Written by
Audra McClainPhotographed by
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As you read these words, either written on this page or illuminating off an LED screen, somewhere, someone on planet Earth is dumping a fresh puzzle onto the floor. A thousand mismatched pieces waiting to be meticulously placed back together. They daunt the hopeful assembler. Each piece is beautiful. Each piece is intricate. Each piece tells its own story, but the entirety of the story is not unraveled until each is properly placed. French-British actor Emma Mackey is one of these puzzle pieces.
Alas, if a puzzle piece is recklessly placed in the wrong spot, crammed in dismissively, or completely left out, the final picture does not reveal itself. A single performance in a film or television show can be astonishing, but if the other performances fall through, the final product does not hold up. And so, a director is a puzzle maker, placing everything where it needs to be.
But what happens when a puzzle piece rebels? “I hate being patronized. I hate it,” Mackey tells me with passion behind her voice. “More and more, I struggle with authority and being told what to do, which is hilarious because most of my job is being told what to do and doing things for other people and being a vehicle for other people’s ideas.”
Now don’t get it twisted—Mackey is not a nuisance to work with. She is not a diva, and that is clear from a single conversation with her. She takes the advice and guidance from the directors she works with and leaves each and every project with a compelling performance, even if it’s not her first instinct. In fact, responding to the desires of authority pushes her to do something that her mind initially tells her to reject; it allows her to grow and better herself. “I hate the idea of being stuck in something,” she says of stagnancy.
Mackey’s disdain for repetition is what drew her to a career in the world of cinema. It’s hard to feel sedentary when every few months, or years, you’re someone different. For long hours a day, actors live the lives of others. “You’re always having to renew yourself,” Mackey says, reflecting on all of the people she’s transformed into on-screen. “You’re always having to be interesting for yourself and for other people.”
The first seriously impactful person we were privileged to see Mackey become was Maeve Wiley, a super-smart yet edgy, pink-haired, cigarette-smoking 17-year-old. The role featured opposite Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson on Netflix’s wildly popular UK series, Sex Education, which premiered in 2019. Before 2019, if you were to ask your friends if they had heard of sex education, they would have probably scoffed at you. Of course, they had. They were required to watch those videos about sex and puberty in middle school. The ones where your awkward teacher tells boys to go to one room and girls to another, then pops in an old VHS or DVD that talks about getting your period or having wet dreams, and the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. Or if you happened to live in a state like Oklahoma or Utah, they’d teach you that sex is bad! No one should have it! And if you do, you’ll either get pregnant or die!
Sex Education has a new meaning now, and the popularity of the show has crowded out the conventional idea in Google searches and the like. Naturally, the show follows high school students navigating the awkwardness of their teen years and sex. But it doesn’t do so one-dimensionally. Over the course of three seasons, we witness the realness of experiencing sexual intimacy for the first time. And not just straight, able bodied sex.
Despite her character’s eccentric style, Mackey’s personal style is relaxedly mature. She has just turned 26. “You start and your hair gets bleached,” she shares on the youthful transformation. “Then you get told you’re gonna have a nose ring and some tattoo stuck on your fingers every day. And you’re going to be looking a bit gross and greasy and not allowed to wash your hair for a week.” And she laughs, “And then that’s going to be for four months.”
Following season three’s September 2021 release, we aren’t sure about a renewal for season four or when that might happen. Rumors have floated about the internet that Mackey would not return for another season, but that’s not necessarily the case. “It’s funny,” she recalls, “people really jumped on a sentence I said and were like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s not going to be in season four.’ No, I just said that I’m not 17, and I can’t play 17 forever.” Mackey cheekily adds, “That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave the show. I’m focusing on other things right now.”
She has a lot to focus on. In 2021, her first French-language film Eiffel—a story about Gustave Eiffel and how a romance inspired him to forever leave a mark on Paris’ skyline—was released. Mackey grew up in France and did not move to the UK to study English and do theater until she was 17. French is her first language, but that doesn’t mean her first French film came without nerves. “It was definitely a challenge,” she says. “It was my first time going back to France as an adult woman. I was really nervous about speaking French again, even though it’s my first language.” Those nerves don’t come out on screen. Instead, we witness an admirable performance and dynamic chemistry between her and Romain Duris, who plays Eiffel.
Several things had to perfectly align to bring Mackey back to France. The film’s concept was put onto paper years ago, but the project kept getting pushed back and sidelined. Several actors were set to play Adrienne Bourgès before Mackey came along. When it was finally time for the film to be made, director Martin Bourboulon came to London where Mackey was staying and set a meeting to discuss her potential involvement. Mackey came down with the worst flu of her life right on the evening prior. She was vomiting and shaking just hours before, but her brain told her to push through. “I was like, just take paracetamol and go to this f*cking meeting,” she recalls, “because it could change your life. And it did.”
