Acting Strong
Resilience for Stage Ready, Mind Ready Artists. Inspiring interviews with successful actors and artists exploring how they maintain positive mental wellbeing and resilience through the highs and lows of their career.
Created by Generation Arts. This production is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
Hosts: Ali Godfrey & Unique Spencer
Acting Strong
Sarah Seggari: Resilience behind the role, from Drama School to BBC Drama, and finding love for Shakespeare
Actor Sarah Seggari joins Ali and Unique for an honest, funny, and inspiring conversation about her journey from South London to becoming a series regular playing Rida Amaan on BBC’s Casualty.
She shares how solid drama school training set the foundation, but it was learning to trust her gut—like the time she stuck with her original self-tape despite her agent’s advice—that helped her land the role. Sarah talks candidly about relocating to Cardiff for filming, building a new community, and the everyday resilience it takes to keep going in the industry.
Packed with gold for aspiring actors, Sarah unpacks what it’s like to work with a rotating cast of guest actors, the shift from stage to screen, and how to create a truthful TV character when scripts can change at the last minute. She speaks with real passion about her experiences at Shakespeare’s Globe, how she unlocked a love for Shakespeare, and gives practical advice on preparing strong classical monologues for auditions.
If you're an actor navigating early career highs and lows, this episode is full of insight, humour, and hard-earned wisdom.
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Email: actingstrong@generationarts.org.uk
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Produced & Edited by: Ali Godfrey
Acting Strong is brought to you by Generation Arts and this production is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
Hello everyone, you are listening to Acting Strong. It's a podcast that helps explore resilience for stage-ready, mind-ready artists, brought to you by Generation
Unique Spencer:Arts.
Ali Godfrey:The lineup of guests have all tested their resilience, so come see what you can learn. We are your hosts. I'm Unique, a professional actor, and I'm Ali, founder of Generation Arts.
Unique Spencer:In today's episode we are chatting to Sarah Sagare, a series regular in Casualty, about her career in TV and theatre. She's carved out an inspiring career, bringing complex characters to life with depth and authenticity. This production is supported using public funding by Arts Council England. Let's get started. Hello, hello, hello,Them glasses are Fly, fly are fly, fly, fly, fly, fly.
Sarah Seggari:I feel honoured. I've listened to the podcast. That's brilliant. I've told Unique about like how amazing every single person's been. I'm like I can't really stand up there with all them guys,
Unique Spencer:yes, you can yeah, yes you can.
Unique Spencer:Thank you so much for coming on. The first sort of question that we ask everyone is what are you up to? What are you doing right now? What is life like for you?
Sarah Seggari:I am working on a telly show called Casualty, which has been a longstanding television drama slash soap on BBC. You can watch it on Saturday nights. I've been there for two and a half years and I play a nurse called on the show
Unique Spencer:amazing, and what was the audition process like?
Unique Spencer:what did you have to do to get the role?
Sarah Seggari:yeah, it was a little bit different to other television stuff that I've done. I had a self-tape through and it said we've been looking for this character for a couple of months and this is kind of the second wave of auditions and they broke down the character and they gave me some scripts and it was a really tight turnaround. It was like can you get it to us by tomorrow morning? And it was monologue and I did it at like 4 30 in the morning because I was doing summer school as my side job sent it off and it was the first one that my agent said listen, you've been with me for five years. This is the first one I'm going to say do it again, it's not, it's not good enough.
Sarah Seggari:So I was at work, panicked, with 33 year old children, and I watched it back and I sent it to my boyfriend at the time and I was like watch it for me. I actually think this is good and like I'll always listen to my agent. She's amazing. But I was like I don't see what she's seeing. So I sent her an email. I said what, what is it that you don't um, you don't vibe with, you don't like what? What can I improve on. And she was just like I know how these shows work and it's not right. Maybe pace it up, maybe do this, maybe do that. And I watched it and I had so much to do. I sound like a diva. But I was like I don't think you're going to get better than this from me You're actually not, because I'm so tired and overworked and stretched.
