Jessica Barden: We need to challenge majority white and male casts

Jessica Barden has called on people in the entertainment industry to continue to challenge inequality so the movement against it does not become “just a hashtag or fashion statement”.

The actress, who has been nominated as a Bafta Breakthrough Brit, said women and minorities should not expect change in the film, television and theatre industries to come quickly.

However, Barden, from Northallerton in North Yorkshire, said she was sure progress was already being made.

The 26-year-old is best known for playing the lead role of Alyssa in Channel 4’s The End Of The F***ing World.

She said it was the responsibility of the entire industry to challenge majority white and male casts.

She told the Press Association: “It’s not about answers. It’s about people discussing the issue. It’s not going to change overnight.

“It’s far more important that we keep talking about it and question why, for example, there is only one woman in this cast, or one black actor in another. Why can’t you change this?

“You can’t expect every single role now to be amazingly inclusive of everything. It’s not going to happen.

“The main thing is to keep challenging it so it doesn’t just turn into a hashtag or a fashion statement. It’s not a handbag, it’s people’s lives.”

Barden appears in the play Night School which is being performed as part of Pinter at the Pinter – a series of performances of short plays by playwright Harold Pinter to mark the 10th anniversary of his death.

She said she had initially found London’s West End hostile to working class actors but that working with director Jamie Lloyd, whose company is running Pinter at the Pinter, changed that.

She said: “I haven’t been in the West End for 10 years and that was completely due to a personal issue that I had the last time I did a play.

“The last time I was in the West End I didn’t like it. I don’t feel like there’s a massive amount of opportunity for working class actors, which naturally makes you feel like it’s not really a place for you.

“I feel immensely grateful to Jamie Lloyd, and everybody that works on this play.”

Jessica Barden has been been chosen by Bafta as one of this year’s Breakthrough Brits.