One of our signature starting questions is, which cartoon character would you be?

I think it would have to be a mix between being one of the Powerpuff girls and a bit of Patrick from SpongeBob Square Pants, because I like to think I’m a strong woman, a bit too assertive, sometimes a bit of a fight in me. But I also have this really goofy, clown like side. So, I think I’d be a combination of both of them. I don’t know how that would look like.

What was your first paid job?

Before you go to the Royal Ballet School there’s like a weekend course you can do where you travel to London every Saturday and you just do like a ballet class there. And during that time, sometimes there are sort of like excursions where you can go and watch the Royal Ballet Company dance. And sometimes in these performances they need extras like small little children for like, Nutcracker and whatever. And the first one I did was Don Quixote. I had to be like a little puppet. I was about like ‘yay high’. I think I must have been about, I don’t know, 9 or 10 years old. Puppet makeup, little rosy cheeks, had to be wooden. It was amazing. I met Carlos Acosta, an amazing dancer from the Royal Ballet back then. And yeah, it was just the first time sort of being involved in a huge production of such high quality. It was just mind blowing. Yeah, it was great.

What went through your head at that age? Was it then also the first time you saw like a big scale theater?

Yeah, I think I must have seen performances when I was young, but I don’t really remember them. But it was the first time where I think I got to see sort of the behind the scenes aspects of it all. I just remember being really nervous and my mum was sort of trying to encourage me and calm me down and yeah, it was a funny experience. I think I was a nervous wreck, but it was super exciting. Of course.

Who’s the most famous person you have talked to?

Actually, The Queen. Yeah, I was really lucky going to the Royal Ballet. I had some great experiences. Prince Charles as well. Prince Charles actually landed his helicopter in our grounds of the school. And I was selected to be one of the students to talk with Prince Charles. So that was pretty cool. And then I can’t remember what it was. There was some, I don’t know, some Queen’s anniversary, some celebratory event or something and the Queen came to visit the school, we had to do the little curtsy, shook her hand. We were like driven into us that you’re not allowed to turn your back to the Queen, that we have to stand. We have to say, yes, ma’am. And yeah, it was the Queen! It was such a surreal experience just seeing her there. Yes, the Queen.

What did you say to Prince Charles?

We had a bit of a chat, actually, because, I can’t remember if he has experience in tap dancing or not, but he’s really interested in it. And before the Royal Ballet School, before you sort of get directed into just ballet, I was doing a lot of tap dance. I love it. And yeah, he was just asking me to show him a few moves, and then he showed me a few moves and yeah, we had a bit of chat. It was really cool. My director wasn’t very impressed because I got a little bit too friendly with him. It was great!

If you could be an expert on anything, what would that be?

I feel like psychology would probably be pretty useful, just to help me interact with human beings a bit better. I just find it super interesting. I’m a big crime fan, sort of CSI and all this stuff. So the whole investigation things, sort of profiling and all that stuff. I love this kind of thing. And yes, psychology has a big thing to do with that. I guess psychology.

Now tell us about the time at the Royal Ballet School teachers and I don’t know, people talk. Is it hard to get in, for example?

Oh, my goodness, it’s very hard to get in! So I had to go through about four audition processes. I can’t remember how many girls and boys were there, like thousands, I guess. And they sort of scrutinise everything. You don’t just do a ballet class. You have to have physio where they sort of lie you down and prod you, pull you around, touch the toes, check physicality, flexibility. They ask for the background of your parents, the genetics, to see if there are any sort of underlying diseases, or they ask the height of your mother and father to see how you’re going to grow. Crazy things. Also academic tests. It was a real process to get in. And when I finally did, I couldn’t believe it. To be honest, when I was auditioning for this school, I don’t think I really understood what it was going to be. I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew it was this elite school. I was super excited to go there, but I did not realise how elite, how strict it was going to be.

How old were you?

11. Yeah. So it’s a boarding school, right. So I left home at the age of eleven, had to learn how to do my laundry by myself, like loads of things; hair, makeup. From 7AM till 10 in the evening, without your family and being thrown into a dormitory with twelve other girls that you don’t know. Yeah. I mean, it’s a very elite school. You have to be very well-spoken. Watch how you talk. If you met a teacher in the corridor, you would have to curtsy to them. I don’t know, I guess it’s a bit like the army. It really is. We sort of have drills. The alarm goes off. You have to stand by your beds at 7 in the morning. They check that there are no creases in your bed. You have like a list, like in Harry Potter of things you get to have; you’re only allowed three pictures of your family, one pillow, three toys. If anything was ever found on the floor, it would be confiscated. You’d have to pay to get it back. Your meals were written down, what you were eating. It was just like you were constantly sort of watched over the whole time.

