Freya Mavor: "Really Wanted The Job Despite Nudity Involved"

The world according to Freya Mavor: Meet the young actress who has stepped up from teen soap to serious drama

By Daphne Lockyer

She caught our attention in teen series Skins and last year’s feel-good musical Sunshine on Leith; now, at just 20, actress FREYA MAVOR is doing ‘corset time’ in Channel 4’s Restoration drama New Worlds. And there’s no doubt as to who’s calling the shots in this career, as Daphne Lockyer discovers

'I prefer acting to modelling because it gives you a chance to show that there’s more to you than meets the eye'

Freya Mavor has turned up for our interview at a smart Soho hotel dressed expressly for the purpose of budget airline travel. After our interview, she’s heading to the airport to catch a flight to Paris – where she currently lives – and has only the smallest piece of carry-on luggage with her.

‘I’m wearing the rest of my clothes. So excuse the ensemble,’ she beams, removing a winter coat that conceals various layers. 

Fortunately, of course, this stunning Scots-born model and actress could have worn the entire contents of her laundry bin and still be turning heads in the hotel bar, as she is right now. Freya is, after all, a striking, willowy blonde with a killer smile that frequently lights up those Celtic features. No wonder that in 2011 she was the face of Pringle of Scotland and voted Fashion Icon of the Year at the Scottish Fashion Awards.

‘Modelling was a lot of fun,’ she says. ‘But really you’re just a coat hanger or a face to advertise something. I prefer acting because it gives you a chance to show that there’s more to you than meets the eye.’ 

Acting-wise, you’ll recognise Freya from the E4 series Skins, in which she had a long-running role as the beautiful but damaged teenage ballbreaker Mini McGuinness. No wonder that the lad mag FHM thought to name Freya as one of the world’s 100 sexiest women in 2012. ‘Oh God,’ she says, hands flapping at the very mention of that poll. ‘How embarrassing. Just as well I tend not to take any notice of that kind of stuff.’

‘But you wouldn’t want to wear the corsets too often. You can’t breathe, and going to the loo is a 20-minute operation’

What those in the know are saying is that Freya has a very big future. Recently the film industry bible Screen International voted her one of the ‘UK’s top stars of tomorrow’, thanks to a recent clutch of prestigious roles. She was Liz, for example, in last year’s feel-good movie Sunshine on Leith. Based on the stage musical of the same name, it featured Proclaimers songs with Freya herself – daughter of opera singer Jude Collins – warbling like a professional.

‘I grew up singing but around the age of 15 I stopped and became shy about singing in front of people. Maybe I just felt that it was Mum’s domain.’ Her mother, she says, was delighted to help her train for the role: ‘I think Mum was pleased that I’d gone back to singing and was enjoying it so much.’

Sunshine on Leith had been preceded by Freya’s role as the ethereal Elizabeth of York in the BBC’s adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical romp The White Queen. And she’s been doing more ‘corset time’ in New Worlds, which is what we’re here to talk about.
‘The costumes in both New Worlds and The White Queen were amazing,’ she says. ‘But you wouldn’t want to wear the corsets too often. You can’t breathe, and going to the loo is a 20-minute operation.’

The prequel to New Worlds, The Devil’s Whore, was set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, as seen through the eyes of Angelica Fanshawe (the Devil’s Whore herself – played by Andrea Riseborough). Angelica was a sexually liberated aristocrat who got drawn into the anti-monarchist cause, risking her life to see Charles I deposed and ultimately executed.

Freya as Beth in New Worlds

New Worlds picks up the story in the 1680s at the height of the Restoration. Despite Charles II’s promise to be an enlightened monarch, brutality is the order of the day.

Meanwhile, Angelica (now Countess of Abingdon, played by Eve Best in this series) is attempting to shield Beth, the daughter we last saw as a little girl in the closing scenes of The Devil’s Whore, from a world on the brink of chaos. Beth is played by Freya. ‘We meet her on her 21st birthday, when she’s about to become a woman,’ says Freya. ‘Until that point she has been living a sheltered life, blissfully unaware of the horrors that are going on in England – but that’s about to change.’

Indeed, an outlaw turns up at her 21st birthday party hoping to rob the guests to raise funds to buy weapons and supplies for the anti-monarchist cause. He sees that there might be political and monetary advantages in abducting Beth, and carries her off.
‘She puts up a fight, of course, but the truth is that there’s an instant attraction between them. She’s going to fall in love with him but she’s also going to experience a total political awakening.’
Freya giggles at my suggestion that there could be worse things than being abducted by Jamie Dornan, who plays the outlaw and idealist Abe. He’s the Northern Irish actor who came to our attention as the oddly appealing psychopath in the BBC thriller The Fall and is about to go global in the leading role of Christian in 50 Shades of Grey.

Like Freya, he too has a background in modelling, with clients such as Calvin Klein. ‘When I knew I’d been cast, I Googled him and up came all these pictures of him half naked! I was taken aback and a little bit intimidated,’ she confesses. ‘But when I finally got to work with him he was the nicest, funniest, most laid-back man in the world. Honestly, Jamie is a babe.’

'There isn't room to think about how famous [a role] might make you'

The four young stars of the drama, including Alice Englert and another former Skins star, Joe Dempsie, formed a close bond during filming (in the UK and Romania). Alice and Joe play Hope and Ned, New England colonists trying to cut ties with the English crown. ‘My character goes to America at one point in the story and Joe’s comes to England, so we became close friends on screen and in real life.’ 

