I think one of the things I’ve learnt most from working in a lot of community based work is how much people benefit from learning of shared experience. I have this thing whenever I travel or find myself in a new place where I try to find the version of my brother that lives there. So, for example, when I worked in Spain on the language immersion camps I used to find the Spanish version of my brother in whatever school group came in. Or when the boys at the migrant centre would come into ESOL classes and sit on snapchat or desperately wait to go play football, I would see my brother — just under a completely different, and tragic, set of circumstances. I find this sense of relativity always helps with empathy and understanding and that’s what leads my sense of judgement in engaging with people. So maybe something that might help people from a young age access this.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Abby McCann. Abby is a Scottish actor and writer from Glasgow. She is the recipient of the Juliet Bernard Memorial Prize for Oxford University’s most promising young actress and a National Youth Theatre member. Her credits include Enron (Oxford Playhouse), If We Ended This (Camden People’s Theatre), The Premorial (Radio, B.O.P Theatre), WFP x UN Sahel Crisis (Voiceover), Maryland (NYT x OPIA Collective), 90 Mile Beach (Film, Callum Bradshaw), Short Pleasures Long Woes (Omnibus Theatre). She has also written her own work namely for UP ALL NIGHT (NYT x Duke of Yorks Theatre), Thas A Rummun’ (Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft) and recently collaborating with Cesca on a short film anthology ‘Quickie, Wait, Cry’. This summer she also performed in ‘Sisters Three’ at Summerhall during the Edinburgh Fringe, written and directed by Emma Howlett.
Most recently, she was the solo performer in Cesca Echlin’s ‘Looking for Giants’ which previewed at Camden People’s Theatre before a run at Underbelly, Edinburgh and is now ready for the two week run at Kings Head Theatre.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thank you so much for having me! I grew up in the West of Scotland, a wee bit outside Glasgow. My whole childhood was built round theatre and creativity. My parents were actors and ran a Youth Theatre together that I grew up in. This pretty much made me who I am today. Even before I could walk, I was in and amongst actors and creatives. If not in the show, as the token baby, then watching it from the curtains or audience. My parents are definitely why I am the way I am today. At every step, growing up, they made sure my life was filled with magic and creativity. My childhood is just filled with memories of making ‘make-believe-magical’ worlds. Apparently, I used to demand to be dressed as a fairy every day of nursery. They taught me to dream big, to never feel like there was something that wasn’t achievable and that it would be my mind and heart that people would be drawn to, not where I came from. They are 100% the reason I went to Oxford too. No one from my school had ever been before, and in a state school you have to request to go to Oxford as it isn’t on the UCAS list. I remember my pastoral care teacher at school laughing at me when I said that was where I wanted to apply to, saying: “Do you know what that is?”. I don’t think I fully did. I think I had a naive dream of a city of dreaming spires full of creatives running around, but at no point did I think where I came from would stop me. And it didn’t. Going to Oxford definitely changed my life. Unfortunately, at the time of leaving Scotland my dad had quite a severe breakdown. The magic that my parents had created suddenly became more transparent and my whole world fell apart from under my feet, pretty much overnight. As a family we had to start again and that, coupled with being in a new and very academically rigorous place, definitely grew me as a person. However, I really truly believe that everything happens for a reason and I would be nowhere near where I am today, or the person I am, without them or that experience.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
Despite every effort from my parents to have me not be an actor, they pretty much gave me every tool to make sure I would be — my evenings and weekends after school were filled with rushing to rehearsals or ballet classes, doing homework in the car and eating our favourite ‘quickie’ meals of fish finger sandwiches. Funnily enough, I actually hated the thought of acting/socialising when I was really young. I used to refuse to start new clubs, cry every day when I was taken to nursery and stand right at the back of the kids shows that my parents youth theatres used to run. But, my clearest memory of a ‘moment’ that I would say brought me to this specific career path was when I was around 6 or 7 I think. My parents youth theatre used to run these summer camp clubs. They were usually a week long and at the end you did a show for the parents. I was doing the Little Mermaid and it was the first day of auditions. I remember the moment so clearly. We were all on lunch and I was sitting by myself — as I said, painfully shy. I can even remember the smell of the ham sandwich I was eating. I remember a girl walking up to me. She told me she was auditioning for Ariel and told me I couldn’t audition for Ariel as I was too shy. And I remember so clearly in that moment thinking ‘I’ll show you’. Next day I was Ariel. It’s so silly, but I genuinely think thats what brought me to this career path: my own stubbornness. I just couldn’t stand being told what to do or being boxed in. It was almost like a switch just went off in my head. Being shy
seemed to suddenly just be a choice and I just had to get over it. And its weird because I still feel shy — I still don’t actually like the feeling of being in rehearsal, or auditioning or even the journey to getting onstage but once I’m there, it feels like the most magical place in the world and after my Ariel debut I never really went back.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I think as an actor, especially early on in my career, I was really keen to say yes to everything, to not let any opportunity slip. This method has led me to some strange and wonderful opportunities. Some of them, weirder than more — I once found myself demonstrating how I would eat a rat if I was a feral child (the rat was a Pret baguette). But they have also led me to some wonderful and interesting stories where I’ve met some brilliant people. Some highlights were voicing the WFP x UN advert for COP26 — playing the voice of an 11 year old as a 21 year old or doing an on-location R&D where I was commissioned to write ghost stories surrounded by the dramatic and atmospheric setting of Great Lowestoft in Norfolk.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
