Lydia West Is in Your Corner
After breaking out in the U.K., the actress arrives Stateside with Big Mood, a dark riff on the buddy comedy.
Warning: Mild spoilers for season one of Big Mood ahead.
Last spring, Lydia West found herself in an eerily familiar bar. She and Nicola Coughlan were filming Big Mood, a dramedy series about two almost-30 women nursing a semi-dysfunctional friendship, in a corner of the world West knows intimately. “This show feels like my London,” she tells me, her dimples caving into a friendly grin. “We filmed scenes for Wet Mouth, the pub my character owns, on the road I used to live on. I went on some weird dates at that pub.” This time, instead of suffering through someone’s idea of flirty small talk, West was faced with a more daunting challenge: pulling a pint on-camera. “It’s hard! You can’t get it too foamy,” she says.
We’re on the fifth floor of a midtown hotel, where West is promoting Big Mood’s Stateside arrival via Tubi. The show, a knotty portrait of female friendship that falls somewhere between Broad City and Insecure, marks a turning point for the self-proclaimed “drama girlie.” After supporting roles in 2019’s Years and Years and 2020’s Dracula, the actress found a major U.K. audience in It’s a Sin, Russell T. Davies’s ensemble miniseries about a group of friends living through the AIDS crisis in ’80s London. Three years and three Netflix spots later, she’s sharing top billing with Coughlan in a project helmed by playwright (and Coughlan’s longtime friend) Camilla Whitehill.
Like It’s a Sin, West considers Big Mood a “real ensemble project” with her and Coughlan splitting the screen time down the middle. Although the premise revolves in part around Maggie’s (Coughlan) mood disorder, it’s just as invested in Eddie (West) — her desperate efforts to save her late father’s bar, her conflicting feelings about having children, and her stubborn insistence on playing caregiver to her best friend. West herself is filled with the even-keeled self-possession of a woman you’d want in your corner at all times, making her a shoo-in for playing someone’s emotional rock. But that’s the easy part — under Eddie’s heroism is a roiling sea of anger and insecurity. “Eddie needs Maggie to need her,” says West, who mixes her role with equal parts intensity and deadpan British humor.
West’s life may have resembled Eddie’s barhopping Hackney existence at one point, but the show, which aired in the U.K. in March and hits Tubi on April 19, coincides with the start of a very different chapter in her life: Two months ago, she welcomed a baby. “I’ve gotten more relaxed as I’ve entered my 30s,” she says. With that mind-set, doing press for Big Mood while taking care of a newborn is not as chaotic as it sounds — “This doesn’t take much out of me emotionally” — but not everyone is handling the transition so smoothly. Have her cats, Lily and Nala, whose silhouettes are tattooed on the inside of West’s ankles, warmed to their newest family member yet? “They are not happy.”
Where did you grow up, and where is home for you?
I grew up in Barnet, in North London, with my parents and my brother and sister. Big Mood is set in Hackney, where I lived for a few years and then I kind of grew up and moved to the suburbs. Now, home is Walthamstow in northeast London.
Who was the first actor who made you realize you could do it, too?
I admired Viola Davis from a really young age. She’s so ugly in her performance. Not in a physical way — it’s just truthful and emotional. That was really inspiring for me. I felt like I could see her soul in all her characters. I don’t just want to be this actor that looks good and has surface-level emotions. I want to be able to access sadness or deep, true happiness. I prefer roles that let me show my “worst self” and not just be pretty and sweet.
What’s the biggest misconception about acting that you’d like to clear up?
That it’s glamorous. It can be quite exhausting. A lot of us are just figuring out what the next job is in a field riddled with insecurities and anxieties.
Also, you need to navigate fame, which is quite intense and anxiety-provoking. No one teaches you how to deal with that, how to present yourself when you’re not working and you’re just being Lydia in the supermarket. I act because I enjoy the craft of it, but being recognized was a huge shock to me. I was in a really recognizable show that came out during lockdown in the U.K., so I was also suddenly known to people as we were coming out of lockdown into a new world. It felt doubly weird. I had a lot of worries about how people would perceive me. Jill in It’s a Sin was such a heroine, and I felt not good enough in myself to be seen as that person. Over time, I’ve separated myself from the roles I play, and I’m able to just take it on the chin.
What’s something that people might be surprised to learn about you?
I love pottery. I get these weird, all-consuming obsessions. For a while, it was boxing. Last year, I became really immersed in hot yoga, and I wanted to become an instructor. I was researching getting my 200-hour training in Bali. Then I was like, Wait, I actually have a full-time job.
What impression do you hope you give people when you meet them?
I want people to feel comfortable, relaxed, and like they can talk to me. I wanted to be liked for a lot of my life — I spent my 20s wanting people to be like, She’s sweet. She’s kind. She’s funny. Now I don’t have any of that. If we’ve had a nice conversation and I’m open and you’re open and we vibe, I’m happy. If not, that’s also fine.
Did you have a plan B when you started acting?
