped me to really enjoy the performance as I felt I fitted the role to their standards. It is still to hit me that I’m going to be on TV but the whole performance and experience was breath taking and I feel so blessed. When preparing for a role do you have a tendency to stay in character a lot? Preparing for a role can be difficult, especially if you are playing someone or something that is totally different to you as a person. I always primarily identify certain qualities of the character that I possess myself and can relate too, that way you can display some truth in your performance. This is a little more difficult if you are playing something or someone who isn’t normal. How do you prepare to play an unusual character? I once played a wardrobe in Disney’s Beauty And The Beast. In this instance I had to rely on the dialogue and stage directions to learn about the characters physicality, mentality and emotions.
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Due to the character having less emotion, would you say it was easier to portray them? Unusually no, I thought it was a lot harder. When playing a character such as a drug addict, you can study other performances to pick up tips and use your facial expressions to propel the performance. But when you don’t have anything to go by, its difficult to place yourself in the right mindset. You’ve also just finished preforming in the comedy sketch Your Aunt Fanny, how did you find performing in front of a live audience? Yes we’ve just performed for Newcastle’s JUICE festival, I thrived performing to a live audience.
Nothing can describe how much adrenaline you have before you step out and become someone completely different. We, as in ‘Your Aunt Fanny,’ perform over 8 sketches in a 50 minute stint so each performance required up to 7 characters under my belt, I felt amazingly high on nerves. It really certified my passion to do it as a career.
You can catch Harriet in Vera from January 2014 and in ‘Your Aunt Fanny’ in December 2013.