Sian Clifford

By Moonah Ellison Photos by Sean Gleason

Don’t be fooled by that repressed & depressed sister she plays in the super-hit show Fleabag. Sian Clifford combines cool, sexy and cerebral in a way that not only most actors but most everyday folk strive for... but never quite achieve.

“...But I just knew that I was meant to be up there on the stage and not here being sat in the audience. So I was I think around 7 years old when that happened ...”

Sian Clifford is having a wild time. I catch her at home in London, after being in the States in Los Angeles for Awards season, then back to filming in London, then onto Sundance where she was on the jury there for the short program. This I would think is all normal behavior for her, an actress on one of the hottest television shows the past two years, Fleabag. In it she plays the older sister of the titular character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who just happened to be nominated or win every major TV award this year. But for Clifford, the show has brought her a bounty of success as well. For the second season last year, she received a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and a Critics’ Choice nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

Clifford starred in The Quiz, a UK miniseries that tells the story of how a former British army major got caught after cheating his way to winning £1 million on the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. A tremendous scandal and trial in England, it occurred right before the events of 9/11 so it got buried in the press and news cycle in America. Clifford stars with Matthew MacFadyen, who plays Charles Major, the disgraced cheater. “From then until the trial, which was in 2003, I mean every day there was something about them. I just remember it being this frenzy and what’s sort of fascinating about it. And I think what our show does is blow that story wide open. And I’m so excited to share it with the world. You know they’ve been persecuted for almost 20 years because of this and I think it’s going to ruffle a few feathers and it’s gonna provoke conversation about justice and the legal system.”

“...I think we’ve just gotta roll with it ... if we try to resist it, no good can come from that..."

Clifford is a West End girl and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she actually met Waller- Bridge and became friends. Privilege is something she took for granted up until about two years ago, she says, when she listened to Waller-Bridge on a podcast. “I just suddenly got this clarity about what a gift that was from my parents, you know. They never ever disgraced me, they never told me it was a foolish idea to become an actor. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up but my mother they did everything she they could to make sure that I was able to pursue this. And fortunately, this has ended up being the road I’ve pursued so I don’t think that there can be any regrets there.”

She started acting when she was six when cast in a The Wizard of Oz production with her sister, at her sister’s amateur dramatics group. “I went to watch my sister in the show. But, I had this moment of knowing, I don’t know if I articulated it out loud, and it’s only something that I can sort of consciously recognize as an adult, but I know that I sat in that chair and I knew that I was meant to be up there on the stage and not here being in the audience. And then there were various moments as a teenager, seeing Guys and Dolls at The National Theatre with Clarke Peters and Joanna Riding, Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman and that changed my life. Then I really really wanted to be an actor. I did Little Shop of Horrors at high school. That was another big moment for me. And then I wanted to try for drama school and things got a bit more serious. I auditioned the first year and didn’t get in but that’s when I knew that I really wanted it.”

Resilience is what sustains you in Hollywood—it can make or break you. And that is what drives Clifford, that attitude that keeps you going. “That was the first time that I got knocked back and there was no way that I wasn’t going back. It took me three tries. Three years to get in. And that’s where I met Phoebe and then here we are now.”

Now is a hit television show. Clifford almost didn’t make it, wanting to quit the business of acting two years before Fleabag shot its first scene. “I hadn’t worked in about two years before I filmed that. So that was real, I was getting into producing around that time and writing more. And I remember Phoebe saying to me, ‘You have to do Fleabag.’ And I sort of rolled my eyes at her because I was convinced they weren’t gonna let me do it. And yeah, but they did let me do it. And acting has totally seduced me back.”

To read the rest of this story head to www.issuu.com/newyorkmoves4