Words: Catherine Bray
Photography: Kate Beatty
Having won a British Soap Award for her portrayal of Hannah in Hollyoaks, 19-year-old actress Emma Rigby explains why it’s time to bow out of soap and look to new acting challenges.
Too many interviews with actresses start with a description of their flawless skin and doll-like stature. But meeting Emma Rigby in a greasy spoon cafe in Birmingham, the contrast between the petite, impossibly glamorous girl and her workaday surroundings is difficult to ignore.
With her bright blonde hair swept up in a striking Sixties beehive, lethal heels and a gleaming white smile, I can’t help but think I’m probably about to interview someone who sets a lot of stock by their appearance. In fact, Emma is interested in being known for more than the way she looks.
“Nowadays there’s so much focus on the way you look, and the idea that you have to be a certain way to succeed. We should be concentrating on people that do great things, rather than people who are hailed as a celebrity because they have a lot of money to spend on clothes and are a size zero. I try to stay out of all that, because I want to act, not be in every single magazine. It’s fine if that’s what you want, but I don’t. I don’t read those types of magazine because I don’t have any interest in seeing those types of shots of people I don’t know.”
She also eschews the Heat magazine culture of candid interviews which many soap actresses find to their cost, then seem to give license to paparazzi to stalk their targets 24/7. “I work with some people who have fantastic success with the lads’ mags, they do gorgeous photos and it’s fun for them, but it’s not for me. For me, the money to be made is not worth it. I’d rather wait and try to find a good role I’d like to do.”
It seems Emma is intent on being known for the skills that bagged her this 4Talent award, announcing that she’s leaving Hollyoaks after three-and-a-half years because she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed.
“Hollyoaks has been a brilliant learning curve, but I’d like to move on and try something completely different. It’s so difficult, but it’s just about going to the auditions and putting the work in.”
Will it be tricky to find more serious work though, given the attitude much of the industry has towards soap actresses? “There is still this stigma attached to Hollyoaks. When it started it was known as a place without many serious actors; a place that wasn’t focussed on the acting as such. I can imagine there’s still that old reputation: ‘Oh it’s only Hollyoaks.’ But if you go into an audition and you’re right for the part, hopefully casting directors will see beyond that.”
It may help that Emma’s most famous storyline, and the one that scooped her a British Soap Award, was a serious story applauded for its sensitive handling of a potentially explosive issue. Emma’s character Hannah suffered from anorexia, triggered by a dieting pact she made with a close friend, who eventually dies of the disease. She was a huge success in the role, but reveals that her casting on Hollyoaks was a case of second time lucky, having unsuccessfully attempted once already: “I’d been for an audition the year before. I walked in and they took one look at me and said, ‘I don’t know why you’ve come, you look far too young,’ so I went away without even auditioning. But I came back the next year.”
If Emma’s hoping to moving away from soaps, what are the types of film and work that in an ideal world, she would like to be part of? “Well, I really love Jodie Foster, Hilary Swank, and Cate Blanchett; people like that. They’re the kind of people I look up to – they keep themselves to themselves a bit, they’re not constantly in the tabloids.”
“Veronica Guerin starring Cate Blanchett is a really hard role, but she was fantastic in it. I love serious drama, crime, thrillers.” Sounds she’d be quite a serious cinema date. “Oh, you’d never want to sit down and watch a film with me, because I’ll always pick a really depressing film.”
