One of the UK’s most prolific actors of stage and screen, the sky is still the limit for Ely girl Rakie Ayola, who is about to ascend to Mount Olympus as Persephone for Netflix series Kaos, starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus. With help from an epic Wikipedia page, she talks about this and other career highlights with Hannah Collins.

Your career is quite overwhelming on paper! I was having a quick look at your Wikipedia page and was like, “this is massive…”

Rakie Ayola: That page is the weirdest thing. It was started when I was in Holby City. I didn’t realise I had it. It’s only recently that my agent and various PR companies have been able to update it. I was like, “People don’t need to know what I said in the South Wales Echo in 2001,” but it’s all still there!

What kind of roles and projects are you attracted to these days?

Rakie Ayola: The first scene I read for Kaos featured Persephone [Rakie’s character] – it’s no longer in the show, but when I read it I thought, “I want to say these words. I want to play the woman that does this!” She turned up at Zeus’ house and helped herself to the breakfast bar. What a lovely entrance. She just starts tucking into the food!

I had the same reaction with Series 1 of The Pact. The detective I was playing says to Jason Hughes’ character, “Do you like owls? I don’t like them. They’re beady fuckers.” I can build a whole character on someone who would say that in someone else’s house when she’s been there for two minutes. I don’t get a lot of characters that do stuff like that – often they’re high-ranking, serious know-it-alls.

So, the small details are your way into the character?

Rakie Ayola: Yeah. More often than not, those little details aren’t in the script. I just find that much harder to relate to. I’m an actor who has a dramatic vein – I describe myself as having very easy access to anger and heartbreak.

What I’m interested in now is exploring my funny bone. I’m doing that on stage at the moment, and my goodness, it’s so lovely to hear people laugh at something you said. I get why that’s the drug for people. I also understand why it’s difficult to do and why I’ve maybe not been brave enough or skilled enough to do it before.

For playing Persephone, did your background in playing a lot of Shakespearean characters early in your career influence parts of that performance? Persephone is traditionally a tragic character.

Rakie Ayola: In [Kaos creator] Charlie Covell’s version, she’s not at all tragic – she’s smart and down-to-earth. I actually hated Shakespeare at school; I got to drama school and hoped I wouldn’t have to do any more, but in the second year, we had a Shakespeare project. They gave me Lady Macbeth and I cried! But the teacher we had was very skilled at drumming into us how you can access it.

My third job after that was Shakespeare, and I loved the fact that I could pick up a Shakespeare play and understand most of it. I’d be reading them with a thesaurus, wondering what a word meant. I loved that it gave me the chance to be more articulate than I had ever been and will ever be. These characters have a vocabulary at their disposal in a way that I never had. One of the fundamental things it’s given me is the ability to play detective with any script – to look for the clues that will help me form a character, or help me say things. 

I’m big on this idea that simplicity is almost anti-communication at the moment. We don’t feel the need to use words to communicate – we’re almost going back to grunting, and maybe that’s fine. As long as people know what we mean, perhaps it doesn’t matter if we’re not using big words or long sentences. But I love a sentence with a flourish. Sometimes, you can hear actors struggling when a line goes on and on. The audience gets lost. But if you can take your ear through the intricacies of the sentence and lead the audience down a path that goes all the way over the hill to the end, it’s rewarding. In losing the ability to do that, I think we’re losing that form of storytelling.

Speaking more about what gets you interested in roles: normally we get an origin story for Persephone in which she’s quite young and naïve, and doesn’t have a lot of power because Hades kidnaps her. Were you interested in bringing your life experience and maturity as an actress to this take on the character?

Rakie Ayola: Absolutely. The idea of Kaos is ‘what would characters from Greek myths do if they’d lived in the 1980s?’ – Persephone and Hades are possibly the only happily married couple in the whole series. I loved the reclaiming of that story. We see a woman who is her husband’s equal: an equal to the family she married into. In the later episodes, when you see them sitting in Olympus, this woman who is still just a Cardiff girl holds her own in this environment.

