A Posh bit of La La Land
Aug 4 2007
by Hannah Jones, Western Mail
How do you get ahead in Hollywood? Make sure you’ve got the right jeans on for a start. That’s the advice a Welsh starlet’s given new girl Victoria Beckham as she settles down to life in La La Land
A WELSH actress who’s got the skinny on life in LA has issued some words of advice to Victoria Beckham – if you want to get ahead, get a massage and make sure you’re wearing the right jeans.
Siobhan Flynn, below, who recently moved from Wales to live in the Hollywood Hills, says the pressure on people to look good all the time is so great, even someone like Posh, pictured, won’t be able to afford to let her guard down.
“In the UK you go to auditions as you are,” said Siobhan, who has starred in BBC Wales productions Hearts of Gold and Belonging.
“At my first audition in LA I thought I was looking nice and fresh, but they said, ‘It’s so lovely, you look like you’ve just stepped off a farm.’
“Now I have a blow-out, pedicure and manicure before an audition.”
Siobhan, who has set up home in LA in the hope of landing more TV work – she’s already had small parts on shows Tales From The Crypt and Charmed – even admits to wearing a “uniform” when she’s meeting important showbiz executives who could make or break her career.
“It’s a nice pair of jeans, a shirt and a v-necked jumper or a jacket.
“The ‘in’ brand of jeans is always changing, but I usually wear James or J Brand.”
As well as wearing the right clothes, Siobhan says the place for Posh to be seen is not a glitzy celebrity party, but a massage parlour in downtown LA.
“It’s a place called Nuch Massage which gives you an amazing massage for $45.
“They even wash your feet in rose petals.”
Siobhan, who recently finished filming Sex & Death 101, a comedy starring Winona Ryder, is the la-*test*-('") Welsh actor to try and make it big in what’s commonly known as La La Land.
Others, who have already found fame and fortune in America, have also found the industry’s image obsession hard to take.
Owain Yeoman, from Chepstow, lives with his actress wife Lucy Davis – best known for her role as Dawn in The Office – in LA.
Both of them have been hitting the audition trail hard since leaving Britain last year.
Owain, who got a part in a show called The Nine, said, “When I first came out here I was doing about 10 auditions a week, you get very used to the sound of ‘no’.
“I got everything from ‘your nose, smile and eyebrows are too wrong’. I think what I learnt in a very short time was to view yourself as something that you are selling.”
Cardiff-based actress Ruth Jones, recognisable as Nesta from Gavin & Stacey and barmaid Myfanwy in Little Britain, says she loves Wales too much to consider trying her luck in America.
“I don’t have that much ambition to be honest.
“It’s not even the fact that you have to look a certain way that puts me off,” she added.
“I just couldn’t go out there and wait for auditions. I think the Welsh actors who’ve done it, like Ioan Gruffudd, who was in the film Fantastic Four and Matthew Rhys (currently in the smash hit series Brothers & Sisters), have done brilliantly.
“But it’s not the kind of place for me.”
Neither is it a pressing calling for Torchwood’s copper Gwen, played by Swansea actress Eve Myles.
Although she admits that her agent has been touting her showreel to American agents, she’s in no rush to slip out of her usual attire of combats and Converse trainers to make more of an effort in Hollywood.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t go to LA but I wouldn’t go out for anything or just to hang around just in case something happened.
“What’s the point of that? I’ve got stuff to do here.”
Words by Hannah Jones
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