Naomi Ackie on ‘shaking off’ bad energy from The End Of The F***ing World role
The Star Wars actress also revealed why she was not nervous when auditioning for The Rise Of Skywalker.
Naomi Ackie has told of how she has to “shake off” negative energy after playing her vengeful character in The End Of The F***ing World.
The actress portrays Bonnie in the dark comedy teen drama’s second series, a complicated and mysterious woman who is seeking revenge on the lead characters James and Alyssa.
Ackie, 27, told The Jonathan Ross Show about how she navigates playing such an intense character, who she describes as “odd”.
“In the scene I’m super intense and have done all my work and then as soon as they say ‘Cut’, I’m like ‘la la la la’ running around singing with (the other actors),” she said.
“I like to shake it off, I don’t hold on to that kind of energy.
“You don’t want to bring that stuff home with you, it’s not nice to have in the body, it’s probably not healthy.”
On seeing herself in character, she said: “I actually get really anxious about watching myself… Maybe the third time in I can look at it and just enjoy the thing but the first time, you’re just like, ‘Oh my face looks weird at that angle’.”
Ackie also appears in the forthcoming new Star Wars film, The Rise Of Skywalker, and said her sister was “more excited” about her doing Channel 4 and Netflix’s The End Of The F***ing World than the sci-fi blockbuster.
Ackie plays Jannah, an ally of the Resistance, in the film but said she did not feel nervous while auditioning because she was convinced she would not get it because it seemed “too crazy”.
She said: “That jump between doing some really cool projects that were more indie focused to this giant one – maybe the most giant one there is at the moment – was too much for my brain to process and I feel like it helped me out because I was as chill as I possibly could be in the room.”
Ackie, who won the most promising newcomer prize at the British Independent Film Awards in 2017 for her role in the film Lady Macbeth, told of the moment she found she had been cast in the Star Wars film.
“It was an interesting situation where I knew I would find out at a specific time. I woke up at seven in the morning and my hand reached to the phone and it started to ring.
“My agent called and said, ‘I couldn’t wait… You’ve got it!’ One of my really good friends was sleeping downstairs and I started screaming, naturally, but she wasn’t meant to know anything was happening.
“I was still living with my dad so my dad hears the yell, he knows. He runs upstairs, he’s sat at (the end of) the bed while I’m (sobbing). It was a beautiful moment, I’ll never forget it.”
Ackie appears on The Jonathan Ross Show alongside comics John Bishop and Suzi Ruffell and Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood.
