Former Maidstone schoolgirl nominated for BAFTA

KentOnline / KMTV

After being nominated for the Rising Star Award for her role as Tara in Molly Manning Walker's How to Have Sex, Mia McKenna-Bruce says the girl she once was wouldn't quite believe it.

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00:00 The Kent talent making waves in Hollywood, Mia McKenna-Bruce is the latest star to rise

00:05 from the county and now hoping to secure a BAFTA. After being nominated for the Rising

00:09 Star Award for her role as Tara in Molly Manning Walker's How to Have Sex, she said the Maidstone

00:15 schoolgirl she once was wouldn't quite believe it. Well, I'm joined by our film expert Chris

00:21 Deasy in the studio now. Chris, before we get into Mia's story in particular, give us

00:25 a synopsis of the film she's been awarded the BAFTA for.

00:29 Well, it's How to Have Sex and it's a remarkable film that premiered at the London Film Festival

00:34 in the autumn. And it's a rite of passage drama about some girls about to get their

00:37 GCSE results. They go on holiday to Greece and all sorts of tensions then open up about

00:42 the futures, the very different futures that they're going to have. With a title like that

00:46 you're thinking is it going to be a promiscuous film or a didactic film? It's none of those.

00:49 It's like an anthropological case study. What happens with girls from different sort of

00:54 contexts and backgrounds, different levels of educational attainment and then what happens

00:58 when they're taken advantage of or used and you see the whole edifice collapse. A bit

01:02 like Aftersun which did phenomenally well in the BAFTAs this time last year.

01:07 And it's something she said she's really glad in an interview with us that she was able

01:11 to be part of a film like this because it would mean a lot to someone. And of course

01:14 she went to Maidstone Grammar School for Girls. She spoke to us about being a small town girl

01:18 and that the younger version of herself, just as I said in the introduction there, wouldn't

01:22 quite believe she is where she is now. Let's hear from her.

01:25 I remember a few years ago, one of the bus stops outside MGGS had this poster of this

01:32 like, and I was on the poster for this show that I was doing at the time and I was just

01:36 like, what on earth? Like me walking past in my brown uniform, this bus stop and imagining

01:43 that one day there'd be a poster that I was on. Like, it just, it's just, like there aren't

01:48 the words and I'm just so grateful and I'm so, I just think it's so exciting now kind

01:56 of getting to look back and be like, yeah, little me kind of walking up in my uniform

02:02 into town. Just could never even begin to imagine any of this.

02:08 So that's her there talking about sort of her wider career as well, seeing herself on

02:11 a poster of a bus stop. A surreal moment for a school girl. But more on this film, how

02:15 important is it that she's starring in something that affects so many young girls?

02:19 I think that's exactly it because you're watching this film and you're sort of watching it thinking,

02:23 is it going to be like a teen romp sort of thing? Is it sort of a film like American

02:28 Pie from the 90s? It's none of that at all. It's actually, it's not a sort of film that

02:32 is in any way judgmental. It's simply saying this is what happens when people are taken

02:36 advantage of, they go on holiday and it's a kind of film and it's almost like a horror

02:40 film in the way that it unfolds and you sort of, and it resonates in so many ways with

02:44 people in different stages of their life.

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