Sarah Seggari:And we were doing big self-tapes for other shows, for Apple, for some really big things, and I was like I have to prioritise those and I don't think I have enough time. And I was filming other shows at the time as well. I'd be lying if I didn't just do the exact same thing again. And she was like OK, agree to disagree, I'll send it, but just know I don't think we're going to get here very far. I ended up doing a read throughthrough, I think, a couple of days later. Uh, for another show I did, which is Jerk, I did on BBC3 and as I was doing the read-through, kevin Riddle, who is the casting for BBC, was like Sarah, we love that self-tape, we loved it. We're gonna bypass all the steps of auditions, you're going straight to chemistry. And I was like I need to call my agent and tell her wow but because he knew me and he'd cast me in Jerk.
Sarah Seggari:My instinct had been right to go with that self-tape. And then we did this mad chemistry test at Elstree, where usually chemistry test is you go in a bunch of people who kind of look like you and then you swap in and out with whoever you're going to do most scenes with. This one was we're all going to sit in a bunch of people who kind of look like you and then you swap in and out with whoever you're going to do most scenes with. This one was we're all going to sit in a circle for five hours and workshop the character. And because I came in with um five other newbies, we all had to gel really well. So not everyone was going up for reader. There was people going up for Jodie Cam Ryan.
Sarah Seggari:So the first like half was sit in a circle and talk about who you think the character is. Bear in mind, we've had a breakdown from spotlight. We don't know who the character is. We don't have any information on the character more than what's on the page. Um, and then we did improvisation. So it was like a drama class. We just did improvisation after improvisation, um, and I still, to this day, think the thing that saved me was I watched the show back to back for the three weeks before the chemistry and I knew all the characters names, so at any point that I didn't have the medical language I'd go.
Sarah Seggari:Dylan, get Dylan now. And I just would say these characters names as like we can't deal with this, we need Stevie. And then to Wales.
Sarah Seggari:It was doing casually yeah, that's incredible and like just really going with your gut instinct about, like, what you bring to the table and knowing that this is the best that you're going to get this is what I know they're going to want and and like just sticking to that and I know sometimes that can be scary because obviously your agent's spinning the game for a very long time. Your agency is a lot of self-takes, but I think the most important thing from what I've taken from that is that you just have to trust in you as well, like, and that that is also important he actually always writes in Christmas cards.
Sarah Seggari:You were right once. I'm right all the other time and it's true, it is true honestly. Someone else has told me that story. I'd be like just do the self-tape again, but I watched it and I really liked the self-tape and I couldn't tell. I thought it was the best representation of what I can do with what was on the paper so for sure.
Unique Spencer:And then you spoke about just now, about getting the job and then having to go up to Wales, which is obviously for those that don't know you come from where.
Sarah Seggari:London, south London, Elephant and Castle represent.
Sarah Seggari:Yes, I was scared.
Sarah Seggari:Yes, I was scared, I was scared for my life so that's a big jump and a big leap of like differences in culture and differences in everything of what you know, because obviously London, and especially South London, yes has got its like own type of rhythm. Yes to it. So what was that like? Like moving away from family and friends and then like being around a bunch of people that you'd never met before.
Sarah Seggari:Like I'd had a little bit of experience from touring, from shows doing Sheffield Crucible, spending five months in Sheffield doing the RSC, spending eight months in Stratford-upon-Avon, so I wasn't dissimilar to the idea of going. But I'd never been to Wales. I didn't know Cardiff and it very much feels like an isolated bubble when you choose to live and you don't know when that contract ends. So it's just an open door. Living in a country because it is its own country that you don't know. And I didn't know if everybody spoke Welsh or if it was a mixed language. I didn't know what the city's like if I wasn't going to vibe with it, and it was the most welcoming place ever.
Sarah Seggari:The Cardiffians are super open. It's a very working city so everyone's coming in from elsewhere to work in Cardiff. You don't find many people who actually are born and bred from here. It is its own bubble, but I love it. You don't have to queue for anything. You want to go, john Lewis? There's no queue. You want to go to the beach 20 minutes. You want to go to the mountains 20 minutes.
Sarah Seggari:You want to go cinema 10 minutes.
Sarah Seggari:I've got everything I need and it's nice to come back to London and realise, wow, we are busy, busy people. In London we're just rushing rushing, whereas in Cardiff if you are in a cab and you go to a location, you don't know the location, that cab driver is going to wait till you're safe and then the cab driver is going to leave. Do you think that's going to happen in London?
Unique Spencer:, you can't even get your luggage out.
Sarah Seggari:That was right before you got out of the car.
