Support – HOW TO BE;

HANNAH; reflective;

“Now I understand what a healthy support system feels like.”

Hannah’s interview comes to a hugely reflective end as she touches on where she has come from, where she is now, and where she wants to be. She might not have all of the answers just yet but that hasn’t stopped Hannah discussing how she finds beauty in the mundane, how her mind works like a puzzle and how she is coming to terms with uncertainty.

Hannah’s pronouns are “she/her”.

What is your biggest fear and how do you prevent that from taking over?

I have two: one is a personal fear and the other is a career fear. The personal fear may be irrational but I am terrified of my family dying and I think that is pretty obvious. And actually, on reflection, quite rational. What do I do to stop that? I just ignore it! Repress, repress, repress. It’s going to happen but we will cross that bridge when it comes. I have experience of an immediate family member dying and that was horrendous. Because I know how that felt, I am fearful of feeling that pain again. I know it’s going to happen and because I am only child, I am scared of being that alone but I, even though you can prepare yourself for that, I don’t want it to happen. I try not to think about that. The career fear is not achieving my dreams. That is one of my biggest ones. Now that I am 30, and not quite running out of time, it’s making me realise all of the pressure we put on ourselves. I am nowhere near when I want to be. The pandemic has stopped so much. My mind says “well, we are here now and nowhere near where we want to be so let’s keep trying”. I am scared I won’t be a successful actor. I think therapy really helps with that. If I think about it too much, I will spiral but it’s about finding joy outside of that. Acting is not the be all and end all. I have to find things which fulfil outside of this part of me otherwise we are [she whispers] fucked.

What is something you really want to do/start that you aren’t doing? Why aren’t you doing it? What can you put into place to achieve it?

That’s really hard! The first thing that comes to mind is that I would love to own my own flat in London but that is not something we can check back on easily. There are a lot of steps involved. Number 1 is making money and the property ladder is too hard to get on. A realistic thing? Let’s say a genuine thing is that I want to leave the pub and invest more time and money in acting. Actually! I can answer that. Something I really want to do is be a full time, freelance actor. It’s not because I really hate the pub because I am in a very privileged position where my job does allow for flexibility to pursue my acting career. It gives me stability to go off and do other things. My boss is actually my friend too which is fantastic. It’s just that the pub is not creatively fulfilling for me which makes it quite difficult to do. I would like to, at some point, give that up and put all of my attention and effort into my acting career and I am doing that now. I want to keep the same peace and control of my time in lockdown throughout my entire life because this does actually make me really happy. Why I’m not doing that now is because I am not financially in a position to be full time freelance just yet. My plan was to save enough money to support myself for 6 months so I can take a sabbatical of some sort but I need to have a financial cushion. London is really expensive to live in. When things re-open, and I get a full salary, I will save more and push harder at the career.

What type of outlook on life do you have? Where do you think that comes from?

I am quite impulsive, quite spontaneous I think. Wait. Am I spontaneous? I would like to think I am more spontaneous that I am. I am definitely still impulsive: I do move through life taking each day as it comes. I don’t do a lot of forward planning which works against me sometimes. I don’t really have a clear idea of where I am going. I know where I want to be but I am so unsure of myself in terms of how to get there. I don’t always trust my judgement in where I am going so it’s hard to navigate my way through life with a plan. I would like to be more positive even though I do have a positive outlook on life. I just doubt myself every step of the way so I I feel more cynical. Interestingly, I was having a conversation with my mum because she always says “I don’t know what happened. You were such a confident child!” And when I talk to her about my mental health, self-worth and self-esteem, she is confused because she doesn’t know where it’s come from. We share that confusion. In some ways, I am extroverted and a confident person but I think that is a front that I actually believe. I don’t know where things changed. I was a confident child and I am still am to an extent but there is so much doubt. It might be because I am not where I want to be and I’m not getting there as fast as I had hoped which is causing me to have so much doubt and feel really insecure which affects my self-esteem. I am truly a positive and confident person but, because things aren’t happening how I thought they would happen, it’s causing my to struggle internally. I am internalising the rejection I face and it’s making me doubt myself and that is where the shift has come from. I couldn’t tell you when that started but I would love to be fearless again, like when I was younger. There is such a sense of playfulness in childhood and everything is fun. There is so much curiosity and you lose that when you are older because you are bogged down by responsibility and that sucks! You’ve got to find that sense of play and silliness. That’s joy, isn’t it?

