Check out this great new interview with Sophie and stunning photoshooot!

Wylde: You started out doing ballet and singing, then moved into musical theatre. What kind of productions did you play in when you were younger?

Sophie Skelton: I ended up doing quite a range of musicals, from the slightly darker ones like Chicago to Oliver! and similar. Funnily enough, my first ever TV appearance was on the game show A Question of Sport. They have a “mystery guest” section, and I was doing a production of Oliver! at the Palace Theatre. The boxer Ricky Hatton came to the theatre and we had to perform one of the main musical numbers and re-choreograph it around him for him to then be revealed at the end. I think I was 11 at the time. That’s so bizarre… I just remembered that!

Did the idea of being a pop singer ever cross your mind, or were you always more drawn to the musical theatre side of things?

No, my career choices were between acting and being a surgeon – so highly unrelated to one another! I always felt more called to the acting though. I was forever at the cinema, I just loved it. It’s still my escape place now. I do still sing, and I love it, and the idea of being on stage again performing is really exciting to me but it was never my passion. Acting allows you to play out other people’s stories. I feel with singing, you sing about your own. I’m quite a private person; I think I’d rather use any heartache in my life to play someone else’s rather than divulge my own through a song!

What films inspired you, as a younger actress?

Anything with Audrey Hepburn, to be honest. The acting style was a lot bigger then and can often look almost comical now because it seems so “large” when taken out of its time and watched today, but she always managed to root everything in reality, even with that in mind. She made it so real. Others are Saving Private Ryan, Good Will Hunting, Band of Brothers. That’s off the top of my head but there are so many more! Continue reading The Wylde Interview: Sophie Skelton

Check out this great new interview and beautiful photoshoot of Sophie for Schon Magazine.

Warning: This interview does contain some spoilers for this season of “Outlander” so please only read if you have read the books or do not mind spoilers.

Refreshingly down-to-earth, Sophie Skelton seems blissfully unaware that she is on the brink of stardom. Earlier this year, she appeared with Nicolas Cage in 211, but she’s probably most recognisable as Brianna Randall Fraser, the flame-haired progeny of the hero and heroine of Outlander. Based on the best-selling books by Diana Gabaldon, the show is such a hit State-side that fans have dubbed off-air time as #Droughtlander. Well, the drought is finally is over. Outlander returns with a highly anticipated fourth season, only – this time around – Ms Skelton will be taking the lead.

So, Sophie, you started out dancing ballet, right?

I did, yes, when I was two or three – tap, jazz and modern as well. I did all of them until I was 18, 19. Now I just try to keep up with it. I always travel with my pointe shoes.

At what point did you start performing professionally?

I’ve been in amateur productions since I was three and went more professional as a teenager. I grew up North, so I started doing shows at the Palace Theatre: Oliver! and things like that. Ballet was never what I wanted to do professionally. I do love being on stage, but I wanted the discretion of film acting because, on stage, you make everything bigger. I like that you can’t lie on camera: what you think is what people see.

You made a deal with your parents to defer university to try out an acting career.

Yes. My parents designed toys, board games and such, so they knew the self-employment road. I’d done well at school, I suppose, so they were disappointed that I wasn’t going to pursue the academic route and a stable career, and they did try to put me off a bit. We struck a deal that if I got all A stars at A-level and a university place, they would let me defer for a year. As it turns out, that year went quite well [laughs].

Were you confident it was going to work out?

It’s not confidence. You know it’s going to be a hard road but it’s just that you can’t give yourself another reality if that makes sense? It’s not that you think everything’s going to be fine, you just have to believe that it is. I feel like that never really goes away.

Prior to Outlander, was there a turning point in your career?

Outlander was my pivotal point really. I’d done what, for British actors, are the boxes that needed to be ticked. I’d been in Casualty twice, done a lot of CBBC.
Continue reading Schon Magazine Interview & Photoshoot