Wales has produced some of the world’s best-known and loved actors. From Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins to Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Sheen, Wales has seen talented people from all across the country become household names - and it’s no different today, as one young actress from Cardiff has just won an award for her Broadway debut.
For those who watched the hit Netflix film Enola Holmes or the equally popular BBC series I May Destroy You during the pandemic, you'll definitely have come across Welsh actor Gaby French.
Gaby, 27, grew up in north Cardiff, starting at Lisvane Primary School in 1999 before moving onto Llanishen High School for secondary school. “All my family are here, I haven’t got any family elsewhere really,” she said. “I spend a lot of time in Wales.”
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Now, Gaby is back in her home city after treading the boards in the Tony-nominated play ‘Hangmen’, in which she acted alongside ‘Game of Thrones' actor Alfie Allen. But it was in high school in Cardiff that Gaby’s interest in acting began, taking her in a different direction from her other hobbies.
“We had drama lessons and I’m really sporty, so all my childhood up until the age of 11 was taken up by playing football and rugby on the weekends,” Gaby, who played for Lisvane Panthers FC as well as rugby for Cardiff Blues and Cardiff Harlequins, said. She also played for the Wales Under 18s sevens set up.
“I didn’t really express an interest in anything else. None of my family are into drama or any of that. And then I went to high school and we had drama lessons and I went, ‘What’s this? This is fun.’”
Gaby went on to take drama for GCSE and decided that she wanted to pursue acting seriously when she was around 16 years old.
“I didn’t know many people who had taken that route so it was kind of down to me to do that research,” Gaby said. “I think I’d heard Michael Sheen talk about drama school on the telly and I thought, ‘What’s that?’ I didn’t realise it was an option.”
Gaby began researching drama schools before taking a gap year when she was 18, acting in amateur dramatic productions around South Wales including as Rizzo in Grease at Barry Memorial Hall, and Madame Thenardier in Les Miserables at Pontypridd’s Muni Arts Centre.
“I kind of went more musical, because I didn’t know whether there were acting classes in Cardiff so when I left school on that gap year, I tended to do musical theatre classes - and then realised I cannot dance. I am a horrific dancer. So I thought let’s try the acting route and that ended up being the best thing for me,” she said.
At 19, she moved to London to attend The Academy of Live & Recorded Arts, which has since closed down. “Because no one around me had done it and I didn’t really know how to do it, it felt a little bit impossible to start but I knew I had to do it and I knew I wanted to go there. I knew that was the way forward for me,” Gaby said.
However, Gaby ended up leaving drama school early after she landed a lead role in a play. After signing up to casting website Spotlight, Gaby was contacted just a week later.
“I had an email from Spotlight saying, ‘We can’t find a Welsh girl to play this part, will you come and audition?’” Gaby said. “I thought, ‘Let’s go for it, it will be brilliant experience,’ and I didn’t think I’d get it - not like lacking confidence, but I thought it would be a great step forward.”
Gaby landed a leading role in the play, ‘Scarlett,’ which premiered at Hampstead Theatre in London as well as Theatr Clwyd in Mold. Gaby said landing the role opened doors for her as she began her career.
“It meant that I was able to get an agent who I’m signed with now, who’s brilliant. It just created a lot of opportunities. My agent was able to invite people in the industry to come and watch me. That was essentially my showcase really because I missed my showcase in third year because of it.”
After performing in the play, Gaby was invited to audition for another role by someone who had come to watch her performance. Just a month after graduating from drama school, Gaby landed a role in an off-Broadway production of Martin McDonagh’s ‘Hangmen.’
The play, which was transferring from London after a successful run at the Royal Court Theatre and Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End, is a thriller is set in mid-1960s Lancashire, considering the end of capital punishment in the UK through the eyes of the country’s the 'second best hangman', Harry Wade.
Gaby played Shirley, Harry’s teenage daughter, a role which she reprised when the play transferred to Broadway. She considers the play to be her first big break into acting, saying: “It was with people in the industry who were really respected - Reece Shearsmith, Johnny Flynn, Mark Addy.
“And I was in a play with them and it felt really surreal, because I’d been watching these actors for years and then suddenly I’m out of drama school feeling massively lucky and I was there with them.”