Sarah Seggari:You've got got out the car.
Ali Godfrey:This is funny. We could do a whole podcast about the differences between Cardiff and London.
Unique Spencer:I have had the luxury to come up and spend some time with Sarah in in Cardiff with the rest of the casualty cast, and I can attest to everything she's saying it's lit like it is amazing so anyone listening and you get that casualty job knocking on your door go for it as soon as I went I was like I might call my agent and see if I could come up.
Sarah Seggari:You know what's nice is that all the guest stars that come in I mean there's so much to talk about casual, how what a drama school is in itself about you learn a whole different side to the industry. But all the guest stars that come in because we get different ones every day are like it's nice here. It's like a family and we have to be because we haven't got anyone else, we don't have our families here, so we make our own community and make it work.
Unique Spencer:You're right, like people come in every day and you've got to work with new actors every day. Yeah, how does how does that go? Like how does it feel like to just like, hey, hey, how you doing tomorrow, next day, hey, how you doing. And like, how do you vibe with them and like, get that sort of on-screen chemistry.
Sarah Seggari:It's a really good question and I think the only hard bit is, as a human, if you're having a bad day or you're stressed, because we film four episodes at a time, so if you're thinking about the other episode, you have to give them their space, because this is their moment. As much as it is your moment. Um, it's really nice to meet new people and we want to make them feel comfortable, because it's so nerve-wracking that first day on set and, yes, they might be with us for two weeks, they might be with us for two days, for three weeks. It still hurts. When they leave, it's like, oh, when, when will you be back and come back to us? Um, so it's nice to just have a new energy in the room, have a new character. See how that bounces, how you're acting. It really is like drama school, like you've been paired up with someone new, a bit like Meisner, like, oh, you do something slightly different.
Sarah Seggari:Okay, let me like flex my muscles as well and let's go this direction as well, would you say it keeps you on your toes 100 percent yeah, the whole teledrama world keeps you on your toes because you can get a new script that morning, 20 minutes before you start filming. I would never have been able to learn those lines before, never. You know unique. I'm terrible at learning lines. It takes me a good month to get lines in my head but now it's so quick it's like no problem.
Sarah Seggari:But then that comes with knowing your character, knowing how her mouth works, how her tongue work, how she, how she would say things like that. I'd like to say one thing for people who are coming into, if, if they get lucky enough to do a soap or tele drama, the one big thing that I didn't realize, which which was they don't really teach you at drama school, is there is no arc to track. You don't know the beginning, middle and end, like in a theatre show or in a film. So you can track your progress of emotion or you track your. You've got a whole human in a play or a whole and you don't have that and you might get thrown spanner works that you're like. I would have played two episodes ago so differently had I known this is where we were going. But they will constantly shift and move. Having your foundations is the only thing you really can hold on to, and whatever's already been aired on telly, because that's concrete that's done and that's real in your character's life.
Sarah Seggari:But, if it's been cut, that never happened in your character's life, so yeah, that's been cut that never happened in your character's life.
Sarah Seggari:So, yeah, that's something like that.
Ali Godfrey:Yeah, that's really interesting, just going backwards, full disclosure, that you and unique were in the same year at arts ed. Yeah, I don't know how you tolerated that for three years only kidding, only kidding. But yeah, just like going right back to the beginning. Did you always want to be an actor when you were a kid?
Sarah Seggari:yeah, I, I did always wanted to perform, whether that was singing or acting I don't know if I was short or if they would be together. When I was at primary school I always do drama club and then, when I was six, the Young Vic came to school and they needed a non-speaking part for a show in the Young Vic school. And they needed a non-speaking part for a show in the young vic and it was a bollywood film adapted for stage and they needed someone who looked indian. And I had really really long black hair down to my past, my bum, and I liked acting. So they're like perfect, and that gave me the flavor of what theater life was like. And then, with christ Christmas plays, I was like so when are we going to start practicing for that? They're like it's January. Okay, it's.
Ali Godfrey:January.
