These days, Gabrielle Creevy can mostly get around unnoticed – but that might be about to change.
“The first time it ever happened to me, I was home,” she says. “I went to the local shop and the guy behind the counter was like, ‘I'm really sorry to ask, but were you in Black Doves?’
“You don't really know what to say in those situations. I was like, ‘Yeah, I am actually.’” In fact, she plays the murderous assassin Eleanor, who ends up working with Ben Whishaw’s character Sam over the course of the show. And who deals a lot of death.
Add to that her role in the new BBC thriller The Guest and what you have is a recipe for a star whose profile is rapidly on the rise.
In the show, the 29 year old plays Ria, a cleaner on hard times, whose life gets turned upside down when she meets the glamorous Fran (Eve Myles). What unfolds is four episodes of insane plot twists, tension and secrets. The perfect binge-watch, in other words.
Quiet and soft-spoken – much like Ria – Creevy is disarmingly good fun. Soon enough, we’re swapping recommendations for the best places to eat in Cardiff in between chatting about her career and experience of filming with Myles: “the whole process was just the both of us just like laughing and having like a good time.”
These days, Creevy lives in Wales – “I like London, but it was pretty lonely at times, you know?” – not far from her home of Port Talbot, where her mum still lives today.
“You can do all this exploring,” she says reflectively, “But Wales will always have my heart really. I guess that's anyone says that about whatever they come from. And lot is filming down here now.”
Born in 1996, Creevy grew up acting: her mother sent her to classes from a young age. “They were on a Sunday nights in the village hall,” she says. “My mum is the kind of mum who would be like, ‘Try this or try that,’ and she'd send me to these different places... she just wanted me to try a bit of everything, and acting was the only one I really stuck to.”
Did she ever see Port Talbot’s most famous son, Michael Sheen? Sadly not, though she did once attend the same drama club. “There’s a framed painting of him on the wall of the society,” she laughs.
After that came roles acting in commercials, before she decided to apply to study acting at ArtsEd in London. Even now, she still sounds vaguely surprised that she got in: “where I come from, there's opportunities, but you just don't think it’s going to be you.”
“The cost of drama schools now – well, when I was there anyway – it was absolutely crazy”
Creevy got a scholarship – which allowed her to go in the first place. “My mum is a single parent; it just wouldn't have been possible. Financially it's crazy. The cost of drama schools now – well, when I was there anyway – it was absolutely crazy. And if you don't have money, why can't you have that opportunity?”
After graduating, she landed a role in S4C show Gwaith/Cartref. Then, in 2018, came In My Skin – the revelatory BBC Three show in which she starred as Bethan Gwyndaf, a teen trying to navigate her mother’s mental illness as well as her own sexuality.
The critics raved about it; so much so that Creevy was nominated for a BAFTA Cymru just on the strength of the pilot alone.
At the time, she says, she was working in the coffee shop of her local gym to make ends meet. “I obviously wasn't supposed to be on my phone. I looked at it and I just had all these messages being like, ‘Congratulations!’ and I had no idea [why]. You graduate and the idea of awards, all these kinds of things: they don't seem like they're going to happen.”
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She went onto win the award – and from there, has gone onto land roles in Netflix thriller Black Doves (as the murderous assassin Eleanor) and American series Three Women.
It’s been a journey that has seen her star steadily rise, though with that comes difficulties.
“There was definitely a time when I was like, ‘Maybe I need to neutralize my accent because then that will get me in the room,’” she says.
“For a long time while I was training, I'd go home on a weekend and my mum or my sister would be like, ‘You sound different.’ Subconsciously you're adapting because you think you won't get roles or you don't sound how you feel like you should, what is that?
“There was definitely a time when I was like, maybe I need to neutralize my accent because then that will get me in the room”
“Now I just think the complete opposite. There's something really beautiful about the Welsh accent. It’s so nice to act in my accent because I feel like I can express more. There’s just an ease to it.”
With The Guest now out, she’s also got her sights set on future roles. “I would love to do horror,” she says, and she has another show on the horizon: Sky’s upcoming show Amadeus, in which she plays Mozart’s wife Constanze opposite Will Sharpe.
But it’s also a case of seeing how far she’s come. “I have moments where, people I've watched for years: I'm sat in the same room as them drinking a coffee,” she says.
“I worked with Shailene Woodley, Betty Gilpin, all these women [in Three Women] and I was like, ‘This is pretty crazy.’ I still have those moments and I think that's something like that I'm glad I still feel. I hold on to it because it still makes [acting] feel really exciting.”
The Guest is streaming now on BBC One
