Samantha Barks

Barks has basically learned everything she knows on the job, following years doing amateur dramatics on the Isle of Man, where she was born and raised. “I am very much a ‘learn-on-the-go’ person,” she says. “I had been in rehearsals since I was 13 [in amdram] and learned on the go, so when I got to London, I had done so many years – not that it replaced training. But I also learned a lot from I’d Do Anything.” She continues: “You get to work with mentors such as Idina Menzel, Liza Minnelli and Andrew Lloyd Webber. And at 17 you are like a sponge as well.”

Barks began performing at the age of three, when she started dance classes, and her parents – her mum was a teacher, her dad a builder – saw it made her “the happiest person in the world”.

From there, she performed as much as she could at high school – singing in choirs, hymns in assemblies – and, from the age of about 13, beginning amdram on the Isle of Man. “On the Isle of Man there is really good amateur dramatics,” she says. “It’s a thing. Some professional shows might come over, but there is a real love and respect for amateur dramatics, which is great.”

Eventually she received singing lessons locally from a musical director called David Holland, where she discovered that songs such as Defying Gravity from Wicked suited her voice. This sparked an interest in musical theatre as a career. “It was then I realised there is a place for me in theatre – and that it wasn’t just the old classical shows that I grew up listening to, because that is not my voice.”

Biggest love

While Holland was nurturing her singing, a drama teacher at school called Steve Craig was encouraging her to pursue her acting talents. “They are both so important to me,” she says. “Steve is a really close family friend now, but I still call him Mr Craig. It’s amazing when you get a great teacher who is so passionate and that is him – he made me fall in love with acting.”

At the age of about 14, she started trying to persuade her parents to let her train at a drama school. “I said: ‘This is my biggest love, I have to do this, I have to risk everything to at least try to do this.’” She adds: “I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn’t.”

Initially, it was a “hard no” from her parents, who ruled out the possibility of her moving away. But later, having worked hard on her GCSEs, alongside appearing in an amateur production of Jekyll and Hyde, they succumbed andagreed she could take up her (short-lived) place at ArtsEd.

I’d Do Anything really gives you a thick skin. Everyone you know is watching

“It was 14 years ago, which is terrifying,” she says, reflecting on the time that’s passed since appearing on I’d Do Anything. “But it really gives you a thick skin. Everyone you know is watching. I had a nice journey on there, I will say, but I was lucky. Definitely there are times where you are torn apart, so you have to let that go. Luckily, social media was not a big thing then, but online you would see comments and you got used to that side of it – which is not a nice thing to get used to.”

She adds: “Some people love you, some people hate you and that is totally fine. You can’t crumble… But I am grateful it didn’t happen in this time of social media.”

Q&A Samantha Barks

What was your first non-theatre job?
I worked in River Island.

What was your first professional theatre job?
Sally Bowles in Cabaret national tour.

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? 
Anything is possible, don’t put limitations on yourself. 

Who or what was your biggest influence? 
My grandma. I am grateful to her everyday.

What is your best advice for auditions? 
What makes you unique makes you special, don’t be afraid to stand out.

Do you have any theatrical superstitions or rituals?
No I don’t have any superstitions generally, but when I do a show I always have things that are so important to my routine I almost get superstitious if I don’t do them.

Isle of Sam

The show was an exciting experience not just for Barks, but the residents of the Isle of Man, which famously changed its name to the Isle of Sam when she was on the show. She’s so adored there that when Lloyd Webber visited recently, there was one question he could not avoid. “I saw him recently and he told me he got off the plane and someone said: ‘Do you know Samantha Barks?’, and by the endof the day he joked he was sick of hearing it,” she laughs.

Although she didn’t win – Jodie Prenger did – she would later play the role of Nancy in a touring production and the series introduced her to people in the industry she still calls friends, including Rachel Tucker and Niamh Perry. And it also opened doors. Straight after, she landed a job in Rufus Norris’ Cabaret, which was followed by Les Misérables on stage, and then the show’s 25th anniversary concert at the O2.

“The O2 was big and scary and I could not believe I was doing it,” she says. “I walked out to do On My Own and I could see a sea of stars. It was people’s phones, taking pictures, but I was transported to another place and it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. Even though it was in front of thousands of people, I was so immersed in the world of that song, and I felt like I was the only person in the world at that moment.” She adds: “The applause went on and on and it gave me the most adrenaline I had ever felt.”

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She wasn’t, she admits, particularly nervous. But her dad, in the audience, was. He has a motorbike hobby and has broken land speed records, but it was his daughter singing in front of thousands that wrecked his nerves. “I am terrified when he gets on those bikes,” Barks says. “But he says it’s not scary. He says watching me go on stage at the O2 at the age of 19 was scary. We have this strange, mutual respect for the crazy shit the other one does.”