Sarah Seggari:I was always doing the clubs. And then when I went to secondary school, I remember the teachers when they were like what do you want to do when you're older and you do that? Vocational career advisement meeting. And I said I want to be an actress. Fun fact, I year advisement meeting and I said I want to be an actress. Fun fact, I went to the same secondary school as Catherine Tate and they were like one person, one person was left in school doing drama and you would follow her. You think you're so lucky that you would follow her career? And I was like no, I want to do my own career, but that's what I want to do. And they really, really poo-pooed it. So I had to strike a deal with the head teacher. So I would do it. Because it was a language school, I'd do an extra language just so I could take drama, so that I could add that as a GCSE, which is like so silly.
Sarah Seggari:And then I bunked off school and applied for Brit school, but behind my parents back, I took a bus for two hours down to Croydon, did my auditions got into Brit school, which is a college drama school, and then I had to break it to them that I was going to Brit school and had the best time of my blooming life and they totally didn't get it because they're from Italy and Morocco, which don't have drama schools.
Sarah Seggari:And now they totally get it because they've been in London for ages and they have seen my career, seen my mates, seen what they do and understand. But it was really scary for them to just be like forget studies, not knowing that this is studying for a very tailored thing. And then after Brit school I did Central Gap Year and then I went to Arts Ed. I've kind of just always tracked along, but Unique will be the biggest person to tell you that every day I've been like I'm not doing this anymore.
Unique Spencer:Yeah, every single day, before we'd even do warm-ups. I think I'm gonna quit this today. Today is the day that I let them know and Sarah would financially work out what every lesson cost. She'd be like this is a lot of money.
Sarah Seggari:And if I didn't like what I was hearing. I was like this sounds like £93 going down the drain. Bear in mind I didn't pay.
Unique Spencer:We were both on scholarship.
Sarah Seggari:We were both on scholarship.
Unique Spencer:Somebody paid £93. Let the wrong teacher be in the wrong class for this person. Yeah, I don't think it's a good deal that's that elephant castle coming out what did drama school teach you, though? About getting jobs and getting into a soap and being able to have that stamina, like it did teach you something, didn't it like, in order for you to be able to?
Sarah Seggari:of course it did, because if it didn't, we really wouldn't stay in it. Do you know what I mean? Um, it's a really good question. Do you know what I yeah, in the training, compared to other drama schools and this is not people in other drama schools is that we get used to seeing our face on telly and, rather than editing, oh, my eyebrows do weird things, or I do a weird thing with my lip, or why do I keep doing that with my shoulders? Because I definitely had that for the whole three years I was at drama school.
Sarah Seggari:I couldn't listen to. Mark Street was our teacher for telly and he'd be like so I really like the objective you had there, and I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking about what I look like. But you get past that and now I actually look about okay, did that emotion transmit? Did I do that? Whereas I can see newbies coming out of drama school when they watch themselves. They're like oh, I hated how I looked. I hated that and I couldn't care less now about how I look. So so that's a massive thing like getting used to yourself, your voice, how grating. I remember all of us being like oh, I can't stand to listen to my voice and now it's like that's my vehicle. Those are my vocal cords that transmit something to somebody else Like how amazing.
Ali Godfrey:And do you think as well, guys? Because one thing I always think is that when we're training young people at Generation Arts, is there like enough preparation for things like knowing what to do when you walk on set, be in front of a camera, everyone else who's going to be in the room, like those sort of expectations? Is that something that you just sort of learn on the job the more you do these things, or is that something that you knew about because of your drama school?
Sarah Seggari:learn on the job the more you do these things or is that something that you knew about because of your drama school? I think Gareth Farr was great at uh teaching that, because we'd have lessons where we would pretend we were an audition and he was strict on us like he implemented look up who. Everyone is in the room. What have they done? Have you seen anything they've done? Or know somebody that has worked with them? How long have they worked there? Like, know you who you're going into the room with?
Sarah Seggari:Obviously, it goes without saying, know the script inside out, the writer and so on. But he would come down hard on if we were embarrassing ourselves because we hadn't done the work. I can say with a million percent surety that both me and unique will go into an audition having done so much prep and homework. It doesn't matter if it doesn't go anywhere. It's a meeting, it's a network for even the next job after that or the next job after that. And that has been my life. I have always got a job from almost a coincidence. I've never I've almost never got it from the actual audition, but presenting myself well enough in that way.
