Year 9 student Evie Kiszel has already got her foot on the film-making ladder when she landed the incredible opportunity of voicing one of the main characters in the recently released animated film, The Imaginary.
Available on Netflix, The Imaginary is based on the book by AF Harrold, directed by Yoshiyuki Momose (known for his work on Spirited Away) about childhood and (imaginary) friendship.
Evie describes her character, Amanda, as “a free spirited and lovely girl with a wild imagination” and was inspired by her individuality and perseverance, saying that “she has taught me that despite challenges, we are strong enough to overcome them and succeed”.
As part of the recording process, Evie was privileged to spend a few weeks in LA and attended premieres in both LA and London where she was excited to meet other stars such as Jeremy Swift, Disney’s Sky Katz and AF Harrold himself.
Surprisingly, Evie hasn’t always dreamed of being an actress and only got involved in acting fairly recently during the covid pandemic when she asked her parents about joining an acting school. Since then, she has starred in three other films. You may have even seen her on TV as she was featured in an advert for a garden company!
To land a starring role in The Imaginary, her fourth film, Evie made it through a rigorous, three-step audition process that began with sending a voice-recording to a studio in Japan. She then travelled to London for a video-call with the Japanese studio board and finally with the London-based crew in person.
Although this all sounds nerve-wracking, with teams of up to six or seven people watching you audition, Evie explained that it is “best not to worry about what they think as that will only make your performance worse”.
She later received the happy news that she had been chosen for the role in June (whilst she was at Camp Emmanuel at the end of Year 7!).
Evie told us that “performing is the cool bit” as she loves being behind the scenes on-set and being able to see all the hard work that goes into producing a film. Despite this, the role does come with a few challenges, particularly in doing voice work. Adapting the delivery of each line to the mouth movements of the animated characters takes a lot of skill and requires a lot of patience. Evie revealed that it is common for actors to do up to 10 takes of a scene! But she has taken all of this in her stride and said that the hard work involved in her role has inspired her to go on and gain more experience.
Evie is looking forward to pursuing acting in the future, explaining that there are so many other roles in the industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Her advice to anyone wanting to get into acting would be to join a stage school, and then continue to do the things you enjoy, continually getting feedback and improving your performances. She also said that using online platform such as StarNow and Mandy can be very useful in getting started in applying for roles. However, her main advice would be to keep accepting and learning from your mistakes, and – most importantly – to do something you enjoy!
We are so proud of Evie and look forward to seeing where her talent will take her in the future.
Emily Leyland, 13 Smith
