No one believes me, but I’m quite shy,” says Faye Marsay. It’s easy to see why people might struggle to believe the 36-year-old star of Pride, Game of Thrones and the Star Wars spin-off Andor. Acting is, after all, often seen as the reserve of the confident and the outgoing; anyone who’s watched Marsay’s work would see a woman who appears perfectly at home in front of a camera. But I’ve just read back to her a quotation from an old interview, in which she describes herself as “one of those actors who likes to kick the s*** out of myself”. She squirms slightly. “God, I wish I could go and redo all the things I said when I was young and nervous,” she says. “Now, I approach roles with much more kindness to myself. I mean, obviously imposter syndrome still reigns strong. But yeah… I feel sad that I said that about myself back then.”
Marsay is sitting across from me, sharply dressed, in the dining area of a swanky central London hotel. A head cold means that her voice has a slight pinch to it (“it’s like someone’s nipping my nose!”) – but doesn’t dampen her affable northern lilt. The Middlesbrough-born actor has often found herself affecting a Southern accent on screen, with considerable success. This weekend, though, she’s back on screens as a northerner, in the new BBC One drama Ten Pound Poms.