Unique Spencer:Yeah, when we was at drama school we had many different variations of auditions and so, like we did have like commercial auditions, and so you would. They would teach us how to come in and do our profiles and do our hands and stuff and how different a commercial audition was to a TV audition, to how different a TV audition was to a film audition, to how different a TV audition was to a film audition, to how different a film audition was to a theatre audition, and like we would learn all of those things at drama school and so, yeah, it was less nerve wracking when we went into the real world. But, like I don't know, sarah, you may feel different, but I still am completely nervous when I go into an audition. Like it never changes.
Unique Spencer:I could even be at home doing a self-tape and I feel like Spielberg's watching me and no one else is here but me, one of the things that obviously me and Sarah did when we was at drama school was multi-cam as well, and so, sarah, when um filming for casualty, do you use multi-cam on yeah on casualty.
Unique Spencer:So multi-cam is like multiple cameras at the same time they're filming, and so we had that experience at drama school as well and we had like a live editing suite where people were editing it live and we learned from in front and behind the cameras about all of that. So when I also work on EastEnders behind the scenes as well, so when I went behind I knew what was going on because I was like, oh, I've seen this at drama school, like I know how this, this sort of works
Sarah Seggari:yeah very, very good point.
Sarah Seggari:I then had to chemistry test uh, some some people coming into the show having been on the show, and we did it in front of a camera, and I could immediately tell people who hadn't had any experience in front of a camera, so they would block themselves and I would move so that my body is closer to the camera, so their eye line gets closer to the camera. But they would follow me, yeah. So then at one point I just stopped the audition. I was like hey, come, stand back here, I'm helping you, don't follow me, this is about you.
Sarah Seggari:They know how I act. They watch me, but this I'm helping you. Don't follow me. This is about you. They know how I act. They watch me, but this is all for you. So enjoy this. But face this way so that the camera and all of that kind of stuff but you they people pick it up so quickly and you will. Anybody who's nervous about it. Everyone's here to help because we want to get the right shot at the end of the day
Ali Godfrey:you sound like you had fun anyway when you were working together
Sarah Seggari:yeah, we bonded, we did we bonded, didn't we?
Unique Spencer:Yeah, we did.
Ali Godfrey:That's good.
Sarah Seggari:It was hard. Yeah, I have to say like I don't think drama school is an enjoyable place. I think it's work, no, but you find the joy because you find friends for life. But you have to imagine it like university or the military You're training. Remember when we would have to like run laps around the room like every day push up and, to be fair, I went into Matthew Dunster and he was doing military training with us two hours in the morning.
Sarah Seggari:It was very, very difficult and it translated into work without that training I wouldn't have been able to withstand the industry now like I wouldn't have been. Yeah, I wouldn't been able to. Last 10 years training I wouldn't have been able to withstand the industry now, like I wouldn't have been, yeah.
Unique Spencer:I wouldn't been able to last 10 years if I didn't have that, because I'd just be like you know what? Yeah, maybe you're saying for me, I've done, I've done a little Netflix thing now, like, but because you're in drama school and you fell so many times yeah, terrible, so many times that you know that when you get to do, you know I mean like five years out and you haven't worked, or you're do you know, I mean it's the 50th audition and you haven't got it you're like this was just like drama school that time.
Sarah Seggari:Yeah, yeah it's the gym, isn't it like you don't want to go to the gym, but you know you're doing something beneficial for your muscles and your, your mental state, and that is drama school, and you're gonna fail, as in're not going to finish all the reps that you can do. You're like, oh, I wish I'd done it, but then the next time you do it you might fail again. Might fail again. But I think the reason it was hard is because every class demands 100% from you and you have a different teacher for every lesson, so they don't care what you just came from. Oh, you came from boys. You forgot your monologue. Well, guess what? It's movement.
Sarah Seggari:you gotta start moving and that's what's tiring
Ali Godfrey:you said that after brit school you did the gap year diploma. Was it at central? Yeah, did you audition for arts ed and not get in the first year? And then what made you do the gap year diploma and how was that kind of process of getting in?
Sarah Seggari:basically, so I auditioned for drama schools after Brit school and I also auditioned. Brit school has a third year. That is a company on its own where you will hire a writer and then find venues and tour a show for a year and that's your year is to learn how to build a theatre company. So really useful. And I got a place. I tell you that was the most useful thing I ever did.
