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Graduate Profile: Gillian Saker

29 October 2013

Filed Under:

Acting

Gillian Saker, who graduated last year and hits our screen again this month in BBC’s Ripper Street, talks to us about auditioning for this role while still a student, how  exposure to the industry helped launch her already varied career, and having Andrew Lloyd-Webber as her rehearsal pianist.

How did your training at RWCMD expose you to the industry and how did that help you get your role in Ripper Street?

The College does an amazing job of exposing you to the industry right from the start of your training. From the get-go you’re introduced to a plethora of interesting and exciting industry professionals, up and coming newbies, as well as some of the biggest names in the industry. You regularly meet casting directors, agents, directors, writers, actors – all sorts! The exposure intensifies as you continue your training and the third year is a whirlwind year of public performances (many directed by working outside directors), masterclasses, mock auditions and a showcase at The Royal Court Theatre in London. By the time I graduated I felt that I had a really strong set of contacts, which helped to make going out into the big bad world a lot less scary.

The exposure to the industry while studying at RWCMD undoubtedly helped me to get this role. I was spotted for Ripper Street by an agent who’d seen me playing Portia in the College’s The Merchant of Venice. He thought that I was right for the job and recommended me to the casting director and it all went from there.

Gillian in The Richard Burton Company production of Night Must Fall at RWCMD

Gillian in The Richard Burton Company production of Night Must Fall at RWCMD

Tell us about the process of auditioning for Ripper Street, while still at College, and how your character developed.

During the second year of training you do an intensive string of mock auditions with television casting directors. For Ripper Street, I was given two whole episodes to read and a few scenes to learn in only two days. If I hadn’t had the experience of the mock auditions I would have found it really hard to cope.

The whole audition process lasted a couple months, so you can imagine my disappointment when I got a call saying that I didn’t get the part. A few months down the line I got a phone call out of the blue offering me a guest role without having to audition. It was an enormous surprise and I was over the moon!

Then six months later I got another phone call from my agent saying that my character was being written into series two as a regular. I really hadn’t expected that – and it meant an awful lot to be me that the writers and producers had such faith in me and my acting ability.

This whole process taught me a valuable lesson: in this industry you’re told ‘no’ much more than ‘yes’. It’s one of the most difficult and draining parts of the business, but it’s so important to see each meeting as a step closer. As long as you are well prepared, polite and enthusiastic you never know what door may open for you further down the line.

How did your training prepare you for acting for television? Do you find you use different elements of your training for television or do the same key rules apply?

There is a big part of screen acting that has to be learnt on the job. There’s not too much that you can do to prepare you for trying to remember your lines while wearing a corset, avoiding a horse and cart, and navigating around 50 extras –  but RWCMD gives you all the tools that you need to feel confident. Eryl Phillips (Lecturer in Acting for Screen) is a great teacher, and I think our television training is more extensive than at many other schools. But also, RWCMD teaches an ease, an openness and a generosity in performance and with others. As far as I can tell, being able to listen and react is the fundamentally the most important thing in any medium.

What else you’ve been up to since leaving RWCMD?

After doing Ripper Street, I came back and graduated, and then started filming the fourth series of ‘Misfits’. It was SO different to Ripper Street and it was cool to be part of a cult television show. Then I did a play called ‘The River’ by Jez Butterworth at the Royal Court Theatre. I had always wanted to work there and it was a privilege to be a part of such a highly anticipated show. I was also in the new Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical ‘Stephen Ward’ directed by Sir Richard Eyre. I never imagined myself doing a musical, let alone with Andrew Lloyd Webber playing the piano in rehearsals. I was playing Mandy Rice Davies, and Mandy actually came to see the show which was pretty mad!

Gillian featured on the front cover of the 2011 RWCMD prospectus

Gillian featured on the front cover of the 2011 RWCMD prospectus

What did you enjoy about training at the College, and are there any elements you miss now you’re a professional actor?

It feels like I graduated yesterday. I think when you leave you realise how wonderful it is to have had the privilege to do what we love day in, day out.

After graduating it can feel a little like freefall; in drama school you have the safety and the routine of regular lessons. Having come straight from secondary school to drama school, graduating and not having a routine for the first time in very long time was surreal I think what I miss most is playing roles that aren’t your obvious casting – in my last play at RWCMD I played Liz Morden in ‘Our Country’s Good’ (directed by the brilliant Bruce Guthrie); she’s a real hard nut and I absolutely loved playing her.

Do you have any words of advice for our acting third years, embarking on their final year and looking forward to entering the big stage out there? 

As a third year it can be easy to feel an enormous pressure to succeed. It’s so easy to compare yourself to other people and worry too much (and understandably so). But it is SO important to stop and smell the roses. You are going to do lots of plays, with people that you care about and trust, for the last time before you kiss your student loan goodbye, so breathe it all in, save the worrying and ENJOY!