- And then, I'll go,
Coming at ya!
(screaming)
(light piano music)
The house in this street was
the first house that we were in,
me, my mom, and my sister.
(dog barking)
I was just kind of did everything everyone else did.
Like, I like, I don't know
Like, I played on Nintendo or whatever.
Or like, had a, yeah, Game Boy.
Like, went through different obsessions.
I liked to skateboard along here.
Like, but, yeah.
That was it.
Growing up in Crawley is,
yeah.
The same as anywhere else,
I think so.
- [Nichola] Oh, she was a beautiful little kid.
- [Erin] What do you mean? I thought I looked like a boy.
- Well, you did look like a boy.
In fact, everyone used to say,
"What a beautiful little boy you have."
- [Erin] Yeah.
- [Nichola] When she was kind of younger,
she didn't have huge amounts of friends,
did you really?
- No.
Oh no, no coasters.
- Tended to have just one friend
and that was Amy.
- Yeah.
- And that's where the football came into play.
- Yeah!
This is where I played on this pitch for the school team.
Like, for years and years and years.
It's making me feel a little bit anxious,
I'm not going to lie.
I don't know what it is.
School is just, I don't know.
I loved the bits that I loved about it, like, sports
and stuff like that and drama.
But coming back here just makes me feel
like I'm doing something wrong.
Oh fuck!
I couldn't get it!
(football thumps)
(birds chirping)
What's this? I'm still going!
What's she doing?
(man offscreen exclaims)
(Erin screaming)
(man offscreen laughing)
How many did I do?
- You were really good at football.
- And I loved it.
- And it was a hard decision, I guess,
for you to make at that time.
- It was 'cause dad was driving me to--
- All over the southeast. - Like Brighton.
- Yup. - And then having to
get back in time. - In time for me, then
- To drop off - To drop you off to
- East Grinstead. - East Grinstead, yeah.
- It was too much. - Yeah. Yeah.
- It really was.
So, I think it was Dad.
- Yeah - He sort of said to you,
"Erin you've got to decide,
really, - Yeah.
what you want to do."
- From when I was four and my sister was six,
we would go on the weekends,
it was a Sunday,
to drama club.
And yeah, we pretty much did that together
up until,
I don't know, I feel like she would've been like 16.
So, it lasted a long time when it was
our thing that we did.
It came a moment when she dropped away,
and I was just like,
Oh no, yeah, this is my thing!
And it just like,
yeah, right.
(light rhythmic music)
I would have been 18 when
we went to Bosnia,
which was with Guy Williams.
Because there's this theater festival called
the Mostar Youtube Theater Festival.
He was like, "We're going to create a piece
of theater and we're gonna take it there."
Teachers have the power to blooming change
your whole, like,
path in life
and I genuinely feel that he changed mine.
This is Guy Williams.
This.
- We did a piece of work that just kind of caught fire.
And that led to, "Okay, we could go actually,
we could go there and we could do a piece."
And even then still to 2010 so the award's been
over 15 years, it was still,
"Bosnia, why don't you come to Bosnia?".
- Yeah.
- Dangerous, scary place to go.
And they created this amazing, I mean,
honestly, I was watching it with my wife last night.
(drawn out string music)
- I knew how special of a piece it was that we created,
but it wasn't until the flight home,
knowing what you were a part of,
that kind of community of people that wanna make stuff.
It just had such huge impact on me.
When you speak to people and they're like,
"When did you wanna just do acting?"
and I'm like, "Well, it was kind of there.
"As I was growing up",
but that moment on the plane home from Bosnia always
really rings out in my mind because it kind
of like fed my soul in a way that
you can't unlearn how that tastes. So, yeah,
Bosnia genuinely, genuinely made
me consciously go, "Okay, this is it now".
- You went for audition after audition.
You paid 200 pounds a time and she got knocked back.
She got knocked back the whole time.
And it got to the point she saved her money
to go to um, London, was it? - Yeah.
- London, all these different places.
And saved her money to do it,
and she just got knocked back.
- Yeah, it was horrible. - And I cried,
because I thought where do we go from here?
- I just didn't know what to do.
- What they expected of you-- - Yeah.
- How to be, what to say.
But that's what GSA gave you.
- So from training in Gilford,
- Yeah.
to then getting into Bristol--
- And then it was Bristol. - Yeah.
I'd never been to Bristol before my meeting.
I remember falling in love with the place,
but then you kind of,
'cause Bristol is Bristol,
but Clifton is Clifton.
And then just staring at the building
that is the Bristol Old Vic
and being like,
"I don't know",
something just...
It felt really magical.
I think I spent my whole first year,
particularly, probably the first week,
literally just beamin'.
- Yeah. And I remember lovely you
with your lovely little top knot!
- It was embarrassing.
- Top knot and big boots.
- It was so, yeah
- It was adorable.
- It was so embarrassing.
- It's adorable.
- Stop showing photos! - Now this,
this was in the middle year,
that was the middle year touring show wasn't it,
- That's second year, yeah.
- This is "Heresy of Love" that, that I directed,
and Erin and there's Ryan.
- Ryan McKen is , like, one of my best friends,
like, he, I met him at Bristol Old Vic Theater School,
and we kind of, yeah we clicked really early on,
because we both kind of recognized a similarity
in the way that we approached it.
- [Whispers] 1, 2 3
(It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)
- [Singing] Clear, la.
(laughing)
(fingers snapping)
- And the shield
- Are we on that?
- Oh my gosh. - You were the first ones...
- We created an award.
- You were the first ones to be awarded this.
You can't be more than 100%
but if you could be more than 100%
they would be more than
100%. I mean they came with that,
they developed that, they pushed that,
they took everything that we could possibly offer them
and they,
they ran with it.
Anyway, your shield's in there,
- Oh my days! - And your swords are here.
- No! Come on!
- No!
- What did you do?
There and then it's up there
- And it always needed to flip it,
- And there!
I remember that one felt wicked!
- That's really cool,
you haven't forgotten - Yeah!
(Dramatic Orchestral Music)
(sword clacks)
(yelling)
I got you!
(laughs)
Whilst we were still in our final year
of Bristol Old Vic Theater School,
all of us were eligible to go up
for these meetings for this show that's being put on
at the Bristol Old Vic called "Pink Mist".
And it was, yeah,
it was kind of the best step up into the industry
that we could have asked for,
because you've kind of got the comfort
of being in Bristol which you've been in for a while,
but you're genuinely on a stage
for a professional theater for the first time.
And my character was particularly angry,
so I remember kind of like hyping myself up
for every show, going and doing, like, skipping on the stage
like, just listening to Eminem, yeah.
I'd get my clothes, I'd get my hair done,
and then like,
just completely getting rid of everything,
and just going into your character,
which I love, like, I love letting it all drop away.
And right now the biggest thing I've learnt
is that the more your life doesn't revolve
around this singular thing,
that you've put so much importance on, the better.
Like, I think it's really healthy
to know what you want to do,
that's totally fine and admirable,
but the more you fill your life
by playing volleyball, playing football,
going to the pub for a drink, or going to the cinema,
just, other things, you win,
because your like ahh!
Like, it stays as this hobby that actually is your job,
the more you fill your life out with other things.
- And, to see where you are now,
it's just incredible,
it's just,
you know, I pick up a newspaper, you're in it!
(laughs)
- It's weird That's just,
for me, as your Mum,I don't know,
you won't know how it feels but,
I just want to tell the world,
I want to go out, outside, and shout,
(laughs)
down my street,
"This is my daughter, look look!".
I do, I really seriously do.
- Yeah.
- You've done amazingly, I'm so proud of you Es.
- Aw Mum!