Sarah Seggari:Didn't get into any drama schools, got to the final stage of quite a lot of them but didn't get through. There's so many of my mates who didn't get in in the first year, second year, third year One of my mates who didn't get in in the first year, second year, third year. There's one of my mates didn't get in for seven years and she was like last time and the last time she got in. And she's not a better or worse actor because she took those seven years. She just did completely different things that nurtured her talents in a completely different way. I know National Youth Theatre. You directed there, Ali.
Sarah Seggari:I don't know what ages, but if I'd have known I would have been straight in there. I didn't even know it existed. I didn't even know that was a thing. There's one company called something monkey magic. Yeah, Fourth Monkey, Fourth Monkey. There's lots of workshops. I would do workshops and I still do workshops. I think they're great to just keep the brain ticking.
Sarah Seggari:Judy Dench once said in a podcast she can tell a fresh actor because they're happy to play with anything and play anywhere. And the older you get, the more stuck in your ways you are, because you know it. That works for you, but it means you never get to explore and open up your. You don't open up and try new things, which then categorizes you in one lane and makes you unable to do those other lanes that you used to be able to do. So I've like held on to that and I think it's really true. Just keep playing as if you are still at drum school or pre-drum school or secondary school, whatever yeah, yeah, and there's so many different sort of avenues to go through in acting.
Unique Spencer:like you can do TV and film. You can do theatre. I recently just done radio, like last year. Obviously we do radio when we're at drama school, but like there's a lot of things that you touch on at drama school that you can't really get into because you don't have the time, and then when you come out you're like ah, this radio ting-do, like you don't have to learn no lines, you get to sit down and you just tell your story. Yes, it could really work for me. You realize that like there's so many different avenues, like some of my friends are just bad boy at commercials.
Sarah Seggari:Yes, commercials are hard, from the audition to the end process. I've done two commercials. They are really difficult and also something maybe that drama schools should do more of practicing a commercial, because the auditions they ask for a lot. Their description of what they want is so in depth that you kind of wish they had that for a tv or film or theatre project, that in depth of an analysis of what they need for the audition. It's just a bit of a mad process, isn't it?
Unique Spencer:one thing I remember you doing at drama school, and one thing that I know that you loved was Shakespeare, like and this is where we would just be looking at each other and she'd be like unique, but Shakespeare and I'll be like.
Unique Spencer:Sarah not today. I don't. I don't want to hear about him, I don't want to hear about William. No, I'm good. Let me just tell you this sonnet, like, let me just tell you, like, let me just read this to you. Like she even bought me a Shakespeare, a Shakespeare book, for my birthday. I said are you taking the book? Where did that love from Shakespeare come from?
Sarah Seggari:It's really, really interesting because and this shows selective memory I had a Shakespeare teacher, a coach actually, to get me into drama school for the Shakespeare category, and she said you walked in and the first thing you said was I hate Shakespeare.
Sarah Seggari:so it's mad because I was like I would never say that I love.
Sarah Seggari:I can name you every single play, tragedy, comedy, history. And she was like you hated it, and it was. It was her Rosie Timpson shout out. She still does coaching and she's a really good friend of mine. So while I was at Central Gap Year Diploma, one of the guys there, ben Meyer, was like I have a Shakespeare coach if you want to give her a shout because your contemporary is really good, but you're nervous about your Shakespeare. And I went to see her and she totally broke it down for me. I became obsessed with how incredible Shakespeare is as a writer and that really helped me move on to my obsession with Pint or Stanislavski, because I don't think I would have made those jumps had I not understood Shakespeare.
Sarah Seggari:That's me personally, coming from an Italian background. My first language is Italian, so the way we speak and the reason we use those words are different to how we'd use them in the English language. So why people might say I'm a bit more emotive or a bit more expressive. Not a bad or good thing, just a cultural thing. I really heard it in Shakespeare. I could hear the inside feeling more than the outside feeling. I know that sounds really crazy. I guess Shakespeare was very influenced by Italians and the Latin and the Latin language, so he put that in his writing. So yeah.
Sarah Seggari:So then I did um the Sam Wanamaker Festival and got to be on the globe and it just felt like home
Unique Spencer:it just was like it looked like you was at home, like I remember, like when she came out and like all the other. No, no shade to any other drama school, but you know Artshead.
Sarah Seggari:Oh, we won we won.