Definitely Looking For Giants, the one woman show I am appearing in at Kings Head Theatre, London, for a two week run from the 14th-26th of January. The play is written and directed by one of my best friends Cesca Echlin. Cesca is one of the most talented, interesting and clever people I know. She has a real talent for knowing exactly what type of person she wants to be friends with and just making friends with them, so I’d probably credit our relationship entirely to her. She saw me in the first play I did at Oxford (I was Miranda in Lucy Kirkwood’s NSFW) and I’ll never forget her making a beeline for me across the Pilch stage, giving me the warmest hug and telling me I was absolutely amazing and that we needed to work together. From then on, we worked on various projects together including The Crucible (one of our favourites). As a friend, and a director, she has a really special way of making you feel incredibly talented and confident. We became incredibly close through working together and I ended up living with her family when I moved out of Glasgow to London. It was there where Looking for Giants was conceived. We first brought it to the Underbelly at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 and are so excited to be bringing it back to London in 2025. The play teeters right on the edge of danger, vulnerability and sensuality and is hilarious. I feel so so lucky to be the person privileged enough to voice her words.
She is definitely someone to watch and I’m just glad to be along for the ride.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
One Looking For Giants performance, I came out to see Amelia Dimoldenberg and Honor Swinton Byrne sitting in the front row to watch me. Cesca and I still to this day have no idea how they found about the show or knew to come but apparently Amelia asked Honor if she was in the show. Similarly, I randomly performed to Richard E. Grant in a show called Sisters Three I did this summer. One of my favourite memories is back in 2019 when I was travelling to London from uni to meet with an agent. I remember being on the tube and just feeling so alive, like completely filled with adrenalin and excitement that this might be the start of something. I remember looking up and seeing Saoirse Ronan sitting down in front of me. No one else had spotted her and she just gave me this really quick shake of her head as if to say don’t say anything. I just remember beaming and waiting till she’d gone to sit in her chair (definitely weird on reflection now I write that out) — and completely thinking it was a
sign. I never got that agent but to this day, that moment still sticks with me. But really, the most interesting people I have interacted with are my friends who are creatives around me. I think this industry is just full of so many interested and multitalented people and I’m really blessed that I have so many of them as my friends. A lot of the projects I’ve worked on have been through organic relationships built on collaboration. Most recently, I worked on a short film triptych with Cesca and another of my best friends, Antonio Perricone. We each wrote a scene, gathered a team of talented people and just made it happen. Projects like this are where I meet the most interesting people — people who are hungry to create, to make stuff happen and to learn from one another.
Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
I think mostly from my own lived experiences. It’s maybe wrong but I access parts by trying to understand the character’s experience through my own lived one. Any emotion I conjure onstage I want to feel real and I can only do this through really trying to understand what it would feel like from drawing on my own truth. Otherwise, I know it sounds really vague and a cop-out but I think just genuinely from the world around me. I am a massive starer and very nosy. I have huge alien eyes that cannot be subtle (I have been told I look like Chucky and I am still waiting to play that part in the live action film). When I stare, I really stare and I love to observe. Growing up, I used to just do loads and loads of impressions for my family of literally anything I’d seen that day from my teachers to our dog. I think coming from a dance background I definitely act with my body primarily, like I like to find the character in my body first. Physicality, and detail within that physicality, is really important and I definitely build up little character traits and ticks from people I have observed. My favourite activity would be sitting at a cafe just ‘people watching’ for hours on end.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Due to the nature of acting work being so unpredictable, I’ve had to make sure that the work I do in between jobs is fulfilling and stimulating. Other than acting, I get the most joy from helping and meeting others so I try to make sure any jobs I do on the side fulfil this. I’ve, therefore, done a lot of theatre in education work where I do drama led education activities with young people in schools. Post Oxford, I gained my Teaching English as a Secondary language degree. With this, I’ve managed to be lucky enough to volunteer teach in schools in Bali and Spain and for a year now I’ve been volunteering in an amazing young people homeless/refugee centre in Euston where I teach English to migrants and refugees. I, also, work with a charity called InterAct that hires actors to read to stroke/dementia patients in hospitals. Both my grandparents died from dementia and I ended up writing my dissertation on the deterioration of texts written by dementia patients. The topic both fascinates and saddens me so I feel really lucky to be able to put what I know to use. Meeting with these students and patients is often the hardest and most interesting part of my week. You learn so much from those who’ve lived a life and faced hardship and it’s a real privilege to be working with them.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- How clean and polished the other actors will look. I learnt this very quickly when I started to do in person auditions. Presentation is unfortunately important — do not turn up with bright white acrylic nails. (Saying from my own experience)
- Making friends with writers/directors/creatives that you feel genuinely drawn to and inspired by is much more beneficial than making friends with casting directors — leave that to your agent. The theatre world, especially, is built on collaboration and creative partnerships. Finding your people and the type of work you want to be associated with is really important for longevity. Most of my work has been through this type of relationship making.
