We meet to discuss the BBC adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s best-selling memoir Everything I Know About Love, starring Sioux. The series follows 24-year-old Maggie and her three girlfriends, with whom she shares a house – also in Camden – where stupidity, female friendship and growing up take place. Siu plays Nell, one of Maggie’s girlfriends, a teacher in a stable relationship who seems to take on the role of counselor, until things become clear that not everything is as it seems. Siu has been working steadily as an actor for years, combining theater with film and television work. You may have seen her on a list of “stars of tomorrow” (she has been featured in many). Her play has been recognized and nominated for awards (most recently appearing in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, at National). And she has starred in three feature films, including an intense, compelling performance as Scottish teen in Run by Scottish director Scott Graham, for which she won Best Actress in Bafta Scotland last year. Make a bow: Marli Siu wears a mini dress, heels, hoops and hoops, all from dior.com. Photo: Jane Mcleish-Kelsey / The Observer But everything I know about love feels different – it can be like a big break. Siu had bought the book on a bookstore shortly before one of the lockdowns – her friends were fans – and says there was a lot of excitement in the air during filming. “They built the set – our living room, our kitchen, our bedrooms – and for me it was quite emblematic. It was like, “This is our house, this is the girls’ house.” The series was drafted quickly, in a tight recovery, and is still being processed for release when we meet. “I have a memory today on my phone,” says Siu, explaining how quickly production went. You know, when he says, ‘This photo was taken a year ago.’ And that was the tape I made with my friend for the first listen… “ I ask if her life is like the one she portrays on the screen. Not really, he says, however: “The play takes place in your early 20s, [a period that] “For me, and I think for a lot of people, it was very difficult.” Early in her career, Siu took a bus to London from her home in Scotland for an audition. When she won her first places in 2016, she moved to a “house of chaos” in Walthamstow, east London. “I was offered a role on Friday,” he recalls, “and as I stayed with my boyfriend over the weekend, I took on [flatshare website] Room available. “A friend from Scotland was also looking for a place – she did an unpaid internship, so she had no money – and by Monday I had found an apartment, a nine-bedroom house, as in a very illegal one.” In Scotland, “Everyone was white,” he continues, “so being Asian was different. But in this house, my friend, who is half Spanish, was the whitest man there. Suddenly, for example, I could talk to the girl from Thailand about cooking. “In London you can be from anywhere and feel like you are from there.” She later discovered that one of her roommates was trafficking drugs and because so many people were coming in and out of the house, things started to get lost. The doors were finally locked, so Siu would carry a screwdriver with her in case she forgot her keys. “At the time, I was saying, ‘This is living in London!’ says. “I was so excited.” Award winner: with Mark Stanley in Run, a performance that won Siu Best Actress in Bafta Scotland. Photo: Verve Pictures The daughter of a Scottish mother and a Chinese father, Siu lived in Hong Kong until she was four, then grew up in Forres, a town in northern Scotland, with her mother and four sisters. As she describes it, Siu’s early life was bucolic. Her memories of Hong Kong are “little things – the food, the shopping, how I was always barefoot, my sisters and I played a lot outside.” The family lived on Lamma Island off the coast of Hong Kong “which is quite hippie”. (Siu describes her mother as “like a big hippie.”) “Hong Kong Island is so different, fast-paced, full of huge buildings. The Lama had a slightly slower pace. I wish I could go back more. We just moved to Scotland, we were very young and my mom had the rest of my sisters, so she could not really take us back. But the memories I have of it are happy. “ In Scotland, Siu enjoyed art and dance classes, but as soon as she met a local drama group, at the age of 15, she discovered acting. “I did not know it was a job, no one in my family did it. In high school I thought I wanted to go to art school and I went to an open day and I ended up in the film department and I asked where they got the actors from. As soon as I went to university and started making short student films, I said, “That’s what I want to do.” Siu’s mother always rented houses and the family moved around a lot, without changing school. “We always lived far away from where the city was,” Siu recalls. “It was funny how when I was younger I was totally dependent on my mom. If you went out at night, there was no taxi – my mom would come to her nightclub and say, “You’d better be out at 11pm or I’ll get in!” “It was a wonderful childhood, but sometimes I think I do not have the best social skills or I get tired of socializing quickly because we grew up in such remote places.” Stage hand: at The Ocean at the End of The Lane at National. Photo: Manuel Harlan Everything sounds a little Little Women, I say. He laughs: “It is very true! And we put on plays. My older sister would not do it, but my younger sisters and cousins. So I would write them down and make them dance, and. I can not remember what they were, but they always followed the same structure where one of my sisters was always the bad guy and one of my cousins was always the princess. “ Has he kept the works? “I had a notebook where I wrote them down, but we moved so much that I do not know where many things are. I think because of this mixture of mixed race and movement, and also because my mom lives in a different part of Scotland now, there was definitely an element of feeling like I had no roots and did not really know where I came from for quite some time. a long time.” Throughout our time together, Siu repeats that she discusses similar issues with her sister or with friends who are also actors and people of color. Growing up in a very white environment, she had not thought much about the fact that she is half Chinese until she started acting. “You never see yourself in a box as a person, in general, but in the acting industry they have to have you in boxes and they suddenly make you think that.” She was worried about finding a job because she had not seen many people who looked like her on screen. She thought of changing her last name to western at first, though she’s glad she didn’t. “You are young and impressed and you want to do well,” he explains. “I grew up without a lot of representation on screen and with a lot of white people, so there was really no role model for me to aspire to.” This is related to another anxiety: “I’m worried about this, because they exist [Asian] actors who came before me, for whom the industry was much more difficult. And black actors who have fought for space in this industry… It’s the only reason there are places for people like me. ” Siu finds it difficult to discuss issues like this, “because sometimes the honest truth is that it is not always so much better. “Sometimes you just feel very angry with the industry and you never want to look angry or bitter, so I try to focus on where we are, but it goes far beyond that.” Star turn: at Everything I Know About Love. Photo: BBC / PA It was crucial for her in the past to read about the experiences of other actors. “Interviews I have read with Asian actors or black actors talking about the games, what it was like to work in this industry, I have saved them.” It means a lot, he says, to have someone else to “co-sign” your experience. “Then you say, ‘Oh, I’m not crazy.’ Help live in London and find other people experiencing similar things. In a recent conversation with an actor who is also Asian and bisexual (a speech that felt “healing”, says Siu), they shared experiences in which the casting directors tried to paint their faces. “The casting director told her to come with ‘more Asian eyes,’” Siu says. “And mine in the room was like, ‘You don’t look so Chinese.’ And she said, “Well, do you have any makeup to make your eyes look more Asian?” Her gut reaction to these situations was to laugh and only later did the experience sink. makeup with her, “and said: ‘I have eyeliner. I will do it.’ “I was like, oh my God! Will this woman paint on my face? Fortunately, she could not find anyone.” Siu is in her 20s. “It makes no sense to do an interview and try to see that I got here very easily,” he says. “It’s not helpful for anyone to analyze your experience.” She herself mentions several times that the fact …
