How ‘1917’ and ‘I Came By’ actor George MacKay started acting, and his top tips for fellow performers.
George MacKay secured his first role at the age of 10 in P.J. Hogan’s feature film Peter Pan, playing ‘Curly’ the Lost Boy after he was spotted by an acting scout at his school.
Since then, he’s been ‘Tommo Peaceful’ in Private Peaceful, ‘Eddie’ in How I Live Now, Lance Corporal Schofield in 1917, ‘Toby Nealy’ in I Came By and many more characters in a range of films, TV shows and stage productions. He won the BAFTA Scotland award for Best Actor in 2012 for playing ‘Aaron’ in For Those in Peril and will appear in Joshua Oppenheimer’s upcoming apocalyptic musical film The End alongside Tilda Swinton and Moses Ingram.
We had the chance to catch up with George at the CDG Awards 2024 and asked him about how he first got into acting and what advice he has for other performers. Here’s what he shared:
Hi, George! How did you first get into acting?
It was that sort of crossroads moment of leaving school and everyone around me, all my mates, were considering what to do next, whether they’re starting work or going to uni [or doing] different training.
And then I did a job with an actor called Eddie Marsan and the way Eddie worked just blew my mind. It sort of went from there and from that experience of working with Eddie and then realising that it could be a craft and something that you could improve at, and that you could work at. That was the changing point of, ‘Right, I want to give my all to this’.
What advice would you give to other performers?
I think just go for it. That’s all you could do – just go for it. And one thing that I’ve found is to learn by doing and to learn by watching. Try as much as you can to find ways to be ‘doing’ before the jobs come in.
Stick around on set and just watch things. There’s so much waiting around that if you just can wait out of people’s way on set, you can see how it works. You can watch the way people talk to each other. You can see different actors’ processes [and] how they warm up.
So much of [acting] is you’re waiting for the phone to ring, or you are waiting for auditions to come in. But [you could be] running lines with a mate, if they’ve got an audition, if they’ve got a tape, improvising with them, just staying active and then seeing something and [if] you want to try something, just meeting up with friends and doing it. It sounds so simple but do as much as possible. Practising is such good practice. It’s like going to the gym for your brain and for your craft.
If you’re lucky enough to be getting the tapes, that’s one thing. If you’re getting loads of tapes but not getting any [roles], you’re still learning lines, you’re still learning three scenes every couple of days. You’re still learning different accents, you’re still learning whether it’s a comedy thing or not. You’re still watching the points of reference that the casting director has pointed you to. Just knowing that that’s valuable is the biggest thing.
A massive thanks to George for sharing his top tips with us!
Take a look at our website for more interviews with actors, agents and casting directors.