Working with David Thewlis [who plays Hades], we developed this very tactile relationship. Persephone is often fluffing his jacket or straightening his tie. Even in this thing set in the 80s, Hades and Persephone look slightly old-fashioned! It gave me vibes of those images of people in the 1950s, maybe who came over on the Windrush, who felt you always had to dress in your Sunday best if you lived in Britain. They got here and realised that not everybody did that…

What was it about the character that made you think she’s a Cardiff girl?

Rakie Ayola: The food thing comes back. The idea that a way of being comfortable, even if all you’re doing is giving the illusion of comfort, is to do the least elegant thing. Walking into this grand dining room with an enormous table – they found the most amazing mansion in Madrid for Zeus and Hera’s home – and this huge spread of food no-one’s eating, deciding you will pick a plate and eat it even though no-one told you that you could, is a way of hiding imposter syndrome. Seeing a character do that on the page, I recognised that I am going through life finding myself in those rooms, even now. I’m from a two-bed council house in Ely, and there’s Jeff Goldblum! So I get it… I’m going to deal with my nerves by just tucking into the food.

So you still get starstruck even after doing this for so long. Do you think it keeps you grounded?

Rakie Ayola: Absolutely. Janet [McTeer, who plays Hera] and I went around Madrid [while filming] and decided to go out for dinner. It didn’t occur to us that Madrid is so busy you really need to book. We ended up at the tiniest pizzeria that had two little tables outside on the pavement. I thought, here I am being told to “go away” with Janet McTeer! And kind of loving it.

On the subject of Jeff Goldblum, the Zeus role was originally going to be Hugh Grant. I know it’s hard to speculate, but what do you think Grant would have been like as opposed to Goldblum in the role?

Rakie Ayola: That’s so interesting. I think his Zeus would have had the energy Hugh’s giving at the moment – caustic, grumpy, and grouchy – and I was expecting to work against that. But what’s wonderful about Jeff is he brings his oddball, unpredictable energy. He spins lines in a way that makes me go, “I didn’t even know that was an option.” The balls he’s throwing come from behind you.

He never stops between takes, either. He liked to play this game where he’d say, “I say a movie, and then you say someone that was in that movie, and I say a movie that person was in….” No matter where we started, he would eventually get to Jeff going, “me!” Then he’d say, “let’s do it again,” you’d pick something really obscure, and somehow it would lead to him again.

I feel like he’s one of the only people who could get away with that because of his charm.

Rakie Ayola: Absolutely! And then, he’s about to do this brilliant speech in Episode 8 – he’s wittering away and I think, “that’s not the script… that’s Death Of A Salesman!” And Janet goes, “yeah, yesterday we had A Streetcar Named Desire.” Then they switch straight into the scene that he’s meant to be doing. I loved that.

Going back to David Thewlis, you two have a shared Harry Potter link: he played Remus Lupin in the films and you played Hermione in The Cursed Child. Did you talk about your experiences in the Potter world at all?

Rakie Ayola: We did – his is more far-reaching than mine, but I talked about how much I love the [Potter] superfans. A group of them have been to see the play I’m doing [My Father’s Fable] at [London’s] Bush Theatre at the moment. Many of them weren’t into theatre initially; I loved their devotion to that world. It’s not something I’ve ever experienced before.

I remember asking some people once at the stage door, “Why do you keep coming back to see The Cursed Child?” and within 24 hours there was a Twitter hashtag, #WhyIGoBackToCursedChild, with people writing essays about their relationship with the play, films, and books. They found a community they hadn’t had before. David and I talked about that. While I could meet fans night after night at the theatre, he was slightly more removed from it, but there were a ton more of them who found him through social media.

There was an exhaustive amount of talk about Hermione’s racial identity when a Black actress was cast to play her in The Cursed Child – people realised that in the books she was a character whose race is never actually specified. As an actor coming to that role, do you find that non-specificity in terms of a character’s origin freeing, because it means you can put in your own experiences and perspectives? Or do you prefer characters who are more clearly defined in terms of where they come from?