After Les Mis on stage came the blockbuster film – the one Barks found out she had been cast in when Mackintosh appeared on stage at the curtain call of Oliver!, where she had been playing Nancy on a UK tour.

“I had been through 15 weeks of auditioning,” she recalls. “Auditions are usually a private thing, but this was a media phenomenon – all over who would be playing Éponine. Every day it was like: ‘This person is playing it’ in the press, and I thought: ‘Oh right, because I am auditioning again tomorrow.’ And every time I had another audition my heart got more attached to it.

“Then, one night we were doing our bows and Cameron came on stage, and I assumed he must have been celebrating something like Dickens’ anniversary and that I had missed the memo. But then he talked about the film and at that point I thought: ‘Aha.’ But it’s not a normal thing to happen and I’ve had to watch it back on YouTube as it was such a mad moment. The auditions had been going on for weeks and suddenly my life changed.”

Support from co-stars

Barks had not done any film work at the point, so when she arrived to shoot it at Pinewood, she was anxious. But she found support in co-star Eddie Redmayne, who played Marius. “If there were things I didn’t know, in terms of what they meant on set, I would ask him, and no question was silly,” she says. “He was non-judgemental, lovely and open-minded, a wonderful human being.”

She adds: “The whole cast helped each other. I remember a conversation with Amanda Seyfried and Anne Hathaway, and someone said: ‘Why are you nervous? You have done the show’, and I replied: ‘But I’ve never done a film’, and they came back: ‘I’ve never sung live’, and there was this beautiful moment of realising it was a big deal for all of us. Yes, I had played the role before, but they had never sung live in front of anyone.”

Following the film, Barks was chosen to play the lead role in Pretty Woman on Broadway, having previously appeared in Amélie in the US. She flew to New York to audition, before turning straight around to fly back home. When she landed she heard that they wanted to see her immediately for a callback in New York. She couldn’t do it, but in the end, they offered her the role made famous by Julia Roberts anyway.

Did the American cast welcome her or were they perturbed a Brit had landed the role? “I didn’t get any sense of that,” Barks says. “But sometimes I feel I block out negativity and don’t think I would have clocked it if they had been. People ask me if they were judging me, but I don’t think I would have clocked it if they were.”

US audiences are 10 times louder. It’s great

If she didn’t notice any reaction from the cast, she certainly noticed a difference in how US audiences behaved compared to UK ones. “They are 10 times louder,” she laughs. “It’s great. After Pretty Woman, I went to Japan to do Chess. And the audiences were so different again. Americans are louder than the Brits, but we are louder than the Japanese. All of them are loving it in their own way.”

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There was talk of her joining Pretty Woman here in the UK, but Barks felt that, with a year under her belt on Broadway, she wanted to move on. She had heard about Frozen opening in London but had never imagined herself in the role of Elsa. However, once she began auditioning, she knew she wanted to play it.

And although the success of the film meant the role was a daunting one to take on, the fact that it was originally animated meant she had “freedom” to do her own thing with it. “There is a lot of scope for interpretation,” she says. “There are songs in the stage show not in the film and that means there is nothing to compare them to.”

Carry on regardless

And, of course, there is the famous dress change during the signature tune Let It Go, which the team on stage have managed to recreate in a truly magical way. Not that it always goes to plan. The day after press night, Barks – according to reports – was yanked to the floor during the change, but carried on regardless.

She is careful not to talk about it, but does say that the entire number of Let It Go is supercharged. “The whole number is big pressure, but in a good way,” she says. “You walk out and hear people gasping during those opening bars. Everyone knows it. It’s never a calm experience but it shouldn’t be. Elsa is anxious throughout the number, but by the end of it she is happier. You go into the song with the right amount of Elsa’s sense of anxiety. You follow the character.”

As well as appearing in Frozen, Barks has just released an album of musical theatre songs, from record label Westway Music. She wanted to do songs from shows she had missed going to see and shows she had seen recently and loved. “There were times I wondered if it was ever going to come back,” she says. “But now, with theatre coming back, all that anxiety and fear has gone and that is how the album feels to me. I wanted it to be a celebration of the shows because that is what I missed so much.”

The album is called Into the Unknown, referencing a song Elsa sings in the sequel to Frozen. It is clear the role means a lot to her. And being in a show that will give some children their first taste of theatre is a responsibility she does not take lightly. “It’s true theatrical magic,” she says. “And it’s a job I don’t take for granted. Not for one second of the day.”

CV Samantha Barks

Born: 1990, Isle of Man
Training: ArtsEd (but left after a month)
Landmark productions:
• Les Misérables, Queen’s Theatre (2010)
• City of Angels, Donmar Warehouse (2014)
• Pretty Woman: The Musical, Broadway (2018)
• Frozen, Theatre Royal Drury Lane (2021)
Agent: Kirk Whelan-Foran at United Agents

Frozen is booking at Theatre Royal Drury Lane until June 26, 2022. Visit: lwtheatres.co.uk