Did you sometimes go to the other students and put their toys on the floor?

There was stuff like this. People do crazy things when they’re that competitive in this school, stealing things etc. We had one moment where a girl got some Tipex (you know that white correction stuff) and painted over another girls phone. I mean, twelve young girls living together in one dormitory. It was a bit catty at some point, but, yeah, it was just super strict; also between the women and the men, we had to have sort of a distance. They had like this ruler and if we were too close together. ‘Get away, get away.’ The boys were sort of on one side of the building and the girls on the other and we were only allowed to mix when we were allowed to, like at designated times.

It was an early practice of social distancing.

Yeah, exactly. It was absolutely nuts, really insane strict. But there were some positive things as well. I don’t want to say it was all negative. Like it made me who I am today. It helped me become self disciplined, self motivated and yeah, these twelve girls that you’re sort of thrown together with, they become your family. And when you leave your family at eleven years old, these bonds are bloody tight. So a lot of positive came from it. It really made me who I am today. I wouldn’t change it, but the first two years I was miserable. I’m not going to lie. I had nose bleeds, panic attacks. I was writing letters home to my family because we weren’t allowed mobile phones, nothing. We had, like, one pay-phone that we were allowed to use one day a week. So, I’d write these letters to my parents, and they’ve still got some of them, and you can actually see the tear drops on the letter as I’m writing it. I’m like, ‘I’m happy here. Everything is fine.’ Obviously, I didn’t want to worry them, so, yeah, it was a big experience in my life, huge part of my life.

Have you ever heard of other schools having similar processes?

I think a lot of these ballet schools, especially the boarding schools where the students sleep there, I think they all have a little bit of this elite feeling, this sort of strictness. I mean, to be a dancer, you have to be self disciplined, but they bloody drive it into you. I think I’d say most of the schools are like this, but the royal ballet, don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m right. I think it’s one of the longest running of these type of schools, probably with, I don’t know, Bolshoi in Russia or something. I think tradition has a lot to do with it. For me, I guess the Royal Ballet School would seem a lot stricter than these other schools just because the name has such a heaviness to it. If you say you go to the Royal Ballet School, you expect this dancer to be almost perfection. But I think to some extent, all these schools have a bit of this toxic…yeah…I don’t know what to say…strictness. This all seems very negative. Next question.

To what extent has your classical dance training helped you to develop your own contemporary style over the years?

I’m going to be brutally honest. It didn’t. I think the Royal Ballet School back then, anyway, I don’t know how it is now, but back then they really focus on ballet, pointe work, solo work, working on dance history, sort of repertoire from the Royal Ballet Company etc. We did do contemporary dance a few times a week, but it was only one style, sort of Martha Graham, very sort of square in style. So, I left the royal ballet, sort of thinking I was going to be like this classical ballerina with pointe shoes, the tutu and the tiara. And then as my career slowly progressed, I realised it just wasn’t me, this sort of stuck up ballerina. It was just sort of clashing with my personality. And I slowly realised that actually I like the more grounded movement, more contemporary, more fluid, more natural, more animalistic. And I had to learn that by myself. Being thrown into my first job, then working with different choreographers, learning things from my colleagues, from other dancers, watching videos. My contemporary movement I think actually still needs quite a bit of development despite my age, just because I feel like that journey started too late. It was just ballet, ballet, ballet and contemporary was sort of the side dish at the Royal Ballet. I feel it was not their main focus, unfortunately. And yeah, I’m still there discovering this journey, discovering this contemporary side of me which I love.

Now you mentioned already you moved with the age of eleven to London. Yes, but then when you started your professional career you moved to Switzerland. It’s a completely different country and then also German, kind of…

Yeah, terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I mean of course you’re super excited. I mean at this age, like I got to move city for my job, get paid to do what I love. And at this point I was a little bit more used to not seeing my family…Me and my family are really close like me leaving home was a nightmare but I slowly got used to it. But this was a different country. It wasn’t just like they could come and drive and get me or I take a train to come and see them. This was like a plane journey away and yeah, living in my own apartment in a foreign country, not speaking the language.

