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COVER STORY see productions at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford and also watching her uncle, actor Michael Hadley, in a production of The Lady from the Sea when she was aged just eight.
Sigourney Weaver in A Monster Calls. Felicity played a fugitive hunting for the Death Star in Rogue One, a performance which won her critical acclaim in a film which grossed more than one billion dollars worldwide at the box office. Despite appearing with some of the world’s top actors, Felicity still comes back to her roots for some of her favourite small screen ‘watches’. She’s a big fan of the BBC’s hit Peaky Blinders drama series produced here in Birmingham, and has been quoted as saying she’d love to have a part where “I get to do a full Birmingham accent”.
SPECIAL PASSES “I did bits of acting at school,” says Felicity, “but I owe my actual acting career to Colin Edwards at the Central Junior Television Workshop which was in the old Central TV building in Birmingham. We youngsters were given passes to get in and we felt very special. Then the workshop moved to premises at the Custard Factory.” Felicity trained at the workshop after school from the age of Bournville was a wonderful community to 10 until 18. “We did plays there and learned about acting. I wouldn’t be in grow up in and I still have many friends in the area. acting now without Colin and the ITV I always try to get back and visit as much as I can workshop. I met some incredible people there and I will never forget what a remarkable job Colin did.” Whether she could find any amount of time to Felicity made her professional debut at the age of take on another project is however debatable. With 12 when she appeared in the TV film The Treasure typical understatement she admits during our Seekers alongside an also-young Keira Knightley. A interview that she has had ‘a busy few months’ part in the television series The Worst Witch globe-trotting to promote her new films. Not that followed and then, at 16, Felicity was cast as Emma she is complaining. “I quite like the promoting,” Carter in The Archers, produced from the BBC she says. “There’s something cool about promoting radio studios in Birmingham. She continued in the the films you are in and getting to hang out with series while also studying for her English degree at the people you made the film with.” Wadham College, Oxford – a challenge which could involve studying until around 1am and then getting CUSTARD FACTORY a train at 6am to Birmingham to record The Archers. Felicity now lives in London out of necessity She also found time – of course – to appear in (ducking and diving the inevitable paparazzi student plays at Oxford. photographers who follow her every move). But she always makes it a priority to support arts projects in PEAKY BLINDERS Birmingham when she can – projects like the UK’s Since those student days, Felicity has appeared with largest ever multi-city street art initiative which some of the world’s biggest stars – before becoming kicked off with an 18-metre high spray-painted one herself! Co-star credits include the likes of mural at Birmingham’s Custard Factory. Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Ralph Fiennes, Helen As someone who grew up going to The Rep, Mirren, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Ryan, Kirstin Scott BMAG, the Custard Factory, Ikon Gallery and Thomas, Sally Field and Jamie Foxx in The Amazing Midlands Arts Centre, Felicity says she always feels Spider-Man 2. Felicity’s major breakthrough came lucky to have come from such a culturally-rich city. when she appeared in the film The Theory of And no matter how big her star shines, she still Everything about the life of physicist Stephen finds time to visit friends and family who live in Hawking with Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne. Staffordshire. “And I always try to go back and see In her most recent movies, she starred with Tom Bournville as much as I can,” she says. “It’s a Hanks in Ron Howard’s thriller Inferno and with wonderful place.” I
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