What book/album/film/artist/play has changed your life? What did you take from it?

I saw Alice’s answer to this question. [Ed: “Oh wow, you’re a fan.”] When I said I read your blog, I really do read it! I knew I would struggle with this because I will have no idea. Do you know what? The thing that got me really excited about performing. I had a VHS of “Annie/Oliver”: it was a two film VHS and I used to watch those two films all the time as a kid, just over and over and over again. I first really got excited about performance through watching musicals. I wanted to be all singing and all dancing and that matched my personality so much as kid. My favourites would be “Annie”, “Oliver”, “West Side Story”, “Chicago” (with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellwigger and Queen Latifa. LOVE. THAT. FILM.) [Hannah proceeds to sing “He Had It Coming” nearly in full]. I love a group song and dance number. It literally brings tears to my eyes. If I hear an orchestral piece of music, and I hear that choir of voices, it moves something in me. I feel like I’m going to cry now thinking about it. It feels and sounds lovely: those harmonies, this community of people working together to create this, I want to be a part of it. I guess that is what changed my life. Musicals changed my life? How gross. I am not a musical theatre person, that is not my industry but I love musicals so much. It’s that old school Hollywood vibe. I just love it.

What song should we listen to whilst reading this about you?

Oh my god. Okay, give me two seconds. I did a desert islands discs interview for a show two years ago. I am going to go with “Black Gold of the Sun” by Rotary Connection. I really like that song. It’s just one of my favourite songs.

Name five beautiful things in life. Tell me why you think they are beautiful.

The natural world. It’s so intricate and connected: it’s magical.
Deep and meaningful connections with human beings. We need them for support. Life is easier when you have people around you that want to help. I keep banging on about this but it’s because it’s only recently that I have allowed people in to support me in that way. Now I understand what a healthy support system feels like.
Finding small pockets of joy in the mundane. You have to find joy where you can in these times. The world is so brutal that you’ve got to find small sparkles of joy. Grab the joy where you can.
Delicious food. I guess that is connected to small joys in life. Actually taking the time to enjoy what you are eating or what is nourishing you. I feel like food can sometimes be seen as an inconvenience: it can get in the way. Or you have a working lunch or be on your phone/watching TV whilst you are eating. But then you don’t enjoy what you are doing. You need to take time to enjoy what nourishes you.
Rest. Is that beautiful or necessary?! That is connected to taking care of oneself. Actually no, scrap that. I think it should be the choir of voices that I spoke about earlier.

If you could sum up your life so far in one word, what it would be and why?

A jigsaw puzzle. I am piecing it together. Not fragmented because that feels like scattered parts. It’s not broken up like that. I am referring back to the analogy of fitting my way through my day. Through my life, it feels like Crystal Maze. You have to complete the task and then pass through to the next section. It’s a mad scramble like “this fits in this hole, that doesn’t work so let’s try something else, try to cut it in half RIGHT that’s worked, onto the next thing”. It has felt like trying to fit different parts of a puzzle together. I have all of the pieces but they might not work at that time. There is a bigger picture but we have lost the jigsaw box. We have the outline, the edges are there, but we are working on trying to figure out the picture. There has got to be something that joins them.

What do you think the meaning of your life is?

[laughs] I have no idea. All I know is that I have an affinity to a sense of community and belonging. Whether that means bringing people together or helping a group of people or being part of something that is bigger, I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know the meaning of my life is. I haven’t figured it out.

After talking through all of this, what have you learnt about yourself or your life? What do you feel the need to reflect on?

I talk such shite – such drivel! The puzzle analogy even works for piecing my sentences together. I have learnt I still do not have a clear idea of where I am going. It’s an exciting experience just living moment to moment. I am really enjoying the current period of discovery that I am in. I feel like I have focus but I would like a little bit more direction. I know where I want to be and I need to trust myself more in the process and not doubt every turn I make. Does that make sense? [Ed: “That makes perfect sense. What a fitting bookmark in your story.”] I have learnt that I still don’t know where I am going. I think I will forever live in uncertainty… I am okay with it and I am not okay with it.

My love letter to Hannah will go live tomorrow.

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.

HANNAH; an actor;

“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.”

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.