Her character in hit Netflix series Sex Education might sell X-rated advice at school, but Emma Mackey says her own upbringing was much more “sheltered”.
The actress, 23, plays the part of Maeve Wiley, who sets up a sex counselling business with a fellow pupil between normal lessons.
Mackey grew up in rural France where her French father is a headmaster and her English mother works for a charity.
She said: “It was really … nice. I went to a Catholic school and did loads of sport and I was really happy. I loved studying and was very bookish. It was quite a sheltered existence.”
She moved to Leeds to study English language and literature at university and told this week’s ES Magazine, out tomorrow, that it was a shock to the system.
“I had to toughen up a bit,” she said. “People made me realise I was quite innocent and oblivious to certain things. I wanted to make people like me.”
A year ago Mackey was working as a translator. Sex Education, which also stars Gillian Anderson and Asa Butterfield, is her first big acting job. She went through five rounds of auditions before getting a call to tell her she had the part.
“When I got off the phone I burst into tears and did a clichéd squeal,” she added. “I called my mum and pretended to be very, very cool. Like, ‘Yeah, got this role, it’s no big thing’.”
Netflix says the show was watched by 40 million. It has been renewed for a second series.
Read the full interview in ES Magazine, out tomorrow