Rakie Ayola: Freeing? No, not at all. With a character like that, if it’s someone no-one has seen before, or who’s not described in any particular way, that’s freeing. However, with this role, the responsibility was huge and I took it very seriously. I have my own take on the decisions that led to Hermione always being Black or brown: I’ve never asked about it, but I think that decision couldn’t have been made without J.K. Rowling being involved. 

The response from Black and brown people was massive – they flew across the world to see the show. I felt it was my responsibility to talk to them but also to perhaps be the first Black person they’d ever had a conversation with. And, because she’s this fantastically intelligent character, you don’t want to give anyone a chance to wonder if you’re not playing her as you should. I loved playing her, I really did.

When I was announced as Hermione, someone who described themselves as a doctor and looked to be in their early twenties tweeted something like, “My life is over. This is Hermione?” I didn’t want to attack her but wasn’t sure what to say… someone else responded with, “If this is the worst thing happening in your life, I’d say it’s pretty good.” Beautiful response.

I think a lot of the issues people have with casting, especially in such iconic roles, go deeper than just appearance. It’s often tied to the historical and social dynamics where dark-skinned Black women have traditionally been at the bottom of the social hierarchy. If you have a character played by someone who you perceive as being from the bottom, and suddenly they’re at the top, it can be confusing. “If she’s up there, then where does that leave me? Am I down there?” It’s deeply ingrained.

I’ve become very cautious. I was asked to audition for a period piece about a real historical figure and decided not to, because the role wasn’t worth the potential backlash. If I’m going to play a part, it has to be something I can illuminate, because the producers won’t be there when the world criticises the casting. We saw it with Bridgerton, where Shonda Rhimes had to repeatedly explain that the diverse cast was a deliberate choice. People struggle with the idea that high-status characters can be portrayed by actors who don’t fit their historical expectations. The more people of colour are cast in various roles, the more normalised it will become. 

On a similar note, you’ve mentioned in the past that you hadn’t had the chance to play many Welsh characters. Has that changed recently?

Rakie Ayola: It has, partly because of opportunities and partly because of my own push for them. I played a Welsh character in On Bear Ridge in 2019, which was the first time in a long while that I’d done so – before then, I hadn’t used my accent much, because people often asked me to modify it. However, with more filming happening in Wales, including Cardiff, there’s a greater awareness and acceptance of Welsh accents.

I’ve been involved in both plays and TV projects that highlight Welsh characters – it’s been wonderful to have this support and to see Wales holding me up over the past few years. When I was given the Sian Phillips Award last year, I was honoured, but also happy to be the 18th recipient rather than the first Black recipient, as they initially wanted to say I was. I feel proud to be in good company, and I hope more Black and brown actors in Wales receive recognition in the future.

What’s the secret to having a long-lasting, successful acting career?

Rakie Ayola: Having friends who energise you. Women in my casting bracket, like Golda Rosheuvel from Bridgerton and Michelle Greenidge from Doctor Who, are friends and we support one another, which stops any bitterness around going for the same parts. You know, ‘a step forward for you is a step forward for me’. Young actors must understand that building these relationships can be beneficial in the long run – you don’t want to suddenly work with someone you’ve been ignoring for 20 years…

That seems like good advice for any industry.

Rakie Ayola: It really does help to have a network of friends and allies. I’m thrilled to see my colleagues succeed and I’m genuinely proud of their achievements. For example, seeing Sharon Duncan-Brewster in the first Dune film at the Venice Film Festival was a highlight for me.

Is there anything else you’d like to add or mention that we haven’t covered?

Rakie Ayola: I hope the Labour government honours its promise to maintain funding for the arts in schools. I received significant support for my arts training, and while it might not have stopped me from becoming an actor if I hadn’t had it, it was crucial for my development. Nurturing future talent shouldn’t be left to those with wealth alone. The arts need public investment to thrive, and cutting funding could mean losing a vital democratic demographic. 

I also shot a film in Bristol called Bad Apples with Saoirse Ronan, which is still in post-production. Hopefully, it will be out next year. I want to emphasise how wonderful it was working with her. Despite all her success, she remains incredibly kind and professional. It’s been a pleasure!

Kaos is streaming from Thurs 29 Aug on Netflix. Info: here

words HANNAH COLLINS