Acting was kind of my backup. I studied business at university and worked in London as a personal assistant when I graduated. The plan was to become a manager and work in business. It feels so bizarre to think that that could have been my life. My final job before I booked Years and Years was for a cryptocurrency organization. I had no idea what bitcoin or blockchain was, and I would just do my boss’s errands, his shopping, make his tea, answer his e-mails. He kept telling me to invest in crypto. I was like, I make zero pennies. I don’t know what this fake money is.
I was going through a really hard stage where I was in a dead-end relationship, really unhappy at work, and unfulfilled. I joined a theater company and did a fringe play with them. I always describe becoming part of this theater company as therapy before I knew what therapy was. It was a form of escapism for me, a way to disappear from a life I wasn’t really enjoying. I always grew up dancing and acting, and it let me be creative again. From there, it escalated. I got an agent and that led to Years and Years and then I just kept working.
Does acting still feel like escapism for you?
Definitely. I get so invested in projects, which is why I’m so selective now. It is like baring a part of my soul. I don’t really do much characterwork. I’m more just like, What would I feel? It’s quite emotionally draining.
When did you feel you could start getting more selective about which roles you took?
It’s a Sin did so well, and it taught me my worth as an actor. It’s hard for every job to be a public service, but it struck a chord with so many people, and it felt educational and inspiring. I like doing projects that are impactful on a social level.
It’s a Sin also taught me about ensemblework and showing up and being nice to work with. All of us were quite new actors, but I had more experience than a lot of the boys. That was really a turning point in my career. I felt like, This is how I have to operate on future jobs if I want that kind of set. I went out for more lead roles and felt like I could be the leader of a set and create a safe environment for people to work in. I talk about safe a lot. Actors work extremely long hours on short schedules, and there’s a lot of pressure. If I’m in a higher position, why wouldn’t I try and create the nicest environment possible?
Did the Big Mood set have that vibe?
I compare this show to It’s a Sin a lot because both are real ensemble projects of good energy, good people, a great working atmosphere, and collaboration. Everyone was taking care of everyone’s brain — we had a mental-health adviser who anyone in the cast or crew could talk to. Nicola is so generous, has no ego, and we genuinely get on. The chemistry you see onscreen is real. She was filming Bridgerton at the same time when we started filming, and I was rehearsing for my play at the end, but we had two weeks in between where we were both relaxed. Nicola hosted dinner parties. We were all obsessed with Vanderpump Rules, so we did a TikTok to the opening song.
The show has all these references — Avril Lavigne, Love Actually — that are very recognizable to people of a certain age group. What are those pieces of culture for you that represent a specific era or age?
The Spice Girls and American Apparel disco pants. Anyone our age saved up all of our money to spend on expensive leggings and wear them every weekend. We thought they looked amazing.
The cultural conversation around mental health has shifted a lot recently. Do you think Big Mood reflects that?
We’re very comfortable talking about anxiety, depression, and some of the more “palatable” mental illnesses that are more in the Zeitgeist with therapy-talk and this notion of self-care. Big Mood mocks that a little bit. It takes a left turn. Maggie is dealing with the effects of lithium and basically trying not to get institutionalized the whole time. That’s scary. And it’s very uncommon for people to talk about, as open as we are with anxiety and depression.
In the first episode of the show, Eddie says women can spend their 20s starting a family or doing ketamine and both are valid choices. Where on that spectrum did you fall?
I spent a lot of my 20s not knowing who I was and feeling very insecure. A lot of the time, I felt not worthy of any love, so I would just chase it and find myself unhappy. I wanted to be loved so badly that I would’ve accepted scraps. I also had tunnel vision and a very addictive, all-consuming personality. If I did something, I had to do it perfectly. I’ve dropped that idea of perfectionism and gotten more relaxed. In my late 20s, I found a bit more self-worth, and now I have a more loving relationship with myself.
Are you in a romantic relationship?
Yeah, I am. And I have a child!
You filmed Big Mood before getting pregnant. Has motherhood changed how you think about Eddie’s story line in the show?
I would’ve played the pregnancy sickness a lot more authentically. The gagging and vomiting was hard. But I love that the show explores Eddie’s desire to have kids, and fertility, and her choice to have an abortion. I loved playing that and then I got pregnant a few months later and was sick all over again.
Are you planning your career any differently now that you have a child?You can’t plan a career; you just have to plan what you do on each job. I’ll have my son in mind when selecting future projects. I want him to travel with me and experience this life. The emotional toll a job takes on me is now more of a consideration. Before, I didn’t mind sacrificing my own mental health and stress levels to do a job. Now I’m more conscious of, What do I need to be for this person?
You did a one-woman play called A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction last year. Do you want to do more theater?
I’d like to do half-and-half. Theater has great hours for child care. I think I’d want to be part of a company. Doing a one-woman show was exhausting, but I’m glad I can say I did it. It makes you feel invincible. I’ve done the worst now, and it’s so terrifying that anything else will just be easy.
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