Jessica Sula, a new member of the Skins cast tells Jacqueline Smith she's been able to live vicariously through her character
Being a teenager is awkward, no matter where you are in the world. And the kids of Skins, the popular British drama set in Bristol, are more problematic than most - curing their sexual confusion and body dysmorphic disorders with substance abuse and that sort of thing.
Its creator, British TV writer Bryan Elsley, maintains the show is a very serious attempt to get to the bottom of young people's lives.
But it seems the truth hurts. The show sent ripples of fear through American parents and prompted major advertisers to pull out of the slot when it premiered on MTV in January. Certainly online forums indicate it resonates with the youth it represents.
Jessica Sula, 16, one of the newest faces on the show, says she was a regular viewer before she took a part on the series last year. And whenever she missed an episode she was sure to be brought up to date by her friends, who watched it religiously.
Sula puts the success of Skins down to the fact that it focuses purely on that very rebellious, confusing period of 16 and 17-year-olds' lives, and rather than following the characters as they mature, it just rolls out a new cast of naive college kids.
Sula is one of eight young actors who make up the "third generation", that have carried the show into its fifth season.
Hailing from Swansea in South Wales, she describes herself as a regular teenager who attended a normal primary school, a normal secondary school, and who, unlike the Skins characters, preferred mucking around at home with her family than searching for trouble.
She was always interested in acting, but doubted her chances of getting a break. Landing a part after an open audition for Skins - which attracted around 10,000 wannabes - was "basically a big stroke of luck" which she hopes will secure her a future in acting, she says.
Firstly though, she needs to get through her education. Sula sat her GCSCs during auditions and is currently playing catch-up after taking several months off to film the fifth series.
She describes her character Grace, a ballet dancer, as a sensible girl, but one who still has the rogue "Skins' streak".
This season will see her treading new territory, letting down her hair and eventually experimenting with the naughty things that teens in Bristol do.
Sula says Grace's learning curve has also been her own. "I think it was different for me because I didn't go out a lot or do much of that stuff. I would just be home. I was very much family-orientated. That was more fun for me. So I get to live vicariously though my character. It was the best way to experiment with all these teenage things, without the consequences that all these Skins people have."
She describes the third generation of characters as a group of misfits, and says the previous lot were much trendier by comparison.
Leading the rat-pack is self-appointed queen bee Mini McGuinness (Freya Mavor) who ostracises the new kid Frankie (Dakota Blue Richards) for her androgynous dress sense. Mini's right-hand woman is Liv Malone (Laya Lewis) and her boyfriend is Nick Levan (Sean Teale). The other boys are Nick's brother Matty (Sebastian De Souza), Rich Hardbeck the metaller (Alexander Arnold) and his friend Aloysius "Alo" Creevey (Will Merrick), the optimist.
Grace finds herself drifting away from her best friends as she resists following them down a path of teen-destruction. "Grace is a dreamer, she's lovely, and is kind and wants to be good but she's still assertive, and will get her way. She needs to learn to grow up a little bit. That doesn't mean she is immature, she just needs to be aware of what people are capable of and that everyone isn't as nice and good as they seem," Sula says.
The actors - most of them novices - were coaxed into becoming their characters, which Sula says was further challenged this season because the characters were given Twitter profiles which are maintained between the series airing.
"I am new to Twitter but I follow Grace, and it is sort of like me, but it's another person. It's like another life I am living in an alternate reality."
Sula says it was a daunting prospect to have to warm audiences around the world to the new cast but so far, feedback has been positive and the third generation has been signed on for the sixth season.
"All together it was nerve-racking because the previous cast was hugely popular, but we had to take it in our stride and hope that people would like us," she says, adding that all she needs to do now is get her head around people approaching her on the street and calling her Grace. "But I'm generally more of a stay at home kind of girl, so I haven't been out too much to experience that," she says.
LOWDOWN
Who: Jessica Sula, from the fifth season of Skins.
When and where: Monday, 9.30pm on Four
-TimeOut
