(Photo: Getty Images)
It's a big week for Emma Mackey, the 27-year-old actress best known for playing smart, self-aware Maeve Wiley in hit Netflix seriesSex Education. On Friday (February 17), her new movie Emily opens in U.S. theaters, giving fans an opportunity to see her highly acclaimed performance as Wuthering Heights authorEmily Brontë. Then two days later, Mackey will find out whether she has won the BAFTA Rising Star Award for this breakout filmrole. So, we're taking the opportunity to get to know her better - here are 10 things you may not know about this super-talented actress.
1. She has dual French and British citizenship.
Mackey, the daughter of a French father and a British mother, wasraised mainly inSablé-sur-Sarthe in Western France. "My dad is very French, but he’s been taught English humor," she told The Irish Times. "He has that dark sense of humor. He loves a good chuckle."
2. She moved to England when she was 17 to continue her studies.
Mackey took a degree in English language and literatureat the University of Leeds.She has said it was "decreed" at a young age that she would study in the U.K.“When I was in France I felt overwhelmingly British and felt like I needed to catch up on lost time," she toldThe Irish Times. "When I eventually moved to England I felt, this is my world. The theater. The literature. In the UK we have so many influences: the Romans, the Norse, the Angles. We have so many communities. That’s how you can have so many accents within seven miles."
3. But to begin with, she was taken aback by one aspect of British life.
Namely, thedrinking culture.“I’d seen nothing like it," Mackey told the Daily Telegraph. "I was a very naive French girl in this huge northern city in the era of chokers and house music – and [I] was like, ‘Oh my god, you all get drunk four times a week. How do you get up in the morning to study?’ The answer was: they didn’t.”
4. She can sing and play the piano.
Check out Mackey's rendition of"Blessed" by Canadian artist Daniel Caesar. She has great taste in music.
5. Playing Maeve in Sex Education was her first-everrole.
Mackey told i-D that when she began auditioning for the Netflix series, she didn't even have a professional headshot.“I was completely oblivious throughout the whole audition period,” she recalled. “Even when it got to chemistry reads and I was the only Maeve there that day, I still hadn’t clocked that I was in with a chance. In my head, I was like, 'This is a Netflix show, they’re going to need someone with profile.'"
6. She doesn'treally like being compared toMargotRobbie.
When Mackey launched her career, she was often told she looked like Robbie, with whom she will star in this year's Barbie movie. “I genuinely just don’t see it at all," Mackey told The Independent. "But it’s fine. I wish people would stop comparing. Like, it’s lovely to be compared to Margot Robbie, but mostly I’d rather people focus on the jobs that we’re both doing rather than what we look like. Hollywood churns out people who look the same and we love to put people in boxes. It’s just a thing that we do as a species, we categorize people, we always have."
7. She also has no time forreductive stereotypes about either the U.K. or France.
As ever, Mackey speaks a lot of sense on this topic."I do get annoyed at the cliches," she told The Irish Times. "No, not all French people want to have sex all the time. Not all French people have hairy armpits. It’s the same with British people. We are not all stiff-upper-lip and coy. That’s not true either. Let’s get past these things."
8. She is really good friends with her Sex Education co-star Aimee Lou Wood.
Wood is also nominated for this year's BAFTARising Star Award – for her performance opposite Bill Nighy in Living. But, don't expect any hard feelings from Mackey if she wins. Mackey has said she is "completely obsessed" with Wood, with whom she shares plenty of scenes on Sex Education, telling Buzzfeed: "I love her. So it's good to see her shine bright."
9. She hopes to segue into directing one day.
In the future, Mackey also wants to write her own material."I think those shifts will happen naturally," she toldElle. "I'm very happy in my [acting] job, and I love my job when I'm in it. I very much feel like when I'm on set, I'm in my element, and it brings me a lot of joy. So I'm not going to stop acting right now. It’s just, only doing one thing – I can’t do that. It’s not possible for me. I like the idea of being a jack of all trades. And why not? Why not direct?"
10. And finally, she can do a brilliant impression of Harry Potter's Hermione Granger.
We need a skit teaming Emma Mackey with Emma Watson, like, ASAP.
Do you think Emma Mackey will win this year's BAFTA Rising Star Award?
