FOXES Magazine Jan. 2022 x Emma Laird

FOXES

DIGITAL COVER JAN. 2022

emma laird

breakout star of the new Paramount+ series Mayor of Kingstown.

MASTHEAD

EDITORIAL INQUIRIES Tina de la Celle Co-Editor-in-Chief / Founder tina@foxesmagazine.com Julian de la Celle Co-Editor-in-Chief julian@foxesmagazine.com Charlie Gray Creative Director studio@charlie-gray.com ADVERTISING & DISTRIBUTION Jeremy Davis Operations Manager jeremy@foxesmagazine.com GENERAL INQUIRIES info@foxesmagazine.com

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EMMA Photography Wanda Martin Fashion Damaris Valverde Hair Robert Vetica @ Walter Schupfer Management Make Up Jo Strettell @ Walter Schupfer Management Words Julian de la Celle Special thanks to Imprint PR

In January of 2021, British actress Emma Laird made a big decision - she sold her house in England to give it one final go at pursuing her dreams. With that money, she was able to afford consistent coaching, and that following March, she was offered a role in a big Netflix series. After that, she got another offer, and then another, the latter being the Paramount+ series Mayor of Kingstown.

Due to filming schedules, she had to pick one. After a difficult decision, she decided to take on the character of Iris in Kingstown. “The character was something that I didn’t know if I could do and that intrigued me,” says Laird. “I like a challenge.”

Now fast forward to the season finale having just aired, Laird showcases a masterful performance that is overwhelmingly human and grounded. Her tears feel genuine, her strength is naturally present, and she achieves an emotional depth that can be difficult for even the most veteran actors. We chat about the transition from model to actress, the steps Laird took to strengthen her craft, and what kind of trajectory she’d like her career to follow in the coming years.

LAIRD

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Julian de la Celle: You started as a model; when did you know you wanted to pursue acting?

Emma Laird: I never really thought I could do anything creative as a career because of the town that I come from and the income that I come from - every factor was just kind of against me. I didn’t have any parents in the industry. Modeling took me out of my hometown and into an industry that was somewhat creative. Even though I wasn’t particularly creative as a model, I was given this belief that I could venture into that world if I wanted to. I think for me, the biggest step was separating myself from my hometown. Once I did that, I felt like a completely different person.

Julian: How small is your hometown?

Emma: Oh, it’s so small. It’s not quite as small as those towns in America where they’re like 9000 people, but it’s not a city, and everyone knows each other. It’s right in the middle of England, near Sheffield.

Julian: Where’s your base now?

Emma: [Los Angeles], I think? I sold my place in England to pay for acting classes. It was January, and I had no money, but also it was really freeing because I have no kids, I have no responsibilities, I’m my own boss. I’m like, I’m gonna sell the house and I’m gonna pay for my coach who I’ve been working with for almost two years now. Coaches are expensive.

I coached for almost every audition, and I was getting a lot of them. So I was just kind of like, fuck it.

Julian: Do you find it important to have coaching or a class to be in for some kind of consistency?

Emma: I think my stance for any actor is you don’t need traditional training.

Emma (con’t): You don’t need a degree, you don’t need to go to RADA - stuff like that kind of helps for certain people, but I think it’s so circumstantial for each person. I would get messages from people online asking me how to get into acting, and I’m like, I don’t know, other than do the work in your own way. Whatever that means. For me, it was taking short courses a month or a week at a time when I could and to keep modeling to keep earning money to sustain myself. The most important thing was just staying active with it. Reading books, going to group classes because it takes you out your comfort zone and you’re vulnerable and you don’t necessarily get that with coaching. I think group classes are always good. I fucking hate them, though. [laughs] I went to this school called New York Film Academy. I didn’t know there was theory to acting - this was four years ago. My modeling agency kept telling me to lose weight, and finally, I told them I wasn’t, and I took up this course. That was the moment where I knew I had to do this.

I didn’t know how but I was going to do it.

Julian: Do you find there are more opportunities for you as an actor being in America or in the UK? Emma: I couldn’t get signed in England because I didn’t have an acting degree. So I had to come to America to start my career. That meant that I had to get a dialect coach, and I had to work with her for six months to get my American accent down because everything I went out for was American. I really learned by going out to auditions and botching them for six months straight. For me, coaches are really useful to help me see things that I don’t understand in the script.

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Julian: Is there an actor that you look up to that you’d like to share a similar career trajectory with?

Emma: Gary Oldman. Every single role he does is completely different. I love that shit.

Anytime I speak to anyone about Gary Oldman, they’re like, “Who?” Because he plays each role so differently. I want to do that. I want to avoid being cast as “a pretty young girl” because I don’t really see myself as that, and it doesn’t interest me. And what happens in ten years’ time when I’m not in my early 20s and probably looking the best I’m ever gonna look? They’re gonna be like, “Oh, well, that one skill set that we gave her...” I just want to do really bizarre, weird things.

Julian: So you don’t want to be typecast.

Emma: No way. I also really like Tilda Swinton, she has a similar thing. And Cate Blanchett.

Julian: This year has been pretty nonstop for you. You actually turned down a few other projects for Mayor of Kingstown.

What was it about this show that made you pick it over the others?

Emma: I was excited because it was Taylor [Sheridan], and I’d auditioned for Yellowstone last year. That’s when I started watching all of his stuff. The character was something that I didn’t know if I could do and that intrigued me.

I like a challenge. It was the arc that my character had that intrigued me. And I didn’t know if I could do it, which meant that I wanted to do it to see if I could do it.

Julian: Do you have a specific process for everything you do?

Emma: If you look at my scripts for Kingstown, they’re messy.

Emma (con’t): I obviously highlight my lines, but then I start drawing all of these lines and really dissecting each word and why they’re saying it. If I haven’t been given the full script, I imagine where I’ve been before the scene and where I’ve been after to give it some context.

And then I don’t really know... [laughs] What do I do?!

Julian: Well, I certainly miss being in a room for auditions because I feel like there’s an energy there that isn’t present with selftapes.

Emma: Oh, I completely agree. I don’t like self-tapes, I think they’re stagnent. I also think they go completely against what we do creatively because we have to be so technical.

I actually record the other character’s lines.

That’s the one thing that I think is weird, but it seems to work for me. I think it’s great because you get to do the scene how you want to do it, but it also means you’re on a timer because I’m pressing play on some lines, and then I’m responding to it. People keep telling me that I make interesting choices, but it’s just my instincts. I don’t do every self-tape I get sent; I’m really specific. The ones I do are always things that I’m already connected to in a way, or I feel something about.

Julian: Would directing or writing ever be something you’d want to pursue in the future?

Emma: Yeah, writing definitely. I wrote a lot as a kid, but I never really found my format with writing. Now I think it’s scripts. I want to write, but I don’t know about directing... maybe that would come along with a project. I don’t think I would direct someone else’s work.

Mayor of Kingstown is currently streaming on Paramount+ now.

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