'It’s a shame that ethnic minorities aren’t getting a crack at different types of roles,' says Georgina Campbell
‘Cosmic’ and ‘stellar’ have all been used to describe her extraordinary leap from obscurity to best leading actress winner at this year’s TV Baftas, the first black actress to win the top award
Georgina Campbell wears JACKET and DUNGAREES, both Topshop. JEWELLERY, Monica Vinader, Kirsten Goss, Dinny Hall and Maria Francesca Pepe
Georgina Campbell’s rise to fame has been so rapid that observers seem unable to describe it in anything other than celestial terms.
‘Cosmic’, ‘meteoric’ and ‘stellar’ have all been used to describe the 23-year-old’s extraordinary leap from obscurity to best leading actress winner at this year’s TV Baftas. She is, furthermore, the first black actress to win the top award.
Nobody was more surprised by her Bafta triumph than Georgina herself. In fact, for a while, she didn’t even realise she’d been nominated.
‘There was a tweet from Bafta before the announcement went online with a picture of me and the other nominees,’ she explains.
‘So I thought that the show I was in had been nominated.’
And the other nominees turned out to be a formidable trio of household names – Sheridan Smith, Sarah Lancashire and Keeley Hawes.
No wonder, then, that Georgina looked blindsided when her win was announced. She hadn’t even bothered to write an acceptance speech.
‘I mean, the others are such amazing actresses and winning best actress at Bafta was something I wouldn’t have imagined happening for a really long time,’ she admits.
Almost as surprising as a virtual unknown winning the major award was the show she won for.
Gerogina wears TOP, Solace London. SKIRT, Alexander Wang, from Harvey Nichols. LARGE EARRINGS and RING, both Dinny Hall. SMALL HOOPS, Phoebe Coleman
Far from being a big-budget star vehicle, the hour-long BBC Three drama Murdered By My Boyfriend was originally conceived to warn young people about domestic violence.
What viewers found, however, was not just an educational tool but also the compelling portrayal (based on a real-life case) of a young woman losing her identity and, ultimately, her life under the weight of psychological and physical abuse.
‘The end scene [where Georgina’s character Ashley is horrifically beaten to death with an ironing board] was not nice,’ says Georgina.
‘Not just for me but for everyone in the cast and crew, too. I remember that day.’
A police officer later contacted the BBC to tell them that a young woman had reported her own domestic abuse, citing Georgina’s performance as her reason for coming forward.
‘Anything in which you’re playing someone real does make you feel responsible for making the story as true as it can be.
'We wanted to show Ashley’s relationship in a fair light,’ she says.
‘Even down to making Reece [the murderous boyfriend] a three-dimensional character.’
Georgina’s refreshing honesty stretches beyond her acting roles.
‘What was nice [about getting the Bafta],’ she continues, ‘was that [normally] it seems as though you know who’s going to win.
'It’s usually people who are at the top of their game and are doing really well, so it doesn’t necessarily do anything for their career. It’s nice when it goes to someone who is outside that.’
She’s also not afraid to voice her concerns about the roles being given to black and ethnic minority actresses on British television.
!['What was nice [about getting the Bafta], was that [normally] it seems as though you know who’s going to win. It’s usually people who are at the top of their game and are doing really well,' said Georgina](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uEn5Ub2jD8M4crif2rqu3a4sbrYRyq3wp0lcJ0bGSbFypQKUp6Uq7DJwZilMAe4QNvuyL8thQXM3uvL6kmdISTkaN4DkBIf2ofRPBEMTFdNL9OnW8J51c0ZOodLZMd4ftNaT2ukVGdAEQPh_-Y02Vh1mSTaWNVx4W-7PWAdj9Xouope6j2Hw=s0-d)
'What was nice [about getting the Bafta], was that [normally] it seems as though you know who’s going to win. It’s usually people who are at the top of their game and are doing really well,' said Georgina
‘America seems much more diverse and has more exciting casting – they really take risks,’ she says.
‘It feels like over here we do that every now and then, but the UK’s main export seems to be period drama, which we always do in the same way and cast in the way it’s been cast for years and years.
'It’s not a case of what people want to see, but what they’re used to seeing.
'It’s a shame that ethnic minorities aren’t getting a crack at different types of roles. There needs to be a bit of a change.’
Originally from Sheffield, Georgina spent her teenage years in Wilmington, Kent, with her mother (a teacher of health and social care) and her stepfather, a bookbinder.
Her father works in the police. So have all these establishment figures made her a bit of a rule-follower?
‘Ha! I don’t know – yes, probably,’ she says. ‘I certainly didn’t have an exciting or a crazy childhood.’
Elder sister Sarah, 26, is now mother to baby Noah, while younger sister Ellie, 16, is at college studying graphic design.
Ellie, apparently, isn’t showing any signs of going into acting.
