STEPPING OUT
IT’S HARD TO GET A HANDLE ON EMILY BEECHAM And perhaps that’s just how she likes it. Certainly, this elusive quality is working for her. Or more specifically, a combination of the enigmatic allure of an old-school Hollywood siren with a serious commitment to the craft (never mind already-evident excellence). It’s proving to be casting-director catnip, as Beecham’s busy slate attests.
Even more impressively for an actor who’s only had one feature film in cinemas, she won Best Actress at Cannes last May for her starring role in the second, Little Joe. The film, Jessica Hausner’s gloriously offbeat indie sci-fi about a plant which may or may not have mind-control powers, follows 2017’s Daphne, the Fleabag-like tale of a lost London soul. Beecham has three more films due for a 2020 or 2021 release: Little Joe will be followed by the intense indie biopic Sulphur And White, Netflix sci-fi thriller Outside The Wire, and Disney’s live-action 101 Dalmatians spin-off, Cruella. Her upwards trajectory now seemingly unstoppable.
Born in Manchester to a pilot father and an art-loving, American mother, Beecham spent her childhood flitting between Cheshire, Hertfordshire, Glasgow and Arizona, and still feels that a closed mind is what happens “when you stay in one area too long”. Her accent, though, remains safely nestled in England’s North West, except for the austere Princess Anne tone she uses to make any particularly dry observation. She can be taciturn on subjects which don’t spark