Freya admits that before auditioning for the role of Mini in Skins, she’d been a huge fan of the show. ‘My elder brother Zander and I used to watch Skins every Thursday. My favourite character was Chris Miles, played by Joe. He talked tough but there were a lot of layers to him. I never got to work with Joe in Skins – he’d left. But I used to think, “Oh my God, if I ever got to meet him that would be amazing.’”

The story of how the now 20-year-old Freya found herself on her favourite TV show tells you something about her tenacity. Aged 16, she was on a bus going home from school when she overheard a conversation about Skins. ‘Two girls were talking about there being an open casting session and my ears pricked up. I got myself down to Bristol where the auditions were taking place, queued for six hours and was asked to say one line. Amazingly I was called back. It was a dream come true.’

At the time, Freya was a member of the National Youth Theatre and had been a mezzo-soprano in the National Youth Choir of Scotland. She had seen her mum perform with the Scottish Opera and been exposed to  theatre and film from an early age. ‘My dad [James Mavor is a scriptwriter and a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University] and my grandfather and great-grandfather were involved in the theatre, too,’ she says. 

Freya remains close to both her parents and credits her love of travel on their decision to move the family to France for a few years during her early teens. ‘Mum and Dad decided to leave Edinburgh and live in La Rochelle because they wanted to expose Zander and me to a different culture. I learned to speak French fluently and fell in love with the country.’

Freya is especially close to her mother. ‘My mum’s a crazy, red-headed Irish woman and the wisest person I know. I hope I can be half the mother to my kids that she’s been to me.’ Still, it’s too early to think about motherhood yet. Besides, she may or may not even be in a relationship. ‘I’d rather not comment,’ she says. Clearly, she’s learning fast about fame. Not so long ago she made some ill-advised comments about fancying girls. ‘And now if you Google me it says that I’m “openly bisexual”,’ she laughs. ‘I think what I said was that I was open to all kinds of sexualities, but that doesn’t make me, personally, bisexual. Actually, in my own life I’m heterosexual.’

While she’s at it, she’d also like to put the record straight about a story involving Niall Horan of One Direction fame. She’s meant to have turned him down for a date. ‘Really?’ she says. ‘I don’t even know how a rumour like that starts because there’s no truth in it at all.’

She finds sanity in escaping abroad. Last year she spent three months in Spain with friends, and she already has a plane ticket for a three-month tour of Australia on her own next year. ‘I’m pretty used to travelling alone,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t scare me. I love the sense of freedom it gives you. And if I did have someone in my life – and I’m not saying I do – I’d travel anyway because the time you spend apart is as important as the time you spend together.’

She sees parallels between herself and Beth in New Worlds. Both prize their freedom. Unlike Beth, she wouldn’t describe herself as a firebrand. ‘But I do have moments of being quite outspoken. I was brought up as a feminist and it got me involved in a lot of arguments.’

As a beautiful young actress herself, she’s aware, too, of how easily she could be exploited. She mentions Rihanna and Miley Cyrus. ‘I find what they do appalling,’ she says. ‘The idea that they’re embracing their sexuality – I don’t see how that equates to leaving nothing to the imagination. I don’t see that as empowering. I just see it as allowing yourself to be manipulated by the money makers. It’s demoralising and pathetic.’
She’s had her own moments of uncertainty, she says. ‘When I was being cast in The White Queen I was told there was nudity involved. It was something I had to agree to before I signed the contract. I said OK because I really wanted the job.
‘You need to ask yourself questions: “Does it serve the story? Is it beautifully shot? Is it truthful or is it just there to titillate the audience?” 

‘New Worlds is a passionate story and yet the love scenes are simply hinted at – the touch of a hand, the glimpse of some flesh. It’s a lot sexier than a full-on love scene.’

She hopes viewers will love it too but seems blissfully unaware that working on a Peter Flannery project could catapult her still further into the spotlight. Daniel Craig and Christopher Eccleston, for example, cut their teeth in Our Friends in the North; Andrea Riseborough and Michael Fassbender in The Devil’s Whore. ‘But when you work on something with the intensity of New Worlds, all you really think about is doing the job as well as you can. There isn’t room to think about how famous it might make you,’ she says.

Should Hollywood come calling, she may or may not be at home. ‘At the moment I love working in the UK and in France. I idolise actresses like Kristin Scott Thomas who are able to work in both languages. That’s my ambition.’

She’s having a blast in Paris, too. ‘I promised myself that I’d go back to France when I was old enough and that’s what I’ve done. I live in a “shoebox” in the 16th arrondissement,’ she says. ‘I’m in heaven.’

New Worlds will be on Channel 4 next month

Freya’s frontrunners

Reading The Wall by Marlen Haushofer,
which was recommended to me by my mum.
It’s about a woman who wakes up to discover
that she’s the last person on earth. It’s an
incredibly life-affirming story.
Listening to I’m obsessed with the American-Chilean DJ Nicolas Jaar. He has a unique style combining elements of jazz house
with music from the 1950s.
TV I have just finished watching the final series of Breaking Bad. What an absolutely amazing ride!
Beauty products I learned all about Dermalogica skincare from make-up artists and now use it all the time. I also love Bobbi Brown and Bare Minerals.
Stuck in a lift with…my friends Sam and Mia.
We’ve known each other all our lives.
Designers I’ve recently done a photo shoot with the Acne label and fell in love with the clothes. I’m not averse to the high street – Jigsaw, Russell and Bromley…
Exercise I’m not a gym bunny but I grew up doing a lot of sport and I enjoy things that challenge me physically. I’ve just signed up for a four-month physical theatre course in Paris. There’ll be lots of tough dance and even martial arts involved.