For the role, Gaby had to master a Manchester accent. “I’ve always loved doing accents,” she said. “I think possibly watching years of Corrie might have helped me. But I really enjoy doing stuff like that, I love other accents.”
Gaby said that she worked “really hard” to get there and says, looking back, she made sacrifices. “I was from Wales, and we’re all quite close-knit, the Welsh community. So, I was kind of the first to move out of Cardiff. I sacrificed a lot, really, and it was just because I wanted it. I wanted to go for it.”
You might also recognise Gaby from her work in TV and film. She has an impressive CV, with her latest on-screen roles including the ITV thriller The Ipcress File as Natalie Lewis and as Mandy in Sky Atlantic's A Discovery of Witches. She also appeared alongside Sharon Horgan and Kristin Scott-Thomas in Peter Cattaneo's film Military Wives.
Gaby says she’s still good friends with some of the actresses from the film. “We kind of spent six-eight weeks in each other’s pockets and there’s something about singing - I think it’s a vulnerability and it bonds you from the off really.”
She also starred in Michaela Coel’s popular BBC series I May Destroy You, which she says she “loved being a part of.”
“That was really special because I think Michaela Coel created something we’d never seen before, I really believe that,” she said. “I was just a small part in that but it felt really special to be a part of.”
Travelling from Cardiff to New York to star in the off-Broadway play back in 2018, this wasn’t the first time Gaby had set foot in the city, having taken a trip there when she was 16. “I remember looking at all the theatres being like, ‘Oh my God, imagine being an actor in a play on Broadway.’ Genuinely, it never crossed my mind that it would be me.”
But, 11 years later, Gaby has not only performed in a Tony-nominated play on Broadway, but has also snapped up an award for it. She was recently presented with an award for outstanding Broadway debut at the 76th annual Theatre World Awards - an award previously won by the likes of Julie Andrews and Kristin Chenoweth.
“I felt so lucky to be over there, especially going again after Covid. A lot of plays didn’t get that chance, so we were given this opportunity to go back.” Gaby said. The play had originally opened on Broadway in 2020, but, like many other shows, was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“To win the award felt like a massive bonus. I rang my mum and she sent me a list of people who had won it and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I couldn’t believe it, it felt really special,” she added.
Amongst the actors she admires, Gaby counts Frances McDormand and Olivia Colman - the former of which she got to meet while working on off-Broadway. “[Frances McDormand] came up to our dressing room - back in New York, they just walk in - and she came up to my dressing room and said she’d been in to watch the show.
“Again, it felt like an out of body experience, like it wasn’t me, like I was hearing about somebody else when I told people I met her,” she said.
Gaby now has lived in New York three times to work on off-Broadway and then Broadway itself. “I look at what the job’s given me and it’s massive,” she said. “I’ve lived in New York for eight-nine months. It’s a life change, not just a job, not just a massive step in my career. It’s a life change.”
Despite the time difference, Gaby kept up with Welsh sport while she was in New York, watching the qualifying games for the World Cup. “I took my daffodil hat with me and my lucky Welsh socks, they came with me as well,” Gaby said.
“I made sure there was room in the case for both of them. I’d listen to Tom Jones as I was warming up. But there wasn’t much Welsh opportunity over there really - they do have a New York Welsh Club but I was unable to make it because I was working in the evenings.”
She added: “It just felt very surreal to be there. I was living just off Times Square, right by Krispy Kreme doughnuts - that was a dream - and about a three-minute walk from work, so it was all very cushty and lovely.”
Now back home in Cardiff, Gaby says that the thing she missed the most while in New York was a good roast dinner - particularly Yorkshire puddings. “I had about seven when I came back - there was a bowl waiting on my arrival,” she said.
“Roast dinners, honest to God. Three-and-a-half months without them was tough,” she added. A fan of Toby Carvery Cardiff Gate, she said getting a roast dinner once she was home was her “first priority.”
Gaby says her family in Cardiff are proud of all she’s been able to achieve, with them attending her opening night on Broadway. “As I was bowing, I kind of spotted them a few rows back, so that felt like a moment where - obviously, they’ve done a lot and supported me over the last ten years - that moment was lovely.”
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