I didn’t know anyone in that company before going there. Sometimes people already have connections before they join. I didn’t know anyone, I just went in there completely blind, just thrown in at the deep end. It was terrifying and exciting but at the same time.

How do the Swiss dancers or the Swiss people differ in general, was there already like a cultural clash?

Yes, I come from Essex in England. I think we wear our heart on our sleeve. I like to think, I don’t know, bubbly people, very open, I’m very chatty. Like if I have the opportunity to chat to someone on the street, I will take that opportunity. And then I came to Zurich…it’s a generalisation, not everyone is like that, but they have money. They were a bit snobby for me, a little bit like in boarding school definitely. And that possibly helped me to integrate but to be honest, I never felt at home or comfortable in Zurich, Switzerland. It was also that the company just didn’t fit with me. Don’t get me wrong, the city is beautiful, the opera house is right by this gorgeous Lake. In our free time we could go swimming. There were some great jazz bars, it was a beautiful place but the people…different, very different.

What does it take to be a professional dancer? Where’s the tipping point from it’s a hobby and it’s a profession. Maybe we can address this a little bit more towards the younger generation when they say like oh, I like to dance but I want to make a professional of it.

Yeah, if you’re a young student and right now dance is your hobby and you’re thinking about becoming a professional, you have to really realise that this is going to become a lifestyle. It’s not going to become your job, it is going to be a lifestyle. You’re going to be tired for the rest of your life. I had a teacher in the Royal Ballet School, she used to say to me, “you can sleep when you’re dead” and it’s so true. I think as a dancer, you are just tired all the time. I mean, it just becomes your life. You’re working 8 hours a day if you’re a professional, sometimes six days a week, you have shows. You just have to sacrifice your life, your social life. You just have to give up so much for your art. I think you have to first of all, be bloody passionate about what you do. And second of all, a tough cookie. Because if you are thin skinned, you are not going to make it. I mean, you stand in front of a mirror every day. You have people criticising your every move all the time. You need thick skin and you need passion more than anything. And be ready to be tired for the rest of your life.

How does the job as a dancer impact your private life then? You already said you are tired a lot.

I’m tired a lot, yes. On the topic of my family, I still get homesick. I still miss my family. Like finding time to sit down and Skype them and communicate with them. It’s hard. You have to really plan the time to communicate with your own family. It sounds ridiculous, but you have to. I mean, right now I’m 31 and I’m not quite there yet. But I’ve got a better balance. I think before in my private time, out of hours, I would focus on refuelling my body, getting the rest, bath, bed. And then I realised I’m just going to waste away my life resting and fuelling myself for the next job today. So now when I have free time, I enjoy it. I party or go out for a beer, go out for meals with my friends, brunch, cinema. You just have to use every hour of your free time as much as you can. And yeah, “sleep when you’re dead”. There is no time right now to rest. So now I’m really just trying to suck the energy out of life. 

Could you imagine working a normal nine to five job?

No, I can’t sit still. Have you seen how many times I’ve moved on this chair already? I cannot sit still. Am I disturbing everything? Literally, I can’t sit still sitting behind a computer. No, not my thing at all. I could probably do other jobs but they would have to be something active. Mountain climber. Yeah. Athlete, I don’t know. Don’t laugh. But when I was eleven, I was interviewed by the BBC at the Royal Ballet School and they asked me the same thing. Like what would be your job if you weren’t a dancer? And I said join the army because it really does kind of go hand in hand. You have to be self disciplined, organised, fit. And I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. A lot. So if I was going to do anything else, it would have to be something active. I love working with my body. I feel lazy if I’m not doing anything.

Maybe you should become a stage technician or a rigger or something. 

Or that. Yeah, it would have to be something active. I can’t sit down for 2 seconds, I’m a nightmare. Never go to the cinema with me. I wriggle in that chair till the cows come home. Yeah. No, I couldn’t do it.

Talking about the entertainment industry, what do you think is the most underrated job?

I’ll answer in two parts. From what I assume, regarding the public’s perspective, I would say the dancers- just because it annoys me. It’s typical that when you say you’re a ballet dancer…”ohh you can dance on your toes”. It’s not easy to dance on your toes! I think a lot of people underestimate the sacrifice dancers have to make, the amount of pain that we are in every hour, every day of our lives. So from that perspective, a dancer. But the technicians, I mean, before our performance starts, the amount of work they do to put down the special dance flooring to make sure it’s safe for us. The lights, the stage, they clean. If there is one little thing wrong and the dancer says the floor is slippery, whatever, they will fix that problem with you. Like without them, we wouldn’t be able to do our job.

