Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amandine Clamens-mccoy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Amandine, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
My journey in the acting industry began many years ago, when I was about 7 years old, in France, where I was born, when I attended drama classes twice a week in primary school. These were fun sessions which allowed me to have a laugh, and free my mind. I immediately fell in love with this art of impersonating characters and telling stories through our bodies and voices. I always threw myself into every exercise, improvisation, and script read. I remember vividly as part of my very first school play, we had to imitate the sound of a doorbell. As silly as this may sound, it was pretty much a challenge for children who never did theatre or projected their voice on stage before. Yet, I just threw myself right into it and in the end, it was my doorbell sound that was to chosen and used in the play! Then, after reading the script with all the students, after a class vote, it was decided that I was to play the main role, and so I did! Simply that felt like an enormous achievement to me, and we hadn’t even performed the play yet!
Stepping out on stage, hearing those whispers behind the curtains and sensing that rush of adrenaline as the lights dim and the curtains rise is truly a feeling like no other. I still remember that feeling and that first performance night like no other. The performance was a great success and that sense of happiness, that “I did it!” and receiving compliments from everyone at the end was a very special feeling. As young as I was, it was really at that moment that I knew acting was the path for me to go down, I loved it, and it loved me. I really thought, “I want to do this again, acting is for me.”.
Throughout all these years, I have been blessed to have worked alongside many professional actors, both in France and in the UK, who have passed their knowledge, insight on the industry, advice, and passion for this craft onto me. These include Arnaud Aubert, Nicolas Dubost, Marie-Laure Spéri, Jason Pitt, Dominic Thorburn, Edward Hall and Sam Heughan only to name a few. It is now my goal to get my name out there in the professional world of acting.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Amandine Clamens-McCoy and I am a 22 year old French-Australian actress.
I started out in the acting industry 15 years ago in France when attending acting classes in Primary School, which were great fun and quickly made me fall in love with the art of acting. I then carried on with my acting and went on to study the art of drama through high school in France, and enrolled myself in a French drama school, the Tanit Théâtre, to do more of it on the side of my studies. When moving to the UK in 2018, I pursued this art of acting by taking on my drama A-levels, where I learned the craft in more depth and detail. My knowledge and passion for the art has really grown more and more over the years.
During high school, I also took on an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) which allowed me to develop my scriptwriting skills. I wrote a novel/logbook about my ancestor, William McCoy and his journey aboard the HMS Bounty. The story of the Bounty and the mutineer’s voyage to Pitcairn Island absolutely fascinates me, and to think that I am a direct descendant of one of the mutineers is just incredible! It is something extremely special to me and carrying out this project is something that I am so proud to have completed.
In 2020, I got accepted into University of Chichester Conservatoire where I completed a three year course in Acting for Film. It was not only interesting for me to discover and learn more about another branch of acting, acting in a different setting, through cameras and sets rather than stage and plays, but also how the English acting industry differs from the French one. Doing the course was great, I learned a lot during these three years, exploring the depths of the art, learning about different actors’ approach to acting, and discovering new acting methods and techniques. I studied ways in which actors approach scripts and develop characters, and through the years, came to create my own acting approach.
More importantly, I came to develop my own craft and learned many skills useful to me as an actress, such as period dancing, horse-riding, accents, acting through song, the art of voice-over and period acting, that I also deeply love and wrote and performed a scene based off Sense and Sensibility. I also came to discover the incredible art of stage combat, for which I grew a deep love for, ending up choreographing, directing and performing my own short fight combat scene. Throughout my training I also greatly explored the avenues of script-writing and directing, through writing my own scripts, short film, commercials, and narratives and directing scenes and short films. I also sung and filmed a music video clip of myself riding my own horse to the song “Would You Go With Me” by Josh Turner, which was a great and fun project to carry out! I could even say that I landed my first little “acting job” during my years of University as a “SIM player” where I would embody characters and create short scenes and scenarios with other actors in front of the nursing students in order to enhance the learning experience of future health professionals.
Acting aside, I have a huge love for travelling and languages. I have the gift of being bilingual in French and English, so, for my short film that I had to make in my final year of University, I thought that I would do something different and write, direct and star in a short comedy in half-French-half-English, that I had great fun in doing!
Earlier this year, I did the trip of a life-time and visited Australia and Norfolk Island, for the very first time in my life. I met all my family who live there, visited so many beautiful places, and lived many unforgettable moments! I went to see an Outback horse dinner show during my stay and ended up talking with one of the actors there who told me that they are always on the lookout for new actors who can horse-ride and sing too… so who’s to say I won’t land myself a job in Australia one day!
