We have a real treat for you Ballad fan’s today. We are branching out into acting, well more like interviewing two lovely actresses. The lovely Francesca Hornak interviews Olivia Grant & Emily Beecham. You might be used to seeing these young ladies in films such as Mr Nice (Olivia) and a new production called Basement (Emily). But here today on Ballad’s online exhibition, you will get to see these girls in a totally different scene. One full of fairies, childhood memories and bedtime tales.

The very talented Simon Lipman shot this story and it was Styled by Katie Greengrass and now we are sharing it with you! So a beautifully shot piece and a wonderfully written interview for you lucky lot

Emily
Emily Beecham has flu. This may explain a certain fuzzy headedness when it comes to my Career Questions. Or it may simply be that she hasn’t got a five-year-plan. Why would she, at 25, never having wanted for work or glowing reviews? This is the girl who was approached by more agents than any student in LAMDA’s history, and who has already won two awards.

You wouldn’t guess all this of in person, though. Distinctly non-luvvie (she describes her awards as ‘nice’), with a dry sense of humour, Beecham chats away in a sleepy, unassuming bur. Sometimes she has to stop midway through a tangent, to ask me to remind her what she’s actually answering.

Quick recap: Emily Beecham made her debut in the box office hit 28 Weeks Later, swiftly followed by the BBC’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles. Her portrayal of the lovelorn Retty Priddle led to a key role in Silent Witness, and then The Street where she starred opposite Jonas Armstrong.

There isn’t room to list all her parts here - they stretch from stage, to TV to big screen to indie flicks. But you’ll see her next in TV drama The Runaway by Martine Cole, and comedy horror flick The Basement, with Danny Dyer and Kierston Waering.

Textbook gorgeous, with coppery hair and neat features (she’s signed to Select Models), Emily has the kind of chameleon face that casts easily. Hence the diverse CV: she’s equally convincing as a vamp, a virginal heroine, a troubled Essex Girl and lately a druid, in BBC drama Merlin.

I ask what drew her to acting. ‘Um. Ah. Well.’ She hesitates. ‘It was either that or I was going to go to art school to paint, but then….’ she stops again. ‘When I was younger I just really enjoyed theatre and films, things that were a bit different or shocking. And I thought ‘I want to have a part in that’. So that prompted me to pursue torturous auditions, and go through with that hell…. And then I went to drama school. Which was really cool.’ See what I mean about non-luvvie?

As the daughter of a pilot, her childhood was nomadic. ‘We were always moving so I went to about ten schools, and I was constantly missing syllabuses and redoing them. So I’m pretty terrible when it comes to academic stuff. If I wasn’t acting I’d probably be a bit stuck.’ Take this with added salt – Beecham has written her own comedy double act, which was recently taken on by the producers of The League Of Gentlemen.

Thanks to her Arizonian mother, she also has US citizenship. Her brother has moved to Seattle to play blues guitar – is she tempted to follow, and try her luck in Hollywood? ‘Maybe’, she says, cautiously. But she’s clearly under no illusion about LA, describing it as: ‘A big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, BIG pond’ (she really does use nine ‘bigs’).

You wonder if she’s also wary of stardom – the relentless premieres, and press junkets, and posing, and paps. Of this side to film, she says: ‘I’ve grown to like it. At first I was pretty terrible at [the red carpet] because I used to be a bit of a grunger. My agent would tell me off for going to auditions looking grungey. But he didn’t know that I was in my smartest clothes!’

Her agent needn’t have worried. Beneath the laid back surface there’s an intensity to Beecham, particularly when she talks work - how she gets nervous when she ‘really, really wants a part a lot, a lot’, and how she can’t concentrate on anything else when she’s filming.

To quote Rankin (the man who sees every starlet on the circuit, don’t forget) this reformed grunger has: ‘that something special, that thing you just feel about someone…she’s one of the most exciting actresses out there’.

Olivia
Confession: I used to clock Olivia Grant sweeping around the library when we were students at the same university. She stood out in a room of faceless high-achievers, with her bum length Titian hair, and balletic poise. I vaguely recall a long, shaggy coat (remember, this was 2002). She had ‘actress’ written all over her.

