I was always in trouble from an early age. I had a fraught relationship with my parents, who were very traditional. Doing plays at school was a joyous release.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I always managed to get in trouble, like every kid. But I had to learn a lot of hard lessons on my own, without parents who would nurture me and guard me through that part of life, at a very young age.
I started really young, like 12 or 13, and then I started doing school plays. We had a really good drama department, so the kind of drama-geek stigma wasn't really there in my high school.
As a child, I liked to play outside, to stroll through the fields, and I was an active member of the local children's gang, frequently being chased by field guards and building supervisors. Nevertheless, my performance at school was very good, and mainly due to the influence of my mother, I was allowed to attend high school.
I had great difficulty in school interacting with others, and I took refuge in the contrived setting of play acting, which is what I still do.
I grew up in a very small town and didn't realise till later that I had an adventurous side. When I went to theatre school at 18, I came into my own and let loose.
I had piano lessons at five and started guitar at ten, but although music and acting was always around me, my parents never pressured me into it.
At 13, in my first year of Tonbridge, I went up for the part of Macbeth. I was up against the 17- and 18-year-olds, but for some reason I got the part. It made me incredibly unpopular with my peers, but it was the English and drama teachers who stepped in to save me when others wanted me kicked out of the school.
I was a rebellious kid, always getting into trouble.
When I was younger, acting, singing and dancing was what it was all about. That's really what kept me in school because I was really naughty otherwise.
My parents were very supportive of me and my artistic endeavours. My father and mother came to every school play I ever did.