That meeting changed her life in more ways than one. It allowed her to perform in a way she hadn’t yet had the chance to explore, but it also brought her back to her roots—France. As a teenager, Mackey was so eager to get out and experience a new place with different cultures and customs. The UK provided her with that and more, allowing her to become an actor and to learn about philosophy and literature. It also enabled her to “catch up on lost time,” as she puts it. She lived in London for nearly ten years, but as we know, Mackey doesn’t like reiteration. “I thought I was gonna stay there forever,” she says, recalling the desperation to leave France that inspired the journey, “Then I was like, ‘Nope, not staying in England anymore. It’s not for me.’”
The decision required courage. “I think changing my life quite significantly is quite brave,” she says. “I moved away from London and moved back to this country. And a lot of things in my personal life changed, and I had to be brave about that and stand up for myself. I think that is quite brave.” For Mackey, bravery is just that: evolution. “Bravery is allowing yourself to not be stuck and to give yourself permission to change and to evolve,” she expands. “I think people often feel like they owe something to other people, and feel like they have to stay in a specific kind of pattern, in order to make other people happy. But I think that in order to be brave, you have to look out for yourself and you have to change the pattern, break the cycle, whatever it is, and back yourself.”
Mackey takes sips of her tea in between questions. She’s always masquerading as a new person, yes, but now her schedule is always different. Her life is fast-paced, but she takes time to enjoy the simplicities of life now that she is back in France. “I love making food and I love testing recipes. In my spare time, I consistently watch recipe videos and food documentaries.” When she’s not cooking, she strolls by the sea near her new home.
Stopping to smell the roses is something Mackey is grateful to be able to do, but it only comes after years of project after project. In 2022, she will return to the big screen—this time opposite Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, and Ali Fazal— as Jacqueline de Bellefort, a woman twisted into the drama of Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, a mystery about the murder of a young heiress, based on the Agatha Christie novel. Mackey has done comedies, dramas, romance movies, and now mysteries, but the one constant is that she’s always being thrown into one of the most emotionally draining scenes the first day on set. “I’ve always started with a really big scene,” she shares. “I have never had an easy way into anything. There’s always been like a f*cking baptism of fire.”
Death on the Nile saw her embrace an immediate scene that affects her character and the entire plot right out of the gates. The feature was also shot on film—with only a limited amount of takes. The pressure of needing to nail the shot on the first few goes was intimidating, Mackey shares, but the resultant beauty of film outweighs the tension. “The whole process, the filmic process, and the way that each reel of tape is an artifact, and it’s solid, it’s there, and you can hand it from person to person, take it back and then develop it, felt like a whole different thing. It felt really magical because it felt like a piece of history.”
To make sure the performances matched the magical beauty of the look of the film, Branagh put the characters through a rigorous preparation process. “I had a questionnaire to fill in with specific questions like, ‘Does Jackie like the sun? What does she eat in the morning? How long has she been in Egypt?’” As a natural rebel, Mackey’s first reaction to being handed a questionnaire was to question the intention behind it. “I felt like I was in school when I got that questionnaire from Ken. I was like, ‘Is he testing me? Like, is he testing me right now?’” But after taking the questionnaire seriously, she realized how beneficial it was. “It pushed me to prove myself even more. It challenged me in a good, healthy way.”
Mackey lives and breathes originality. She won’t take on a character just because it feels familiar. She has a list of questions she’ll ask herself before accepting a role. She rattles off criteria, “Is the character interesting, and how is she fleshed out? Is it going to be interesting and challenging for me? Is it going to serve me? And is it going to serve others? The main thing is like, is there a point to this? Would it be better for someone else? Or is this for me? And I have to have it?”
One of the latest questions Mackey has asked herself: “Should I direct?” It’s a question that’s been on the back of her mind for a while. She’s already scribbled ideas out, but before she makes a move, she believes she needs more experience. She wants to watch more films and study more directors. To fully immerse. “I don’t want to be a crook,” she concludes. “I don’t want to be a director just because I’m an actor.”
Whether Mackey is one of those puzzle pieces waiting to be lifted and placed into the picture, or if, down the road, she is the one reassembling the scrambled photo, she will always do what it takes to create something newly magnificent—and she’ll do so with unflinching bravery.
Photographed by Martin Aleman
Styled by Jonathan Huguet
Hair: Benjamin Mignot
Makeup: Cristelle Ballet
Set Designer: Manon Beriot and Sandy Mathieu-Moreau
Production: Colors Paris, Marine Becker, and Clémence Joly de Sailly
DOP: Hugo Carlier
1st AC: Lola Rougier-Onnis
Head Electrician: Aurelien Thibault
Electrician: Axell Kotomba
Sound Engineer: Joseph De Laage
Photo Assistant: Maximilian Mair
Digital Operator: Clara Girbal at Sheriff Paris
Stylist Assistant: Marie Soares
Set Designer Assistant: Yoann Brulon
Post-Production Print: Johann Chaigne
Post-Production Film: St Louis
Post-Sound: Benzene Paris
Location: Rouchon Paris
Written by Audra McClain
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