Whilst transcribing this second part of Hannah’s interview, I was laughing out loud into my empty living room. Hannah’s sheer charisma and charm shine through entirely as she talks about what friendships mean to her, how acting links to her self-worth and how a quote from RuPaul’s Drag Race helped her cope with rejection.
Hannah’s pronouns are “she/her”.
What does a regular day in Hannah’s mind look like?
I know you don’t want my routine but I will wake up fairly late by most standards and then I will feel guilty immediately. I have a morning routine which I would like to get set but trying to do it all before my day starts does give me a bit of anxiety. So usually I wake up guilty and anxious – that’s how the day starts! If I get my stuff sorted, I feel better. I need a to do list to make me feel like I am being productive towards my career. I need a schedule for the day but there are things which I do in the day which make me feel better. Sometimes I have to unknot my stomach! My evenings are pretty good, my mind is alright. My mind tries to piece together the whole day, like a jigsaw. Or more like a path. We get to nighttime and I know I am tired and should sleep but I feel like there is time to do stuff. I can’t really squeeze anything else in because my mind is tired but I feel the need to and then we are like “oh here comes the anxiety again!”. I have a nice sleep and then I wake up anxious. Guilt and anxiety plagues my jigsaw mind. It’s not a negative experience: the anxiety is awful but the mind path isn’t always bad.
What part do relationships and love play in your daily life?
[Long pause] I can only really speak on friendships and platonic love because there is nothing else going on. They play a big part, particularly in these times, because we all need each other to get through this. I am constantly messaging my friends or on the phone to my mum. I’ve realised that I need to be more proactive in reaching out to people because that does make me happy. When I have spoken to my therapist after a good week, we reflect on what happened and it’s normally the connection with my friends and nurturing the platonic relationships which fuels me. It makes me feel held and I need a lot of holding and support, I think. It’s the self esteem thing! I’m not there yet: I don’t fuel myself yet. I have to get to a point where I don’t need outside validation but at the moment just having conversations and feeling connected to people keeps me supported. People who can check me on my bullshit are also needed. I guess they do play a big part in my daily life but not in a romantic sense.
What aspect of friendship do you value the most?
Support.
I think it’s important to have people around who you can go to and they can come to you for anything. Why do I think that’s important? Maybe because I am an only child. I don’t know! I do mean support and I do think that is the most important thing in a friendship. What I am trying to figure out is an explanation as to why. The support that I mean is being able to give support to people in whatever capacity that is and I need to be able to have people I can go to and feel supported by.
What do you do to make a positive impact on those/the world around you?
I like to bring joy and support to those around me and to the world. I like helping people; I like feeling needed. Feeling needed gives me a boost! I like people to feel comfortable and if I can bring joy to people then, yeah, let’s go for it. I guess it comes back around to comfort. If I can do that for people, I feel like that’s positive.
What do you do to stay motivated?
I would love to say I look at inspirational and motivational people but sometimes that makes me feel worse. The way my mind works, it highlights what I am lacking instead of where I could be. So, it’s not that! [laughs] I want people to be proud of me and that motivates me. But that’s about how other people view me. The real answer is I remind myself of my goals and aspirations. That can be twofold because sometimes it makes me feel bad but also it motivates me to try and achieve that. If I am lacking motivation, I think “we want to be here, what do we need to do to get there?”. Reminding myself of where I want to be motivates me. Conversations with friends reminding me of where I have been or come from is a real motivator. Encouragement from others helps too because I struggle to find that in myself. I need people around me.
What was the deciding factor to get into acting?
I wanted to do it… Next question! Why did I want to do it? I was told I was good at it. I didn’t particularly excel in traditional academia: I excelled in art and drama. It was as toss up between doing textile art at university or performing arts. I looked at universities which offered both and decided on the open days that it would be performance. I have been involved in performing since I was 5 and I believe I am good at it. A lot of people tried to dissuade me from it. At first, my family didn’t really have too much control of it to be honest. They were worried about me doing it because of the position I am in now: financially unstable. They also had reservations, because I come from a Christian family, that I would be asked to do something or put in a hard situation like on screen nudity or even swearing! They were concerned about those positions that I may have been put into. The work is unstable and inconsistent so they were worried about that too. But I did it and I am doing it. That is the decision I have made. I do tend to make a decision and do it without too much thought but now I am on the flip side: I don’t make any decisions because my overthinking paralyses me. Back in the day, I would make a decision on impulse and just do it. Look at me now, I’m struggling! [laughs]
How does your passion for acting link to your personal life? How does it affect your sense of accomplishment day to day?
Unfortunately, I have hugely linked my self worth and self esteem to my career. They are one. I am in the process of separating the two. I am more than just my career. But that is still a process. At the moment, I struggle to disconnect with the outcome of the auditions. I was watching a webinar on how to cope with rejection. It was by a woman who runs an incredible account [Ed: here, for all your interested readers] and it’s the rejection which really affects me more than anything. When I am in a project, or delving into the character for an audition, I doubt myself and have imposter syndrome even though I have made it that far but it is the rejection which affects my personal life because it is so connected. When you get rejected from an audition, most of the time they just don’t contact you and that’s even worse! You are waiting and waiting and waiting, sometimes for months, until the show or advert comes out and you think “I guess I didn’t get that one then!”. I am working on disconnecting from the outcome of auditions. What happens is I will go to an audition and see how much it is paid and then I will already spend that money. I will be on set, in my mind, before I have done the audition and I get so connected and attached before I have even auditioned. As an actor, you cannot live like that! You will see way more no than yes. Your self worth will be non existent. You have to disconnect to preserve any sanity in your personal life. Also, I am starting to find what else brings me joy outside of acting. Where is this quote?! This will help me explain it. I have to find joy in other areas because if I think that all I am is an actor, when things don’t work out, I am lost. I have to fuel myself in other ways. I have struggled to find hobbies or other joy. I am really enjoying this time in therapy because I am finding things that will bring me joy. Then I can figure out what doesn’t and let go of that. “You May Grow” is something that is bringing me so much joy. Once I removed the pressure to post all the time and be fantastic, it’s a really nice period of discovery. This quote is from RuPaul’s Drag Race: it was Rachel Bloom on Series 12, 2019, and she was talking to… [Ed: “The election episode! It would have been Jackie Cox or Widow Von Du”] The fact you know that exactly [laughs] it was Widow Von Du and she said to her “You raised yourself to think that your craft, your art, is who you are and, when you fuck something up, it fundamentally takes away your self worth. Separating your craft from who you are as a person has… it’s really helped me.” That is what I am in the process of doing. I am so attached to my craft and that became me as a person. That rejection means your whole world falls apart. It feels like they are personally rejecting you as a person. If you constantly receive that, you are nothing. I am separating that. That is my work, and something I enjoy, but it is not everything.
What is your end goal in terms of your professional life?
To be a successful, working actor. To be continuously working. Not necessarily famous. Just to feel fulfilled creatively and in my work. And also at peace with myself and to have full self acceptance: to feel really comfortable in understanding who I am as a person. Professionally, I would like to be successful.
Hannah’s final 8 questions will go live on Saturday.
You can keep up to date with what Hannah is up to on her Instagram here. She also runs an incredible self-help account called you may grow.
HOW TO BE; 