East 15 Acting School

I thought, oh boy, you don't get it.

So I contacted Chris, whom I had taught when I was teaching at East 15, and I'd helped him with a couple of his projects.

I said, do you mind playing this 16-year-old son? So that was how it started.

And after that, I thought, oh, who else do I know kind of thing? So I've pretty much always invited people that I know.

But then I went to college and drama school.

I went to East 15.

And yeah, here I am.

Yeah.

Fabulous.

Well, East 15 is one of my favourite drama schools.

I love people who come out of East 15 because all the people I've met from East 15 are either, and this is nothing aimed at you, but they're either crazy or they're incredibly brave and they fear nothing.

Yeah, I think I'm both

know what? I do know it.

I got into East 15.

I got in, but then I didn't go because I got an agent and I was doing stand-up.

So I was like, screw it.

Yeah,

definitely.

So you're down in Essex in East 15.

And you're from the north though, right? So you've moved down for this.

Let someone...

Uh, also, the drama school East 15 at Deptford.

Yeah.

Uh, Nolan lived near Deptford, and, um-

Oh, did he?

... a lot of drama students, I sort of taught a little bit at East 15 and sort of bumped into someone there, and they went, "Oh yeah, there's a, a footballer who, he's, uh, in that pub near Deptford, too, pretty much every night of the week." [laughs] And I went, "Oh, do, do you know what his name is?" "Well, Kevin something.

Kevin Nolan." And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, that would be him." And it would sort of make sense that he lived there, but it was not a, it's not really a story.

It's just really a story that says he drinks a lot, which you kind of-

And I was still in drama school at the time.

I went to East 15 here in the UK.

I deferred for a year to go and do a play in Denmark at the time.

And during that time, I went to do an audition for Stranger Things.