“It was good. It was nice. It was… sunny.” This is Sameena Jabeen Ahmed talking about the world’s most glamorous film festival, which she attended for the first time last May. She was at Cannes for the premiere of the British thriller Catch Me Daddy, but the first-time actor from Manchester, who plays a lead in the film, wasn’t letting the glitz go to her head. “I still to this day don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she says when we meet at a hotel in central London.
But didn’t the film get a prolonged standing ovation at Cannes? Wasn’t that exciting?
“Oh yeah, that was good,” she nods. “When the movie was finished everyone was quiet. And then the whole audience started clapping. They were clapping for a good five or 10 minutes. Then we stood up to leave and they clapped even more.” She’s beaming now. “Yeah, that was just like, wow.”
The applause wasn’t misplaced. Catch Me Daddy, the electrifying first feature from English brothers Daniel and Matthew Wolfe, follows a British-Pakistani teenager called Laila (Ahmed) as she attempts a fresh start with a boyfriend on the Yorkshire Moors, away from her domineering family. Things become unbearably tense when Laila’s past eventually catches up with her, but it’s in the quieter moments that the film – and its untrained star – really shine.
Ahmed was working as a sports coach at a youth centre in Manchester when she was approached in the street and invited to try for the part. “I thought the woman was being crazy,” she says. “I was like, is this real? But a few days later she called me back and I went down to the audition.” The 24-year-old had never acted before but she decided to give it a go. Nine months later, she was on her first set.
For one key scene in the film, Ahmed is required to dance around a caravan to Horses by Patti Smith. “I’ve never really danced before,” she confesses, “so it was difficult for me to get my head around it.” Wolfe’s solution was to recruit the singer FKA Twigs, with whom he’d worked before, to come up and coach her. “So Twigs taught me a few moves and I took them on board and used them in the scene,” says Ahmed matter-of-factly of her session with the R&B superstar.
The first time Ahmed watched the film, it was “weird”, she says. “It felt like Laila was jumping out at me in 3D and everyone else was in the background. But the second time it was fine.” Aside from a few festival trips and a couple of awards (she was voted best British newcomer at the London film festival), things seem almost normal again for Ahmed when we meet. Her friends and family haven’t seen the film yet. She’d love to do more acting work, but is still coaching full-time at the youth centre.
If Catch Me Daddy opens up a new world for her, will she be ready for the change? “I’m not really expecting anything,” she shrugs, low-key to the last. “But, you know, whatever happens happens.”
• Catch Me Daddy is in cinemas now