‘When your elder sister does something, it’s like – whatever!’ says Georgina, mimicking her sister’s insouciance.
Georgina’s first job in TV came as the result of being spotted, model-style, on Tottenham Court Road aged 15.
‘This woman [who turned out to be the director Sarah Walker] came up to me and said, “Hey – are you an actress? Do you want to come to this audition?” I said, “Not really” and kept walking, but she followed me and gave me her number and directions to the building.’
Georgina as Ashley in Murdered By My Boyfriend alongside Royce Pierreson as Reece. The hour-long BBC Three drama was originally conceived to warn young people about domestic violence
Discovering that she had some time to kill, Georgina had a change of heart and went straight to the audition (a disregard for personal safety that enraged her mother when she found out).
The audition lead to a part in Freak (a MySpace teen drama). She found herself an agent and a steady trickle of minor TV roles followed.
A nascent acting career, however, didn’t stop her from taking up a place at Royal Holloway University of London to study film.
‘Acting’s so difficult – it’s not a steady profession and I didn’t want to be living at home with my parents,’ she admits.
‘Drama school would have been absolutely fantastic but I already had my foot in the door. I was going off for auditions and doing acting jobs throughout uni.’
And then along came Murdered By My Boyfriend and seemingly overnight she went from ‘Georgina who?’ to ‘Bafta-winning actress’.
She’s already made the step on to the big screen with a role in next year’s eagerly anticipated Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur, in which she plays one of the prostitutes who raise Arthur.
Directed by Guy Ritchie, it’s populated by some of the world’s sexiest actors. So did she have her head turned by any of this cast of super-hunks?
‘I was given a Fab ice lolly by Jude Law,’ she giggles.
Georgina in new comedy-drama Tripped. ‘After Murdered By My Boyfriend, she (her mother) kept saying “Can’t you do some comedy?”’she said
‘I’ve been telling everyone that story. And Charlie Hunnam is fantastic; a really lovely person. I haven’t actually seen Sons of Anarchy [the hit American TV drama that made Hunnam a superstar in the U.S.] and I thought, “I won’t while we’re filming otherwise I’ll get obsessed with it and then I’ll be weird!”’
Despite her candour in all other departments, however, Georgina won’t confirm whether she’s currently single or if there are eligible actors queuing round the block to date her.
‘Yeah, right!’ she laughs. ‘I wish. Maybe you should put a word in?’
The man we’ll mostly be seeing her with over the next few months is Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison – the pair star together in upcoming E4 show Tripped.
Billed as a ‘mind-bending new comedy drama’, the show sees Blake and Georgina’s characters, Danny and Kate, attempt to settle down and get married – but then have their desire for an ordinary life thwarted when Danny and his best friend Milo are transported into a series of parallel universes. It sounds a bit Quantum Leap with a touch of Sliding Doors and a dash of Life on Mars.
Nobody is more pleased by the actress’s new comedy direction than her mum, who understandably found watching her daughter being beaten and murdered hard to stomach.
‘After Murdered By My Boyfriend, she kept saying “Can’t you do some comedy?”’ Georgina admits.
And is there any chance that she will be venturing stateside, particularly since she sees the acting world there as less restrictive?
‘I love the UK film and TV industry, but I’ve never been to America so it would be interesting to go,’ she says cautiously.
Does she ever fantasise about an Oscar-shaped award to put next to her Bafta?
‘Ha! Hollywood acting and the Oscars circuit don’t feel like they’re close to me in any sense,’ she protests.
‘To go from winning a TV Bafta to saying “Oscar next”? I think that’s the point where I might have to start reining it in a little bit. But of course I wouldn’t say no!’
And with Georgina’s talent for leapfrogging the herd, you can’t help thinking that it might just happen.
Tripped will air on E4 later this year
Georgina's winners and losers
Reading
I Am Malala – the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who stood up for the right of girls to be educated and was shot in the head by the Taliban and survived.
Watching
Channel 4 series Humans. I’m obsessed with it to an unhealthy level. I suppose many actors are like this, but sometimes something comes on the TV and you think, ‘Why didn’t I get an audition for that?’ So at the moment I’m eyeing up Humans series two.
Acting icon
Olivia Colman – she can flit so easily between being an amazing comedic actress and a great dramatic actress.
Listening to
Composer Dustin O’Halloran’s film scores. I like to read a lot, and I find it hard to listen to music with lyrics while I’m reading.
Fashion fave
I loved the Christopher Kane dress that FKA Twigs wore to the Met Gala. In my fr idge Some green juice that’s been in there for a while!
Gym or sofa?
I went to the gym the other day – just the local one in Camberwell Leisure Centre. It was soooooo hard. I’m not a natural gym bunny. Where do people find the time?
Pet hate
Long credits at the start of TV shows or films when nothing’s happening – I get angry!
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