Sarah Seggari:And when I say we, josh Pearson was my team partner yeah,
Unique Spencer:it was just like when she came out, it was like she was born to be there. Like you know, when you watch someone on stage and you're like I really get this Shakespeare thing now, sarah, like she made it, made sense, I understood what was going on and I think that's it like when somebody has that passion for it, it translates onto the stage and then it makes you love it.
Sarah Seggari:I also wanted to just touch on that and I know you spoke about it in previous episodes Imogen at the Globe and the reason that works. And we both went back, remember, and we couldn't stop talking the way it was like be quiet, guys. Because we were like and. I think it works. One Matthew Dunster, the director, is incredible. Two all the actors are phenomenal, but three it was oozing with culture and never thinking that you'd hear Stormzy and Shakespeare.
Unique Spencer:But it worked and it worked here in Shutdown. I just went wild in the pit. It made you realise that that's what it was like back in the day in Shakespeare's time, where you were poor, you were the ones that were in the pit and I was shutting it down. When I saw that show, like in much ado about nothing.
Sarah Seggari:There's a guy who plays um violin constantly and all the older people are going stop playing that music. It's just like nowadays someone put a stormzy on, turn that music down. I don't want to hear it. It's the exact same thing, but without the context. You don't get it. You you're like he's playing violin, it sounds what's going on. You don't get that amalgamation. So what have I done? I did straight out of drama school. I was lucky enough to get Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe and I think Sam Wanameka Festival really cemented that. It was going to be a good fit. And I did it with Matthew Dunster, the incredible. For people who don't know, he is quite a big director in our West End industry and an incredible one. He really finds something in text that I don't think a lot of people can find and lifts it off the page. If someone hadn't held me back, I would have tattooed the whole script on my body it was just an incredible time, you know, going out of drama school going straight into that.
Sarah Seggari:It was a joy. I then got invited back to do a new playback. The Globe called Amelia, which was loosely based on true stories. But it was up for debate that William Shakespeare had a lover called Amelia and that she was the dark woman who was the person he wrote about the dark in his sonnets and all his love sonnets were potentially about her. She's also engraved in the Globe, so there was a lot of links that would and a lot of his themes.
Sarah Seggari:She also wrote plays but she, being a woman, could not put those plays on stage and they seem to have really similar features. So it was about her and it went so well that we went to the West End for a year and we got moved to the West End. So I've got to do that. Then I I did the RSC, got lucky enough to tick that off the bucket list, and I did Comedy of Errors with Philip Breen, who is a brilliant director. I got lucky because all those parts I played medium to small and I'm using quotation marks and they got beefed up and they
Unique Spencer:got Because you're so good
Unique Spencer:This is one thing about Sarah she's just annoying, but she is so, so good.
Sarah Seggari:Can I just say that you are one of my best friends, so if you didn't say that, I might be knocking kneecaps in, so you have to say it. No, we all have flaws and we all have. We're just real humans in the world doing what we do. That's all it is, but thank you.
Ali Godfrey:A lot of young people we work with. We spend time looking at Shakespeare and kind of breaking it down and sometimes it is the first almost introduction to Shakespeare that they've had, or they've had it at school, but they think it's dry and there's nothing in it for them not everyone, but you know that it is kind of more common that that's the approach and there's a lot of nerves and there's a lot of insecurity around that speech. What would be your kind of? In a nutshell, what would you say to someone who's thinking of auditioning and knows that they have to choose a classical speech and doesn't really know where to start with that?
Sarah Seggari:Shakespeare is a different language and that's why it's hard, and we know from Duolingo that we can't stay at a different language Like. It's really hard to tune in when you don't know it. So you need to find someone who does understand it so they can break it down for you and then you start learning the language. You'll start noticing patterns and you will get it. Once you understand what you're talking about, put it in your own context, write it in your own words. If you're doing Hamlet and you're talking about your mum and her lover, really think about somebody in that position for you and their lover and what you would say in your own language, and then bring it back to the text what do you think as well?
Unique Spencer:because young people and I know I experienced this when I was at generation arts as well and we was looking at our classical texts and I experienced this going to some drama schools as well like people thinking that you have to deliver Shakespeare in an RP accent, which is like a reciever pronunciation, like a posh accent, like what's your sort of views on that?