How much should a dancer earn? Is the compensation right?

No. I know nothing about finances. I can’t give you a number, but we do not earn enough for sure. Our careers are so short lived and we just abuse our bodies every day and I don’t think that is compensated enough at all.

– So you are like basically studying as long as a lawyer, as a doctor…

Yes! And we don’t save lives. Okay. They are priority, more necessary jobs. That’s maybe a bit different, but yeah, I mean, you compare us to footballers. I don’t want to say they just run around kicking a ball, like of course, its a skill and they also have to train, but they’re getting paid thousands, millions a year. And I’d say physicality wise, we maybe do a bit more than that, because we also have to have strength and speed but also flexibility. More so than a footballer.  No, we don’t get paid enough at all. I hope that’s going to improve. I feel like now there’s a lot more activity with sort of dance unions and these dance networks where this is sort of being discussed. I hope it will improve.

I don’t know, what would be a reasonable salary for you? What’s your dream number where you feel like, really, for the work that I’m putting in, that’s the amount that I should get…

At the moment. I have enough money to pay my rent, pay my bills, enjoy my life. And I probably have leftover, to save per month, about 300 euros. I would like to be putting away a bit more money than that per month. Quite a bit more. I’m scared to say a number because, I don’t know, three grand, that’s about right, isn’t it? That’s okay. I’m going to go with three grand.

–It’s interesting because now you are the fourth dancer that I interviewed that says that number. All of you said three grand.

Really? Yeah, I feel like most people want to say five and then they just go for a midway…3 yeah. I would assume most dancers, I don’t know, the people I know, they’re getting paid, I don’t know 1600 euros a month.

– We are talking about Germany?

Yeah, maybe a bit more. I mean, we need at least another grand a month, at least! Just seems fair.

– Also taking in consideration these long study years! I think most people don’t understand that.

What were the three most ridiculous costumes you had to wear?

One was a ginormous chicken suit for La fille mal gardée, a ballet that I did in the Royal Ballet School. The whole complete thing, like big feet that we had to put our ballet shoe in. And then we had these big sort of chicken feet. The whole thing. I was about like three sizes bigger than I am. That was pretty good. One of the worst, humiliating ones was in Coburg. We had to do musicals as well as ballets, and we did the musical La Cage aux folles, and we had to go out in just G strings and, like, pasties on our nipples with big flowers attached. After studying for eight years at the Royal Ballet School and wearing the tiara…and then joining this company and being told you have to wear a G string and big flowers on your nipples. That was not one of my finest moments, but I sold it, of course! But yeah, they were the two best, the flower nipples and being dressed as a chicken. I don’t think you can beat that, can you?

– I already know the YouTube tagline, flower nipples and a chicken.

I will find those Pasties and I will send them to you.

– We would love that. They are brilliant. Yeah. 

What was the most mind opening thing you have ever learned, like, personally and professionally, what gave the biggest AHA moment?

I mean, first of all, I feel like as a dancer, I’m lucky enough to have that feeling every day. I think that’s why we love our job so much, why it’s so addictive, because we are just constantly striving for perfection and every time you get a step closer to that. If you do a good turn, ‘I realised I had to bring my left arm in faster and with my head’, this constant sort of criticising of yourself and then you have that AHA moment where you’re just like, ‘yeah, now it works and I know why it works’. So yeah, I’m lucky to receive that feeling every day. But I think in my private life, I don’t think there was anything that actually sort of happened to me. I’m 31 now. I turned 30 last year and as soon as I hit 30 I just suddenly had this feeling of like, ‘okay, I know who I am now. I know what I want, I know who I want to be surrounded by’. And I just found like this peace inside of me and I was like, ‘I’m Emily now, I am who I’m supposed to be’. 

– You’d arrived? 

YES! At this point I had arrived. That’s the best way to say it. I turned 30 and I just arrived and I don’t know if that was a combination of who I was surrounded by or the job or there wasn’t sort of anything that particularly happened to me. It was just this feeling like you say, of arrival. That was pretty cool!

How important is it to meet your personal goals within your artistic being?

