The day that changed my life, Haydn Gwynne: The actress, 58, on the flash of enlightenment that made her finally follow her dream
Walking through New York one day in the mid-1980s I had a moment of complete clarity.
I was in my mid-20s, and although I didn’t realise it at the time I’d travelled to New York to gain distance and perspective. While I was there I realised I wanted to act – and that day it hit me like a bolt of lightning.
I’d been lecturing in English at Rome University for five years after graduating from Nottingham. I’d done some amateur acting in Sussex, where I grew up, and been in student productions at the Edinburgh Fringe, but I’d never considered it as a career.
As a child I saw Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Brighton and thought it looked great fun.
Then at Nottingham I was cast as Fenella in Auber’s opera La Muette de Portici and several national papers came to review it. I felt a pull towards acting, but still I suppressed it.
Partly I was unsure what my family would think. My father was a Barnardo’s boy and I was worried he’d think I was wasting my talents.
I also felt because I hadn’t been to drama school an acting career was impossible, and that if I didn’t work abroad after university then I never would, so I went to Italy.
Yet the notion wouldn’t go away and when I was offered two jobs simultaneously, I refused both and went to New York on a whim.
I saw some shows there, including the original production of Nine at the 46th Street Theatre, and it was just after that I had that moment of utter calm.
It was a huge relief and my father was very supportive.
I wrote to every theatre company in Britain and finally Alan Ayckbourn offered me a job in His Monkey Wife, a play with songs.
I then made my name in Drop The Dead Donkey, but music’s been a recurring theme in my career ever since.
In 2006 I was nominated for an Olivier Award when I played Mrs Wilkinson in a London production of Billy Elliot that later moved to Broadway.
By coincidence the theatre there was a few yards from the 46th Street Theatre where I saw Nine all those years ago!
By Sarah Chalmers for the Daily Mail
I was in my mid-20s, and although I didn’t realise it at the time I’d travelled to New York to gain distance and perspective. While I was there I realised I wanted to act – and that day it hit me like a bolt of lightning.
I’d been lecturing in English at Rome University for five years after graduating from Nottingham. I’d done some amateur acting in Sussex, where I grew up, and been in student productions at the Edinburgh Fringe, but I’d never considered it as a career.
As a child I saw Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Brighton and thought it looked great fun.
Then at Nottingham I was cast as Fenella in Auber’s opera La Muette de Portici and several national papers came to review it. I felt a pull towards acting, but still I suppressed it.
Partly I was unsure what my family would think. My father was a Barnardo’s boy and I was worried he’d think I was wasting my talents.
I also felt because I hadn’t been to drama school an acting career was impossible, and that if I didn’t work abroad after university then I never would, so I went to Italy.
Yet the notion wouldn’t go away and when I was offered two jobs simultaneously, I refused both and went to New York on a whim.
I saw some shows there, including the original production of Nine at the 46th Street Theatre, and it was just after that I had that moment of utter calm.
It was a huge relief and my father was very supportive.
I wrote to every theatre company in Britain and finally Alan Ayckbourn offered me a job in His Monkey Wife, a play with songs.
I then made my name in Drop The Dead Donkey, but music’s been a recurring theme in my career ever since.
In 2006 I was nominated for an Olivier Award when I played Mrs Wilkinson in a London production of Billy Elliot that later moved to Broadway.
By coincidence the theatre there was a few yards from the 46th Street Theatre where I saw Nine all those years ago!
By Sarah Chalmers for the Daily Mail