- When you’re not acting, you’re resting. I remember my dad telling me this and not really listening but you’re not unemployed, you’re just resting. As an actor/creative you’re either going to be rush off your feet, juggling 5 projects at once or you’re going to have completely nothing to do and tragically looking to find the next international iteration of love is blind (I did just finish Love Is Blind Habibi and will be moving on to Love Is Blind Argentina). What you do with the rest time is really important because when you’re suddenly juggling those 5 projects you’re going to beg for that time back. Use that time to actually rest but also use it to rebuild. Just because you’re not ‘acting’ doesn’t mean you’re no longer an actor — use this time to work on your craft, your body and your mind.
- Your journey will never be the same as someone else’s. This is probably an obvious one but it’s one I’m still learning. Just because someone else has had their big break doesn’t mean you’ve missed yours and even more than that, doesn’t mean you will get one. One thing I’ve learnt about becoming an actor is that to sustain this sort of career, which is faced with so much instability and rejection, you have to genuinely enjoy it and be okay with maybe never making it. ‘Making it’ is only how you define it — making it for me is if I am able to exercise my creativity every day and be paid for it (the latter I’m still working on). Doesn’t matter if I’m at the Baftas or not. It’s about being okay with being a ‘working actor’. One thing I remember my dad telling me a few years into my career was acting is a bit like a pyramid — there’s that one 1% at the tip that make it big time and become super famous. Everyone thinks you have to make it up there but actually there’s a whole load of space in the middle of the pyramid quite near the top of people who keep going, who keep working and keep making stuff and have really successful careers. Those are the people who stick at it, who work hard and there’s plenty of room there and it’s just as rewarding.
- What you do for a side job is really important. Unless you are lucky enough to make it big early on, chances are you’re going to be relying on side hustles quite a lot. So its important to find some enjoyment and fulfilment in them. If you let acting become your whole life you become so desperate to get every job and so disappointed when you don’t. Finding a side hustle, a routine, and a life style that you really enjoy, are mentally stimulated by and can come back to is really really important as it allows you to remind yourself to take that job off the pedestal. It reminds you that it won’t make or break your life.
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I think one of the things I’ve learnt most from working in a lot of community based work is how much people benefit from learning of shared experience. I have this thing whenever I travel or find myself in a new place where I try to find the version of my brother that lives there. So, for example, when I worked in Spain on the language immersion camps I used to find the Spanish version of my brother in whatever school group came in. Or when the boys at the migrant centre would come into ESOL classes and sit on snapchat or desperately wait to go play football, I would see my brother — just under a completely different, and tragic, set of circumstances. I find this sense of relativity always helps with empathy and understanding and that’s what leads my sense of judgement in engaging with people. So maybe something that might help people from a young age access this. I’m sure it sounds too idealistic, or perhaps binary, but if there was a world in which at a young age you’re given a penpal across the world. Someone who grows up in a completely different set of circumstances to you but shares common interests. Maybe with starting from a place of recognition we might be able to connect with each other more, to be less scared of our differences, and understand situations different from our own as we can see a version of ourselves there.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this.
Jane Fonda. I think when I talk about longevity of career, finding the people you want to work with, learning/adapting, and finding a passion outside of acting — she’s exactly the person I mean. To me, she is timeless. Her work has spanned decades and genres. She never changes her core self but is constantly learning and growing to what is moving around her and I think thats such an intelligent and resilient skill. The life she has built outside acting too is incredibly interesting and full with her work as an activist being incredibly inspiring. I think she would just have stories upon stories to tell me and I would just love to listen and learn. (I also think she’d probably just be really fun).
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
I am really unfortunately an instagram girlie through and through. That is really the only place you will find me. @_abbymccann_
Abby McCann: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.