born backwards

Kaya Scodelario photographed by Ash Kingston for the Summer 2017 issue of Wonderland Magazine

Kaya Scodelario, star of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, answered some questions during her Answer Time at Tumblr HQ. We caught the most important responses on camera. 

#i love this one (1) dork (x)

I don’t go for roles that are two-dimensional. They are all layered and none of my roles are damsel in distresses, so it is really cool that we are starting to reflect that in the movies now. It is refreshing, but it’s also becoming more and more common, which is great. We have really cool female roles at the moment, however I believe we still have a very long way to go and I’m proud and glad I get to be part of the change.

I love dressing up, but I do find the red carpet thing quite stressful. When I went to Venice Film Festival last month to promote ‘Wuthering Heights,’ I told my boyfriend beforehand ‘I will be a nightmare, I will cry, I will be nervous.’ Actually once I was there, it was fine.

     I didn’t know what to do with that feeling… happiness.

It’s great to have people to bounce off and I love working with people my age. I think young actors have such energy about them and such a passion and a drive to do their best and prove themselves constantly, and to work with that is really fun and interesting.

I think what’s great is that we are having this conversation about it now, because people aren’t really speaking up about the fact that many actresses seem to be cast in roles older than they are, or have been told that they are too old for a role. The more we talk about it, the more people will realize that it does not need to be this way and that we can develop and create roles for women that are diverse in their breadth and depth. I hope to work long and hard for many many years and hopefully by the time I’m in my 50’s, we won’t still see the age divide and these double standards in movies.

I think you’ve got to be opinionated. I’m not ashamed to be, although I do sometimes think, ‘My mum’s going to kill me!’

Do I ever get to be upset? Do I ever get to be anyone but me?

I felt there needed to be a show for teenagers that didn’t make them feel judged. ‘Skins’ never tried to preach. It allowed young people to make their own decisions about what to do and whether it was right or wrong. Young people really respond to that, and that’s what sets ‘Skins’ apart.

Skins, to me, was a family. I grew up on that show. I was fourteen when I started, everything that happened in that series I was living in real life. I was getting my heart broken for the first time, I was experimenting, I was having troubles at home with my family. So that, to me, was such an important bit of my life because it really shaped me into who I am now.

A man died last night. Not a man I liked, or who liked me, but he didn’t deserve what he got. It wasn’t good. He wasn’t surrounded by his nearest and dearest. He didn’t pass away peacefully in his sleep. And they say it’s a small country, but we drove all night and didn’t see the end of it.