Rosy McEwen appears in the foyer of the National Theatre in London, where she is playing Desdemona in Clint Dyer’s new production of Othello. Her headstrong take on the doomed wife has been hailed as “a revelation” by critics. Some have described her performance as feisty. “But I don’t know how I feel about the word ‘feisty’. It means surprisingly strong-willed for her size, but she’s not feisty. She’s been accused of something she hasn’t done. I think she’s just really pissed off,” says McEwen. In each performance – spoiler alert – she spends a considerable amount of time playing dead as the action continues around her. “I get into a very comfy position. Some nights, it’s really nice to lie there and hear the truth come out. But actually, after a while, I’m thinking: What’s in my fridge … ” she jokes. “No, I’m thinking about the character all the time.”
It has been a year of firsts for McEwen. Desdemona is her first stage role in London, but we are here to talk about Blue Jean, the British independent film that marks her first lead role in anything. It is a knockout part. The film is set in 1988, and McEwen plays Jean, a young PE teacher at a school in Newcastle upon Tyne. Jean is a lesbian in a hostile political environment, and she lives in fear of her sexuality being discovered. When one of her pupils turns up at the gay bar where she hangs out with her friends and her girlfriend, Viv, it sparks complicated questions about shame, courage, rebellion and conformity.
Until she read the script, McEwen had no idea that section 28 had ever existed. Jean is caught up in the aftershocks of the legislation, which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1988. Section 28 prohibited the promotion of homosexuality and the teaching of homosexuality as “a pretended family relationship” by local authorities. It was not fully repealed in England until 2003. McEwen was still at school when the then Labour government finally managed to get section 28 taken off the statute books. “That was one of the main things that spoke to me, because I was like, ‘I don’t know anything about that time,’” she says. “And now it’s happening again, in Florida, with the ‘don’t say gay’ bill. It’s exactly the same thing.”
McEwen grew up in London, but Jean is from the north-east. How hard did she have to work on the accent? “I’m nervous to go to Newcastle. That’s the ultimate test, isn’t it?” She was paired up with a dialect coach. “And I listened to a lot of Cheryl Cole,” she says, showing off an impeccable Cheryl accent. The film was shot on location at the start of 2022. “It was freezing,” she says. “I got there and I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to be cold for three months.’ But I loved it so much. I loved the script, I loved the part, I loved Georgia [Oakley, the film’s director]. It was my first lead, it was Georgia’s first feature, and that combined energy of our excitement and nerves just lit a fire underneath us.”
While Blue Jean is set in the 1980s, it is not necessarily the 1980s that we are used to seeing on screen. “It’s not that blue eyeshadow, big hair thing,” says McEwen. Jean’s girlfriend Viv (a brilliant Kerrie Hayes) is a leather-wearing butch lesbian who lives in a housing co-op. “Had we just had Jean, terrified, moving through the world … It’s nice to have that celebration of queerness as well. There were so many people proud and fighting and being who they were, and it’s nice to have that balance.”
McEwen quit social media years ago – “I would never go back, now that I’ve freed myself” – but says Oakley will send her things about the film that she has spotted online. “Viv’s nipple tattoo is getting a lot of press and Jean’s haircut is getting a lot of press, which we love.” In the film, she has a neat blond crop, which has mostly grown out now.
McEwen got a taste for acting as a child. She went to an all-girls Catholic school in London, and when she was 12 a casting director came to scout for girls who might audition for a film adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel Atonement. McEwen got down to the last two, but it went to a young up-and-comer called Saoirse Ronan. “My mum loves this story,” she laughs. “Claim to fame.” As she got older, McEwen almost didn’t pursue acting at all, despite knowing that she loved it. “I was terrified of it not working out. It’s such a hard job, in the sense that you can give it everything you’ve got but if the stars don’t align for whatever reason … I was frightened to fail.”
She studied history of art at the University of Leeds, and in her final year did a play with her friends, who were all applying to drama school. “So I was like: ‘OK, I’ll do that.’” She got into Bristol Old Vic when she was 24. “I felt like I was catching up from day one. Everyone was like: ‘Oh yes, Shakespeare and Hamlet, and do you know Harold Pinter?’ And I was like: ‘Oh my God, this was a whim, what am I doing?’ I spent most of the first year just catching up.”
It was while she was there that she realised she would have to change her name. She is actually Rosy Byrne; McEwen is her mother’s maiden name. “There’s already a Rose Byrne,” she points out, referring to the Bridesmaids star. “And she’s so fabulous and so famous. So I just went for the nearest and dearest.”
After a 10-month stint with the RSC, McEwen was cast as a nurse in period detective series The Alienist (on Netflix in the UK), with Luke Evans and Dakota Fanning. “I was shipped off to Budapest and it was like drama school all over again. I was like, ‘What? What do I do?’ I was really unaware of what I look like on camera, and all the stuff you have in your head when you watch yourself on screen. I didn’t have any of that. I just did it.” She played Christopher Eccleston’s daughter in Channel 4’s Close to Me. “He’s the friendliest, easiest guy ever,” she says. She also had a part alongside Eddie Marsan in the sci-fi film Vesper, and is a huge admirer of his career.
“He does a really cool, eclectic mix. He does low-key stuff, works with amazing directors and then big, shiny things as well, but he also has this amazing family life. I think it’s that balance that really struck me. He used to say to me that if you want an extraordinary career you have to have an ordinary life. And I really like that.”
At the British independent film awards last December, Blue Jean won four, with McEwen taking home the prize for best lead performance, a category that saw her up against Sally Hawkins, Florence Pugh and Bill Nighy, among others. “So wild,” she says. “Really honestly, hand on heart, I was just happy to be there.”
She had been up for best breakthrough performance, which was announced earlier in the evening. “That went to someone else, so I started drinking, I relaxed, I thought: ‘OK, I don’t have to get up there.’ I fully chilled. And then when they said my name, my brain genuinely didn’t hear it.” It wasn’t until the people at her table jumped up that she realised what was happening. “I felt like I’d been dropped in icy cold water. I was just so shocked. I couldn’t stop laughing.”
McEwen still has a couple of weeks left as Desdemona, and she isn’t quite sure what’s next. “I’ve been so spoiled with Blue Jean and Othello.” What’s on the acting bucket list? “I really like playing characters far away from myself. So I hope I can keep stretching those boundaries and challenging the way people see me. I think that’s why I don’t have Instagram. Because the less people know about me, the more that I could play a sort of … ” She reaches for an idea. “Mullet-wearing … Swedish … DJ?” She laughs. “But I would love to keep pushing the boundaries.”
Blue Jean is in cinemas on 10 February. The National Theatre Live production of Othello is in cinemas from 23 February.
