Umi Myers bagged a role in Bob Marley biopic, One Love, not long after leaving drama school. Now she co-leads the TV series Dope Girls with punchy chemistry and feminist flair. The period drama tells the story of the female trailblazers who started Soho’s nightlife. “Fundamentally, it’s a story about people who are trying to empower themselves and messing things up,” Myers tells me. After my sneak peek ahead of the interview, I can say it’s a unique watch. Think Peaky Blinders meets Cabaret. Plus, a bit of the Ocean’s films’ energy thrown in – specifically the one where they are all kickass women.
On meeting Myers, I’m struck by how I feel I have both gone back in time yet simultaneously jumped the queue in meeting a great artist before the rest of the world. If it’s not her looks – a dark, Monroe-style bob, striking beauty (and incredibly cool baggy trousers) – it’s her creative outlook. The sun has finally decided to come out, and Myers brings some artistic sparkle to this cold winter day.
After a few questions about the show’s air dates, shoot locations and upcoming press, we are quickly into the good stuff. The big stuff. We discuss with heavy sighs the current state of the world, particularly for women. I wonder: did Dope Girls set out with a bigger message in mind?
“I guess it is important now, given the discourse globally, but what this show wants to display is that women are multifaceted and always have been,” she says. “There’s a lot of period dramas which look at women living within the confines of a society or a class structure. Dope Girls looks at how humans have always been humans. And they’ve always had messy, ugly things going on. I don’t think any of the creative team set out to make something with ‘this is a feminist piece’ in mind”.
The series is based on the book of the same name by Marek Kohn. Myers plays Billie, a feisty performer who spearheads the underground drug-fuelled nightclub. Myers’ character is quite the tour de force. She speaks to how much fun she had working in an immersive environment, playing a flamboyant, sometimes selfish, character: “The whole world is so colourful. It’s a vibrant and vivacious show, especially Billie; she’s very hedonistic.”
Episode one sees Myers sport an ostentatious outfit she refers to as “the hedgehog”. A punky, spiky, lemon-yellow two-piece. The scene she’s wearing it was her introduction to the writing: “That was the first bit of the script I read. There and then I just knew I wanted to do it.” Out-with the hedgehog, the other costumes are also show-stopping. “Billie’s whole wardrobe is so expressive – sort of like she’s come out of a costume box and stitched all these things together.”
There’s an element of double performance for Myers in this role. Her character acts and dances on stage, something she later realised helped her get out of her brain, get present in the moment and reconnect with artistic mediums she’d enjoyed in younger years. “I did a lot of dancing growing up – contemporary, flamenco,” she recalls. “Billie helped Umi get out of Umi’s brain, and allowed me to safely explore being a ‘tortured artist’.” She laughs, rolling her eyes at herself as she creates the air quotes with her hands. Something mandatory after you refer to yourself in the third person, I think. While she clearly takes her craft quite seriously, Myers is self-aware enough to clock the moment where she tips into ‘worthy actor’ territory and does so with good humour.
A lover of live performance, she misses the feeling of being on stage: “I miss theatre. I have been doing screen for the last couple of years, but I miss the experience of theatre. I miss the rehearsal room; I miss the ensemble; I miss the time of rehearsal. Screen can sometimes feel a bit disjointed.” We reflect on how Dope Girls allowed her to do both, embracing the synergies and nuances of live performance within the subtlety and realism of on-screen acting.
She notes the shoot sometimes felt like working in a theatre with a collaborative cast and dedicated team working hard to build a visual spectacle. Every small detail we see on screen is thanks to forensic planning from costume designer Sophie Canale and production designer, Sherree Phillips. Myers explains: “Shannon Murphy, our director, really wanted it to feel as if someone just dropped a camera in the middle of Soho, so the show has a sort of anarchic quality to it.”
The coffee arrives. Myers offers an affirmative ‘yes’ to sugar when asked by the barista. We discuss her sweet tooth and quickly enter self-appraisals on where we land on the choco-loving to choco-holic spectrum. I prefer the dark stuff; she says she’s working her way there. Lindt gets a mention. Yet, Dairy Milk has her tongue. It’s strictly to be kept in the fridge. A family tradition given to her by her father.
It’s no surprise creativity runs deep; theatre and performance has surrounded her since childhood. Her dad, a theatre actor, and her mother, a costume and set designer, regularly took her to the theatre growing up. “I’m really lucky and privileged to be able to have been in that world. I was lucky to see rehearsals and go to shows and press nights as their kid.” Now, she looks to screen for inspiration too: “Film is something I’ve been trying harder to go and see more of in my twenties.”
Myers is a member and regular at some of London’s most iconic cinemas with her housemates, fellow actors she met at drama school. The Prince Charles gets a shout out (she has the tote bag with her). We quickly despair at the idea of it shutting down. “It’s the only good thing about Leicester Square!” she says.
