Corinna Brown: Netflix And Beyond!

Finding Your Way Into The Arts…

I’ve been performing since I was really young! When I was two years old my mum put me in a ballet class because I was basically just really clumsy – I’d just be falling all over the house so she thought that if I’m into dancing, it might stop me falling over all time! I wouldn’t say it worked because I’m still quite clumsy, but hey, I’m good at dancing now! As well as ballet, I was doing tap and jazz dancing and then, getting older I was introduced to street dance and cheerleading – any dancing clubs that ran after school – I was there!

I also went to a Drama School called Anna Fiorentini in Hackney which was a massive turning point for me. I started going there on Saturdays and before I knew it, I was enrolling into their agency. I’d say that’s when I really started performing and doing it for TV.

My first big role was actually on a BBC Three drama called My Murder with John Boyega. It was based on the true story of the honey trap murder of a teenage boy in London. Mainly around that time though, I was doing adverts as well as presenting a show on Disney Channel called Even More Evermoor. One thing I always loved though, was performing at the Hackney Empire. I did a lot of theatre and pantos so it’s really cool to be back on stage here!

Favourite Avenue?…

It’s hard to pick a favourite! I love them all equally but I’m someone who loves to be doing different things. Even if you take acting as an example; within that, there’s TV acting which obviously I love but when I’ve been doing it for a while I start to miss theatre. Then I’ll have a four month theatre run and start thinking “Ah, I miss TV work!” In the middle of that, I’ll start craving some stunt work and that’s just an ongoing cycle really. Obviously, there’s dance as well! In the acting industry, you have a lot of time off and that’s when I go back to dance more as a hobby before going back into rehearsals again.

Theatre vs TV…

Theatre definitely feels a lot more hands on. You have a long rehearsal block, then you do the show every night and you’re just out there on your own – you move your own props, sort out your own costume and all that kinda stuff but in TV the pace is much quicker – you’ll be learning your lines and then have to deal with all kinds of changes to the script so it’s a completely different challenge. We do this thing called a “block through” – so actors will be on set but the point of it isn’t to act. It’s more to make sure everything is in position with the right lighting and camera angles. So, it really is a completely different headspace to theatre acting.

As I said, I’m bouncing around a lot so I did Season One of Heartstopper, then I did a theatre show. Going back to TV after that was like “Ah! I need to get into my TV brain!” You’re not thinking of where the audience is anymore, but you have to know where the camera is and remember that the golden rule is to never actually look at it. Both require a lot of work and are very different skill sets, so yeah, I like them both as much as the other but once I’ve done one for a couple of months I’m keen to switch it up.

On The Success Of Heartstopper…

Getting the call to be on a Netflix show – I was gassed! The filming for Season One was so much fun and it’s just a really nice story. Alice Oseman is an amazing writer and we all really loved the text. It felt like our baby. We’d managed to create this lovely show and we knew that people would love it as much as we did. That being said, the response was just incredible! I knew the comics had a following already but I didn’t know the show would do quite as well as it did.

Being involved in a project like this means a lot to me. It’s a story that explores life as a young teen in the LGBT+ community and, for that age group, it’s something that is often ignored. I’m really drawn towards stories which have strong messages and it’s an honour to help bring them to life and it’s about time more underrepresented groups are given the opportunities to see themselves on screen. All the fans are so lovely. It’s such a beautiful story and it’s so sick to be a part of it!

Landing The Role Of Tara Jones…

So, it started after I graduated from East 15 Acting School where I studied Acting and Stage Combat. We’d done our showcase, I’d had my agent interviews and I’d signed with John Setrice at Macfarlane Chard. Even though I’d graduated in lockdown, the auditions were coming in and as soon as I saw the monologue for Tara’s character I knew I had to send off a self-tape! It was just so good! I remember, I was moving house at the time and there were boxes everywhere so I had to film it in the corner of the room and pretend that the camera wasn’t pressed up against my face. I didn’t think I’d get the role. It was just a nice experience and fun to try but lo and behold, I got a recall!

I met with the Casting Director, Daniel Edwards, over Zoom and I think everyone remembers those days, right? So, I decided to take the call in bed with fairy lights in the background, you could see my pillows – very casual! Little did I know, they were taking screenshots of everybody’s Zoom calls to help them paint a picture and they played them all to us in a slideshow later on. I wasn’t expecting everyone to see that!

Anyway, I went for chemistry read with Kit who plays Nick Nelson but we didn’t hear anything for a while until they put out the open call for other characters. Tara wasn’t on the list. I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time but yeah, I got the job! It was so surreal and to be with so many young actors who hadn’t done a big show before was really cool. It was nice for us to all experience that together.

Life As A Stunt Performer…

So, my Acting and Stage Combat course was a 50/50 split. You’d do Shakespeare, acting for camera – all that sort of stuff and then we’d do weapon systems of quarterstaff, broadswords, sword and shield, knife, unarmed and you do rapier and cloak, rapier and dagger. We’d have termly assessments in all of those skills so it was quite intense. Bearing in mind, that was all for stage combat; we’d also do TV combat which is another completely different skill.

To be fair, I didn’t do any stunt work for quite a while after I graduated but whilst I was at uni I was obsessed with acrobatics; like trapeze, silks, hoop and stuff like that but we weren’t really allowed to do that on our course so I decided to do an aerial course and that introduced me to all those things that I’d been desperate to try for ages! Nathaniel Martin, who taught us some of the combat modules at uni, saw me and put me forward for a motion capture job involving wires and that was really cool! I had to put on the suit with those balls on it to pick up the sensors and you just have to do loads of normal things like running, walking and then turning and idling a certain way. It’s cool seeing the animators take your movements from a little stick figure and putting them into these fully fleshed out characters.

I’ve also done a lot of doubling as well. I’m really lucky because I look young which means I can double kids a lot of the time so I’ll just be sitting on the back of a motorbike. Obviously, for insurance purposes they don’t want child actors speeding along on a bike, so I get to do it! Having stunt work as a little side hustle, part time thing is amazing.

The Future…

I’ve actually just done a kind of “superhero-esque” job which involved a lot of wirework! I’d be getting blown away in explosions which is super fun! I think my dream role would be something like that, maybe with the Wakanda women taking on Black Panther. I’d love to do a big film where I get to act and do some fight stuff in there as well. To be able to actually say “I can do it because I know what I’m doing” – obviously a lot of actors can’t say that. I really want to just keep doing more creative things and telling more important stories.

Also, I love Disney, so if anyone at Disney sees this then “Hiya, I can be your live action Princess Tiana”.

Look out for Corinna in Season Two of Heartstopper, expected to be released later this year.