So it’s no surprise to find that since graduation, Olivia, 26, has worked non-stop – good going for a Brit with no formal training. You might recognise her from BBC1’s Lark Rise To Candleford, where she starred as Lady Adeleide, or as Grace Darling, the uptight secretary in BBC3’s Personal Affairs. More recently she played alongside Rhys Ifans and Chloe Sevigny in Howard Mark’s biopic Mr Nice.

Eight years since I envied her hair in the library, Olivia Grant looks pretty much the same. Swimming pool eyes, Celtic skin and an arch smile make her a natural for period drama – the latest being an adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Women In Love. Off camera, a fondness for fashion and a sample size figure have seen her slip easily into London’s red carpet scene.

She describes herself as coming to acting ‘late’ (post- university), but performing is obviously in the blood. Her mother was a costume designer, and Olivia won a place at the hyper-competitive Royal Ballet as a child.

‘I think my earliest, most fabulous memory of the stage,’ she says, in her friendly SW3 drawl, ‘is dancing in The Snow Queen at Saddlers Wells when I was about seven. I remember waiting in the wings with these beautiful, lithe, twenty-year old ballerinas - and they’d just be chatting about their weekends, in their tutus and their tiaras. I was like ‘that is REALLY cool’.

Olivia decided against a career in dance, though, choosing academic hothouse St Pauls over The Royal Ballet School. She’s self-effacing about her route to fame, but is clearly one of those ‘brilliant at everything’ people. ‘After ballet I carried on with academia, and then I decided I’d sing and maybe become an opera singer,’ she says, as if this is perfectly normal at fifteen. ‘So that was pottering along while I did A-levels and went to Oxford and then, mainly just to meet people, I got involved with OUDS, the university’s am dram society.’

So far, so teen prodigy. She continues modestly: ‘And agents pay a bit of attention to Oxford and Cambridge - I think only because of people who’ve been there before. And then I got an agent at the end of Oxford, and just started working.’

Easy peasy. Her debut was a small part in Hollywood blockbuster Stardust –alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Sienna Miller. Tellingly, she says she was unfazed by her co-stars, merely impressed by their work ethic. Asked whether she enjoys the red carpet hoo-ha, she’s refreshingly enthusiastic: ‘I must say, I do. The bank of photographers thing is TOTALLY insane initially, but you just have to relax and not go all rabbit in the headlights.’

I question whether she’d like to become Michelle-Pfeiffer-famous? ‘I think it would be,’ she pauses, choosing her words. ‘Well it would reflect success in your career which would obviously be great. I think the other side of it would be very, very bizarre. What’s nice is that because I started acting late, my friends are my friends, so that wouldn’t shift. I have a core group of people who know me, so you hope that that would be there whatever.’

And what do these old friends make of her life today? ‘Basically, because I didn’t go to drama school my friends all do proper jobs, so I’m the arty one at a dinner party. Which is actually a joy, because beyond asking me what’s coming up nobody takes much interest. I probably know more about law school than they know about acting!’

OLIVIA’S VITAL STATS

Dressed up or dressed down: Dressed up! I’m quite a small person so I tend to bomb around in high heels.

Off duty look: Classic French Lycee girl with an edge.

Hangout: Soho House. I became a member a year ago and I’ve used that to the max.

Favourite fairy tale: I quite like the princess and the pea.

EMILY’S VITAL STATS

Shopping List: Vintage - with the odd indulgence from Urban Outfitters.

Hangouts: The Lock Tavern in Camden.

Downtime: Playing guitar

On my ipod: The Smiths, Lady Hawk

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who had some input in this feature! You all worked so hard and you are all so positive, friendly and delightful to work with! Thank you ever so much.

Photographer: Simon Lipman

Styling: Katie Greengrass

Art Direction: David Davies

Set Design: Carrie Louise

Hair: Peter Beckett

Make up: Zoe Taylor using Mac

Models: Olivia Grant and Emily Beecham at Public Eye Communications

Photographers Assistants: 1st Claire Brand, 2nd Jessica Mahaffey

Stylists Assistants: 1st Beth Rivett, 2nd Amy Maloney

Make up Assitant: Lauren Wall

Retouching: Jackie Williams

Interview: Francesca Hornak