Sarah Seggari:No, it's exactly what you said in your last episode, which is it's boring, it's not this era. We don't do that anymore. People can understand it more when you do it in your own accent, when you start putting received pronunciation on it. We've heard it a million times. So we zone out and, unless you know the text very, very well as an audience member, your ear tunes out because you feel like it's not for you and it goes over your ears.
Sarah Seggari:I know one of my biggest flaws is diction and enunciation, because I come from South London and we cut a lot of the end of our sentences off and I have to practice that every day, even in my day job, even in contemporary work, for it to be understood, and that's something that I have to work on. As long as you are clear, own accent, put an accent on it. Sign Some of the most beautiful shapes I've seen is in BSL, british Sign Language. It's not even in vocally audible words and it's so beautiful. So, yeah, it doesn't matter. Don't let people put you in a box. Do what you want to do, apart from drama schools, where they ask you to do certain scripts. Don't veer off the scripts.
Ali Godfrey:Do what's on the list.
Unique Spencer:What would you say would be your dream role?
Sarah Seggari:One of the things on my bucket list is to do something fantasy with magic or like vampires, werewolves supernatural that's the word and having a superpower. I would love to to do some of that.
Sarah Seggari:I just would love that
Ali Godfrey:we've got quite a few people that say that actually I don't know. There's a lot of people that really really want to do like magic, realism and stuff. And yeah, is it escapism?
Sarah Seggari:I'm trying to think if it's our childhood, like what we were influenced by. I mean, I read loads of books which were all fantasy. Yeah, I did have a very rough background, so maybe it was escapism and wanting to be something other well, I I'm going to push this podcast out to all the top dogs there.
Unique Spencer:We're going to need that part.
Unique Spencer:ASAP.
Ali Godfrey:Are they doing a Harry Potter Reboot?
Sarah Seggari:yes, I'm pretty sure that's already cast.
Unique Spencer:Don't worry, I'll get you in there somehow.
Sarah Seggari:I know you are my second agent.
Unique Spencer:Storm the room. Sorry, have you met Sarah? I know you are my second agent, storm the room, I'm sorry, sorry. Have you met Sarah Seggari? They're like sorry, who are you and who are she as?
Sarah Seggari:I did for the audience members. I did that for Unique. It's not just one way I dragged her around. I was like Unique Spencer, yep, she's. Unique and she's an incredible actress, if you haven't seen her.
Unique Spencer:You must please be quiet. I just want to drink, literally. We're at the NTA's National Television Awards and Sarah's introducing me to every BBC casting director and producer. Um, do you know you need, and why?
Sarah Seggari:not if you don't. That's how we come up, though. I mean. That's. One thing Brit school taught me is that you're not in competition with anybody because you are completely different to everybody. Firstly, don't look sideways, you'll trip over, but bring everybody up. You're a spider web. You help someone else, someone else helps you up. We work together. We don't compete against each other, because it makes a horrible industry if you do Terrible industry.
Unique Spencer:And everyone's got their own lane and their own journey.
Sarah Seggari:Million percent.
Unique Spencer:Last, last question. I know that one was last, but last question what would be the thing that you would have told yourself when you was younger?
Sarah Seggari:One would be learn about taxes Somebody to teach you no. But we need to revolt against these drama schools that don't teach you about taxes.
Unique Spencer:We had a half an hour lesson after our prom or something Everyone come in and hung over.
Sarah Seggari:I don't even remember that Was I there I don't think you did make it Selective memory.
Sarah Seggari:And two I would say you can't see things when you're in them and it really doesn't matter as long as you're hitting these things, which is be a good person, be kind, don't be horrible and just focus on literally being a good person. That's Don't be horrible and just focus on literally being a good person. That's all you need to worry about, and I think we worry about so many things that are unnecessary and then when you look back, you're like I shouldn't have been worried about that. You don't know what tomorrow brings. You don't know what the end of the road is. That's it so really disassociate.
Unique Spencer:And there you have it like the funniest person I know, the best actress in this game. I love you. I love you too.
Ali Godfrey:Thank you so much.
Sarah Seggari:Thank you honestly, thank you, and I hope to work with both of you in the future.
Unique Spencer:Each one can teach one, so keep acting strong. Subscribe, spread the word and turn on your notifications.
Ali Godfrey:Each guest brings their own take on resilience. So take what lands, leave what doesn't.
Unique Spencer:Thank you for listening and see you next time. Bye, thank you.
