Actor Alice Lucy: 'Trust yourself and know you deserve to be there'

My debut feature-film role is a very different type of production to the ones I have been involved in as co-founder of my theatre company, Calenta. Whereas Calenta pieces, like our first play Alexa, are often dark explorations of personal and societal control, Mad Heidi was billed as the first ‘Swissploitation film’ and was a dystopian retelling of Johanna Spyri’s novel Heidi. It was a project I wanted to be part of. It was bonkers, full of passion and full of heart. 

The audition process felt long, as due to Covid restrictions the rounds were far apart, but it was well worth the wait. Gillian Hawser, our casting director, was brilliant throughout the process. I loved my time in Switzerland; the whole cast and crew were so supportive and believed in me from day one. They all gave me the space to play and to find Heidi, and I found myself performing all my own stunts, being submerged in a glacial waterfall or walking away from a real-life explosion. 

At Calenta, we explore the worlds of the surreal and the absurd, and create complex, powerful, three-dimensional characters for women. We often see these characters break out of societal binds and oppression through mental violence and control. In Heidi, she takes this violence into more of a physical outlaying to overcome the cerebral control imposed on a society rather than an individual. 

Mad Heidi was not shot chronologically, so to create a determinate arc for Heidi while shooting in an indeterminate way, I drew upon how we build characters at Calenta to ensure that, as the actor, I was on an journey that was ever-changing but in which the audience could easily follow her natural arc.  

To be a leading lady in a genre that is notoriously male-centric gives me a great sense of pride. Heidi is a woman born into a world of political unrest, dominated by men throughout her life and in society, who overcomes the status quo to stand up for herself and for others. As for me, I learnt to trust my gut and instincts on set. My biggest advice to anyone,? Don’t second-guess yourself: trust yourself and know you deserve to be there.

CV Alice Lucy

Training: Raindance Film School, Fourth Monkey (where she won The Stage Scholarship in 2015), RADA 
Theatre includes: Alexa (Calenta Theatre) 
Film includes: Mad Heidi, Womxn, Pearly White, Apophenia
Agent: Beresford Management