I am at a point in my career where I am ready to get myself out there, land myself some big roles and give it all I have! I have come a long way and I am proud of myself for that!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There could be a few that I could talk about here but I will go with this one… Despite having done so much training and acting throughout my life, now that I am out of education and into the real world, it is safe to say that the red carpet is not rolled out for me… YET.
I am currently working as a desk assistant at a local gym… Now if that doesn’t seem like the opposite to the place I want to be, I don’t know what does. But I taught myself to keep resilient, ambitious, consistent and focused, focused on reaching that end goal. It is easy to lose hope when the path seems long and uncertain, but a lot of those professional actors out there, including Hollywood actors, have their humble beginnings. When I think of all those who I admire – they started out in places just like where I am now. They faced rejection, like I did, worked odd jobs, like I am, and struggled to make ends meet. But what set them apart from the others and made them climb that ladder of success is their resilience and their refusal to give up on their dreams. And this is exactly what I will not do, give up. There is a beautiful quote out there that I find very true, “It takes a dream to get started, desire to keep going, and determination to finish” – Eddie Harris Jr, and I have met many out there who lack that “determination” element, but I will certainly not be one of them.
My passion for acting is something that grounds me. It’s a dream that I’m chasing, a dream that I will never let go and a dream that not everyone has the courage to pursue. Now I know that working at the gym right now may feel like a far cry from the bright lights of the stage or the silver screen, but I also know that every audition that I attend along the way, every acting class that I experience, every person that I meet, and even every shift at the gym, is shaping me and building my resilience. By meeting and greeting people and using my social skills, my time at the gym is not wasted; it’s simply a chapter in my story that will make my success even more meaningful!
Every great story has its humble beginnings. My moment will come, I simply have to be patient and keep believing. It’s a long and uncertain path in this industry. I am keeping my creative mind active by writing and recording new material, singing in the church choir, attending acting workshops, meeting new people and even doing some vocal coaching… simply not letting it all fade away. For all I know, I could get that long awaited life-changing phone call tomorrow… Who knows? But until then, I will keep active and resilient. After all, working at the gym is a part of my journey, and a step towards my goal. I was once told to never lose sight of that thing, that passion that drives you. As W. Churchill said himself, “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” and I certainly won’t. I will get there, one way or another.
I will conclude this question with a quote from favourite actor in this world, an absolute hero in my eyes, Dwayne Johnson, and it goes, “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – D. Johnson
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I chose this question as it sparked my interest in the use of the term “creative”. While it does not merely mean “actor”, the relationship between the use of the imagination and original ideas is here emphasised. Hence, I believe that the most rewarding aspect of being an actor, and developing as a creative, is primarily the sense of freedom that I gain from embodying a new character, telling a story, imagining their backstory and narrative, and most importantly, creating an immersive universe for the audience. Consequently, the reward I gain from being an actor not only involves my creative approach to acting, but also, the audience’s engagement and emotional responses.
This idea of creativity and freedom I feel even more as a script-writer. Whenever I write a new scene and create a new character, it all comes down to my imagination. I have no boundaries to set myself, it is my story and I have that freedom to make it go wherever I want it to go, creating the characters, their backstories and their journeys that they will go on. There is nothing that stands between myself and my imagination, and I simply love the beauty of that. To witness the evolution, from a blank sheet of paper to a completed story that holds meaningful characters who in turn, hold their own beautiful stories and travel their own exciting journeys, is a really beautiful thing to me.
Back to the acting perspective, one story that I could share that perfectly portrays this element of audience immersion is when I improvised a scene during my training at University using Meisner’s technique. This approach to acting is all about being in the moment, following impulses not cues, in order to deliver a truthful and more honest performance.
When watching my performance back over, I was beautifully shocked in seeing the audience’s reactions to our scene. They were fully immersed into the story and our performance, catching different emotions and reactions at different times. Some were laughing, others were covering their faces as it was simply too painful to watch. When my character made an unexpected pregnancy shock reveal at the end of my scene, the audience was full of gasps, wide eyes, raised eyebrows and dropped jaws.
This was extremely satisfying for me, as it clearly shows that I fulfilled my job as a performer to engage my audience, and more importantly, deliver what lies at the heart of all acting… truth and believability.
This scene serves as proof to me that, as a creative, I fulfilled my duties in creating this imaginary universe in which the audience was engaged and gave emotional responses.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amande_acting/
- Other: Spotlight:https://app.spotlight.com/1014-8948-7716
Email:
[email protected]
Image Credits
Headshots : Callan Riches