I went to drama college in England - the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London. I was there for not quite two years, then I got Star Wars.
I was a very young 21-year-old. I was very scared. I spent three years at university in west London, and I went into central London three times. I came from Shropshire, and just having travelled that far was enough ambition.
I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain's Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school.
I was lucky enough to get into drama school in London back in 2005, and I was there for three years, and in those three years, we did a lot of theater. A lot of classical training.
I stayed a year in the sixth form and there was talk of Cambridge, but I wanted to go to drama school. At 17 and three months I went to the Old Vic School in London. This most remarkable and brilliant drama school lasted only six years because the Old Vic Theatre hadn't the money to go on funding it.
I was born in Evanston, Illinois. I spent my elementary and part of my junior high school years in a D.C. suburb. And then I spent my high school years in Minnesota. And then I spent my college years in Colorado. And then I spent some time living in China. And then I spent three years in Vermont before moving down to Nashville.
I was very fortunate to have gone to drama school in London for three years, and that was classical training in the sense that a lot of it was dominated by stage work, so I would love to go back to stage.
From there I did a one year theatre acting course in Fife, and then three years of drama school in London.
I started studying theater in school, and then I got into drama school at, like, 19, and it was a national drama school in Montreal, and so it was just you and nine other students for three years, and it was really intense.
My fear of drama school is that the natural extraordinary but eccentric talent sometimes can't find its place in a drama school. And often that's the greatest talent. And it very much depends on the drama school and how it's run and the teachers. It's a different thing here in America as well because so many of your great actors go to class, which is sort of we don't do in England.
I'd always wanted to go to drama school. My life plan was to get into drama school and become an actor, but it took me three years.
I started doing drama after school, and it just developed into something that I did and I enjoyed very much.
I started acting when I was seven. And I went to a local drama school which is very well-known in London. Because of that, I started getting jobs, and I worked all the time as a child, pretty much non-stop.
I tried four times to get into the Central School of Speech and Drama before I got accepted. I started when I was 17, which was too young, in retrospect, and finally went when I was 21. I just kept plugging away. Determined? Yeah, I think I was.
It's great to have something to dress up for. You know, I spent three years in slacks at drama school, so now I like putting a dress on.
I came from drama school, and it's a group of 18 people working together in every single production and splitting up the roles for three years, so I am very much about the team.