When not at the cinema, you can find her flaneuring in London’s parks, a good book in hand. She’s an avid reader. We spend a large amount of time at the end of the interview exchanging personal book recommendations. The perfect London day to her is hot: “well, warm enough to be wearing a vest and jeans” and she enjoys a slow-pace while on the hunt for London’s best sandwiches. “Maybe if I’m feeling really cool, I’ll get a pedalo,” she chuckles. Possibly the only non-creative thing she says during our interview.
Myers is a jack-of-all-arts. And it doesn’t stop there. She’s half Scottish, currently leaning into her Gaelic roots (shout out Duolingo). She also writes poetry, though she’s more coy about this personal, vulnerable part of herself: “I keep that stuff quite close to my chest.” Having had the privilege of immersing myself in her brain for this coffee’s duration, I have a suspicion her poetry would be quite brilliant.
Covid hit during her second year at Guildhall. They conducted movement classes, improv and Shakespeare via Zoom. To mute or not to mute, that is the question. She mentions how difficult it was just to do something which is inherently a craft between people: “The real-life connection is so important.” The disconnect caused bigger challenges for the year group. “I was lucky that I had the space, and parents that were cool with me doing my thing ,but the equaliser of drama school is that everybody has the same environment, you know, studio space, theatre access. Instead, people were back home, or in student accommodation; the disparity between set-ups was unfair.”
They managed to do some performances in the final year. She giggles as she recounts socially distanced dramas with live-stream audiences. No agents came to watch. It was the school’s short film assignments that secured her representation and helped her land the role as Cindy Breakspeare in One Love.
We talk about the Bob Marley biopic, which grossed 180.8 million US dollars at the global box office. A huge job for someone not long out of drama school. “Looking back, I think I was quite green during that time,” she reflects.
Before even being cast, Myers wrote letters to the character as part of her audition process, helping her access the character. She never sent them, but then after she was cast, she had the opportunity to. “I got really close and I’m still close with Cindy. She was so open and willing to have conversations with me.” She candidly shares the pressure that comes with playing a real-life person, particularly one still alive.
“There’s real archival footage of her from winning Miss World. And footage of her later living in Jamaica. The accent was something she desperately wanted to get right. “The accent thing was definitely scary… she’s Jamaican, and I am half-Jamaican,” says Myers. “When you’re playing a real-life person, you’re really just trying to bring as much of this person into yourself and your mannerisms without just impersonating.”
She recalls how much she learnt about the process from her co-stars, particularly Kingsley Ben-Adir who played Bob Marley. “He would have certain phrases and sentences to help with the accent before cameras were rolling. He would really get himself in the right place even before the scene would start.”
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We can expect to see her on screen again. Myers just finished shooting an indie flick in New Zealand where she fell in love with the landscape. “I wish it wasn’t so far away, because I found it very grounding as a place. The production was Māori-led…all of that culture was amazing.” Without specifics, she discusses a few things in her future she’s hoping for. “There’s some things I’m praying will land,” she says, then uses the M word. Manifesting.
She pauses, worrying I’m the kind of journalist who will judge her. “No go, I believe in the woo woo. I’m here for it!” I proffer. Her shoulders drop, her face relaxes. “I think in an industry like acting when you don’t have control it gives me a sense of vision, purpose and drive. And it doesn’t always mean that everything happens but by immersing yourself in the world it can only mean you learn something from it.” I love her outlook.
Myers is not acting, she’s embodying. And it works. She starts preparation for roles sometimes before she’s even been cast. She’s not shy about doing her homework, in fact, she adores the process. The more unstructured and personal, the better: “I’m quite messy with my process in general,” she says, sharing a bunch of creative, alternative ways she has got into character. Before and during filming she creates playlist and Pinterest boards. Immersing herself with location visuals to musical influences and colour schemes.
We finish the interview with me being party to the Dope Girls vision board: “I was looking at a lot of imagery and videos from around that era and later on. Josephine Baker was a massive reference for me, an African American who became a citizen of France.” The sexy-hedgehog costume is based on Baker.
Inspiration came from other musical and performing icons such as Sinéad O’Connor: “Her punkness, and anti-establishment – you know, ripping up a picture of the pope,” she laughs. Nina Simone, FKA Twigs, and Madonna all get a mention. Myers hands me the phone, sepia images of golden age feminists, striking black and white stills of women who break the mould. Glamour, with a side of rage; sparkle with a side of rebellion. Striking beauty with deeply intellectual undercurrents. True artists, much like Myers herself.
“They were ahead of their time and also became symbols of their time because they made such an impact.” If she carries on her current trajectory with the same commitment to her craft, I have a feeling we could be saying something similar about Myers in the not-too-distant future.
Episodes of Dope Girls are available on iPlayer and release Saturday evenings on BBC One.