Yeah, as dancers we strive constantly for validation. So I think it’s normal that it’s extremely important to us to succeed, to be always giving 100%, to be doing our best. But for me in particular, I am such a perfectionist! I am a control freak. Like if I don’t do something perfectly or don’t achieve something, I would just drive myself insane. Okay, I’m a bit of a workaholic. Even when I’m not in the studio or on stage. I’m thinking about my work in my private time and I think because I’ve sacrificed so much in my life; being away from my family, getting paid peanuts for putting my body through what I do every day, it is important that that sacrifice is validated with something successful, something to achieve your goals. It’s bloody important. That’s my answer.

What do you do when you disagree with your choreographer?

First of all, I feel like that hasn’t happened a lot with me. Just because I feel like the choreographer is trying to create something. Who am I to say that’s wrong? Like they’re putting a piece of themselves on stage and I’m the material for them to do that and I want to give my best in showing what they want to say. But for example, if they say, “Emily, you were too late, the count is five and you were on six” and I believe I wasn’t…I’m quite a vocal person, I will put my hand up and be like, I disagree. I think you’re wrong. I always try to be professional and polite, but it hasn’t happened too frequently that that has come up, surprisingly.

What are the three biggest struggles in your day to day life as an artist?

I think that’s tricky. Maybe that’s a personal thing. Maybe it’s a general thing. I don’t know. Okay. Yeah. Sleep, communication with family, my romantic life.

Is there a ritual you do before the curtain opens?

Like I say, I’m a big control freak. I used to have a ritual that I think was a bit too much. I’d have weird OCD things; that I’d have to put my left shoe on before my right shoe, just before the lights came up if I scratched my nose on the left side, I’d have to do the right side, like really absurd things. And it got to a point where this ritual had become so, I don’t know, in my blood it became toxic and it was just taking away the fun of performing and doing my job. So I tried to sort of chill out of it. And now it’s just that I have to have a nap before I perform, for sure, at least an hour, just to completely calm down. I have to have, like, tuna pasta or a tuna sandwich. I have this weird obsession, that I don’t know if that’s a good luck thing or if I just feel like my body works better with that kind of food. But it has to be tuna or a tuna sandwich. I have some weird things. I have to have at least two cigarettes before I go on stage, I shouldn’t be advertising smoking, but I have my cigarette to calm down. And then I guess what you’re really asking, the most interesting one, is just before I go on stage I crouch down to the floor, I put my palms onto the floor. Probably sounds absurd. And I just feel like I’m absorbing all the energy from all of the world, of all the people, from the floor, through my hands, into my body. And then I tell myself, ‘you are the motherfucker. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that. And then I go on stage and I just feel like I have the whole world and its contents inside of me and I’m the motherfucker, and I’m going to go out there and show them what I’ve got.

What’s your worst fear when you think about the industry and the future of the industry?

That it’s just going to die out.

Why is that?

Okay. Performances like musicals and these big West end productions, I think they are always going to receive good marketing, good press. I think the public interest is high, but I think when it comes to dance pieces in theatres, I think it is seen as a bit of an elite art. I feel like most of the middle class families all over would choose going to the cinema or going to a football match over going to see a performance. And I think now that Corona has happened, it’s just been put sort of under a microscope; that so many people stupidly think that art is not fundamental. They don’t realise that during the crisis, when they were sat at home watching Netflix, listening to Spotify, the artists have created those movies, the actors, they haven’t made this link of what art actually is. I think they hear the word art and they think elite art; dance, painting, museums, this sort of high class thing. But it’s not art. It’s everywhere, everywhere you look.

What is art to you? When we are at this topic right now…

I don’t want to say it can be anything, that I can just draw a stupid, like picture and be like, hey, this is worth five grand. I feel like art is something that invokes emotion in someone. So if you see this glass of water and it invokes emotion for you, maybe that’s your art. It can be art to you. Who am I to say otherwise? I think it’s in the eye of the perceiver. I don’t think I can put a definition on it. I don’t know. I feel like a lot of more of the older generation are coming to our performances as well. Sometimes I stand on stage and I see the reflection of all their glasses and their little binoculars. And I’d love for one time to go out there and to see, like, a young, youthful audience out there to pass it onto younger generations. And I feel like that’s probably a marketing problem, maybe an educational problem.

– Now younger choreographers are coming into the scene. So I think also there’s a tipping point, or we are facing a tipping point in the industry. I also can see that when we look at technology, it starts right there. It’s not like the trap door is opening and closing and the curtain is going up and down. There’s insane technology out there now. So with all this video and 3D animation, maybe that will happen, something new. I think the whole artist, they will have to be reborn now.

