Imogen Poots, Interview ARENA Magazine


By ARENA Magazine UK
January 2008

Lesbian schoolgirl, diseased hospital and zombie killer the working life of an actress can be as varied as a dim sum platter. But in the short career of 18 year old English rose Imogen Poots, She's ticked all of these boxes and more on her CV.

"I'm only really learning my trade so i'm always looking for something different that's goind to challenge me," she says, curling up in her chair in preppy American style outfit of jeans and a purple hoodie, her long blonde hair elaborately piled up onto the top of her head in that seemingly casual wat which probably took hours to wrestle into place. "I try and go to varied auditions but 99% of that is rejection which you just have to live with and get on with it".

Thank fully it hasn't been all about the rebuff. Having joined a theatre group when she was 13. Poots landed her first part in that Saturday night staple Casualty.

"It was three days of me lying in bed and trowing up cold chicken soup. I learnt it wasquite a skill to hit your mark with sick. I would basically fill my mouth with soup and when they said 'Action' I just let it go. They ran out of soup by the end."

It was then from soup to sci-fi, working with the Wachowski Brothers on the adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel of a dystopian Britain, V For Vendetta (The lesbian schoolgirl role), before coming to prominence this year as Robert Carlyle's daughter Tammy in zombie splatterfest 28 Weeks Later.

"On set it was pretty shocking when you were walking over dead bodies and there was blood everywhere," she says of the latter. "You would sit down for lunch every day next to somebody dressed as a zombies with half their face missing. Althought the weirdest thing was when we filmed on a completely deserted Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End. It was a strange and cerie feeling."

Poots, who did her A'Levels this summer three As, naturally is applying to universities to read history of art. With this (unusual for an actress) academie pedigree, it's no surprise that she holds Natalie Portman up as a screen idol. "She's an incredible actor and combined it with going to university, which I think is admirable. I want to do the same."

Howerver Poots isn't disappearing off to a drom just yet. You can see her squeezed into corset and bonnet in the BBC's Christmas period drama Miss Austen Regrets.

"It's about the life of Jane Austen and not an adaptation of her novels. It's very contemporary, and Jane is portrayed as very manipulative," she says. "I play her niece, Fanny, and their friendship is very 20th century; they do things that normal girls do, like going out and getting pissed."

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