Yeah. I feel like that’s what it needs, especially talking about ballets. For example, Swan Lake in a classical company, a classical theatre, I feel like they would still have the blue pieces of material for the water. And I feel like you compare that to a big West End show where they have the fireworks and the effects and all of this. I don’t know why this isn’t happening in ballet yet.

– Still very traditional.

Yeah, exactly. We need to break the tradition, get more effects going. Yeah. Maybe that’s what it needs, something to spark it up a bit for the younger generation, special effects and stuff. I feel like social media has helped a little bit with that because now dance, I mean, we see it all the time. Even if you don’t follow the hashtags of dance. Dance pops up in social media all the time. But I don’t know if now it’s so accessible that people aren’t going to pay the ticket to go to the theatre because they can download it on their phone. I don’t know. We need to find a way for it to develop for sure. Like you say, to have a rebirth, to update itself. It’s so traditional. You’re right. It needs to be updated. I don’t know. It needs to evolve a little bit. Exactly. Evolve. And then this, I think, would spark interest in the younger generations. I’d hope it can’t die out. I mean, it’s fundamental.

What should happen in the industry to make it perfect? Is there a perfect industry?

Nothing’s ever going to be perfect. Ever. Like we just discussed, it can get better, it can evolve. I think also, I don’t want to get into politics, but also politically, I think because of tradition as well, that it is holding the entertainment business back a bit. I don’t think there is a perfection. There are a lot of things we need to improve on. I feel like it’s already started politically; gender roles being mixed up a little bit. Finally, it’s not always the female role playing the female character, blah, blah, blah. It’s getting mixed up a bit. There we are again. We have to break the traditions. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don’t think you can be perfect, but we definitely have a lot to improve on.

Someone puts you in charge to build the stage. What do you do?

I call you. I would definitely call you. That’s my answer. I’d call you or I’d call my dad. I feel like when it’s, yeah, when I have an issue, especially when it comes to DIY or building things or if I’m just questioning myself, I call my dad. He usually helps. So many times I’ve wanted to put up a curtain pole or shelving and I put him on a video call like ‘am I doing this right?’ and he’s trying to sort of dictate me through it. Yeah, I’d call you first and then my dad second. That’s what I do.

What have you never been asked before?

That.

So, tell us a little bit more. What is going on in your life currently? Are there any upcoming shows or..?

Yes, I’m working with Statstheater Cottbus right now and we’re working on an evening ‘young choreographers’, which I love. It’s where each dancer can have the opportunity to create something for themselves. And yeah, they have to design the costumes, the lighting, the choreography, they pick the music, they do the concept. And it’s just such a wonderful experience just to work with your colleagues who are also your friends and family. And you don’t have some choreographer coming in where you feel like you have to be a certain way and present yourself a certain way. It’s just super relaxed because you’re working with people that know what you’re capable of. They know who you are. And there’s just like, this chemistry in the studio of sharing ideas and yeah, just like getting creative with a group of people you love so much. Like this evening, for me, I just love it. And there are some really nice pieces, all super different. Some are really sort of gooey contemporary, some are a little bit more classical, some are very emotional.

– So this will be the perfect chance to take a classical piece and break the tradition.

Exactly. And that’s why I love it as well, because also then we can bring in modern themes, the whole LGBTQ+ sort of thing, politics, whatever you want to say. It’s sort of the dancer’s time to have a voice and to put that out on stage and I just love it. It usually comes across really good to the public, because they can see a little bit more of who we are personally. And I guess it’s just a really authentic production, I would say. And I love that. I always try to be authentic and I love authentic people. I hate all this bullshit fake stuff and playing. I just love being real and I think that’s what this production brings And I’m so excited to start performing it. It’s going to be great.

Our signature closing question is, if you have the chance to put anything you want on a giant Billboard, what would that be?

That’s such a responsibility. I would want to say ‘fuck what people think of you’. I’d also love a Billboard to say ‘drink more water’ just because I’m rubbish at it and maybe it would actually help me to drink more water! But, I feel super cheesy…I feel like I would love to have pictures on it of my family and friends and just have a big thank you for your support and love, because I would not be who I am today without that support system. I bet that’s the cheesiest answer you’ve had! Yeah, I think I’d say thank you to all the people that love me and support me. Not very profound, but yeah.

I didn’t write my ending on this card.

‘The end’- we can write that on the Billboard. The end is near. Okay. Sorry.

I would like to take that. We just take that.