“The Undeclared War” star Hannah Khalique-Brown reveals she sent 1,000 emails to agents and casting directors that went unanswered

Exclusive: Hannah Khalique-Brown, with screenwriter and director Peter Kosminsky (Hall of the wolf) Six-part cyber thriller The submerged war – starting June 30 on Channel 4 and all 4 in the UK, Peacock in the US on August 18 – Deadline says he wrote 1,000 emails in two years and “begged” casting agents and directors from the UK to see her perform in Fabulous Shows. And “none of them answered”.

“However, sometimes I get an automated response,” which is still denied, said Khalik-Brown, who attracts the attention of London and Hollywood studios.

The 23-year-old said she spent hours browsing casting and talent agency websites. “I emailed 180 of them, three times a year for two years. I wouldn’t even email them. They were all individual emails. I would like to go into their list and see who they represent and write what I think. I really liked it. “

However, if they already had Asian actors “who look like me, then I wouldn’t email them,” he explained.

Their plight underscores the difficulties facing future players from diverse backgrounds in an obviously UK-based industry.

Khalik-Brown is thinking about it now. “I understand a lot more about how the industry works,” he told her. “I understand why no one answered me, because they probably couldn’t even see it in their inbox. “Unless you have a headshot or link attached, they have nothing to extend.”

In addition, he did not go to drama school. Most theater colleges have a proven method whereby agents are invited to attend year-end performances to try out new talent. However, drama school was not his preferred option, choosing to read English literature at King’s College in central London.

But he had his own backup plans. In August 2019, Khalik-Brown auditioned and won a seat to perform a monologue at the BAME (Black Asian Minority Ethnic) Actors Show. “It was an acronym used at the time,” she explained. He has been benevolent ever since.

The screening at the Southwark Playhouse Theater in South London, South London, was presented by Suraj Shah and was attended by agents and casting professionals. “I have received offers from three agents. He said, ‘Finally! I’m sending you all for about two years.’ I just knew that as soon as they saw me, it would be an opportunity. “

A few days later, he signed a contract with Keddie Scott Associates Fiona Kedi-Ord, based in London.

Hollywood Affirmative Entertainment is operated by Khalik-Brown

“It’s hard for anyone to get in,” said Khalique-Brown, who noted that neither her parents – her father retired from the NHS, her mother is a lawyer – nor did she have any ties to the entertainment industry.

“Finding an agent was my biggest task,” he said. “It was only through the performance of these ethnic actors that I was able to see it. I climbed onto their shoulders and they helped me ”.

And it was through the tape sent to his casting office in London by Andy Brierley and Victor Jenkins that he was considered the favorite for the lead role. The submerged war. Part of Sarah Parwan, a 21-year-old college hacker who is doing an internship at the Malware Division of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a top secret UK intelligence facility, will change the game. A young actor. The drama is gripping with echoes of the 2020 US presidential election, although the action takes place in London and the US. Moscow and Washington often hang out.

Kosminsky told Deadline that 100 candidates had applied for the job. “At the start of all races, considering Sarah is 21 in 2024, when the show takes place.

“It’s hard to find a person of this age, who is decidedly inexperienced, who can play the lead role on the show,” he said, although he noted that this is a dilemma he has faced in previous shows; She thinks of Claire Foy, who she was relatively unknown when a director hired her. Პρο ობა In 2010.

Khalique-Brown said two months after posting her first selfie that she was asked to take another recording. This time she was armed with Kosminsky’s notes, “which was great,” she said.

“He gave me a document with several pages of Sarah’s story, her childhood, her character, her personality, her wants and needs,” Khalique-Brown told Deadline. “Obviously this is gold dust for the actor and the way I work, building a life separate from my life, it became very nice to get it.”

He was then asked to recall a 30-minute zoom that lasted about an hour and a half, in which Brierley read the other characters while Kosminsky watched them.

Khalique-Brown didn’t know he had emerged on the front lines, said Colin Calender, co-founder and president of Playground Entertainment, a frequent employee of Kosminsky who is still associated with him: Channel 4 and Peacock. The submerged war.

The problem was that they didn’t know him at this point. “He was in the middle of the covid and Peter wanted to stop him before we met him in person,” recalls the calendar. “It was clear that he had such a star quality.

Months passed. Khalique-Brown starred in several episodes of the BBC soap opera doctors. Then, almost a year after the first audience tape was sent, he was asked to prepare several scenes for a face-to-face meeting with Kosminsky and the casting directors. “I refused to listen to him because I am quite ruthless in thinking about the audience. I won’t allow myself to think it has anything to do with the result … it just has to be hard work to be proud of and share. I call it a workshop. I didn’t tell my parents because they would have been very excited. I tried to protect my thinking; You should. This is an exciting industry. If you don’t, you could be hurt.

“I want to do it forever and I don’t want to be hurt by any rejection, it’s just not sustainable,” he said.

Khalique-Brown left the meeting satisfied “with no expectations. I was grateful for the whole experience. “

The next day he had another job: a line directed by Shekhar Kapoor in the film What does love have to do with this?From the script by Jamie Khan (American criminal history). He read another major role in the film, but didn’t get it.

Bevan Casting’s casting director Olivia Grant Lucy He was impressed and gave Lily James a joke. (Little boy Driver).

When he got home that night, his agent called FaceTime, who was crying.

Kosminsky gave him a role.

This is the role that dominates all six episodes. The submerged war. In this regard, Kosminsky said in an email reply to Deadline: “Of course, you need an excellent actor, a person who can perform effectively on different stages and with other actors. [Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Alex Jennings, Adrian Lester, Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Tom McKay, to name a few] As required series The submerged war. “

He continued: “And for the bullet, you’re looking for something else. One way to describe it would be charisma. Sometimes the camera is said to love a particular actor. I would say it is unequal and cannot be taught or learned. Yet it seems that some special actors have it. Hannah is one of those actresses.

The first time I saw it I know, I know, I know, a play by Flora Wilson Brown that aired at the Southwark Playhouse, I follow Kosminsky’s assessment of Khalique-Brown’s performance. He is a compelling young artist. In the 75-minute comedy, he played a young woman who was sexually assaulted by a famous (fictional) rock star.

We talk in the lobby of the bar after the show and I almost do. I did not know him. He had the same long dark hair, the same complexion, but he looked completely different. We talked about his family, he has a musician brother, his school and the 1000 emails sent to agents and casting directors.

We had another much longer conversation on Zoom in which she shared memories of her childhood performance.

“Because I remember that I was a kind of interpreter, not in a structured way, but all my life I wanted to share and I even thought about it,” he said.

As we have already mentioned, neither parent is an actor, “but they are both theatrical characters in different ways. “It’s in our blood,” she said excitedly.

He and his dad loved to perform while traveling in cars, which they both drove when he was little. “We had a repertoire of different characters that we were going to play. They would have different names, different sounds. You sat in that seat in that car and you were in a good mood and you didn’t get out of character until you got out of the car on the other side, ”he recalls.

His father oftenShe would play a 5-year-old girl and one of her favorite roles was a 40-year-old woman when he was 5.

She also liked the Sloan Ranger girl game “ridiculously elegant voice”. He was really tight. “My father is from Dartford, South East London,” she said.

On the other hand, he pretended to be a high-class prankster, talking to a grown man who appeared to be a child who spoke an English estuarine accent.

“They were all fictional characters,” he said. “I think my training started with my dad in the car. I am aware of that. “

One summer, during a school break, he went to camp and took acting lessons. He was given the Greek mask of fear and he had to personify it. Later he performed solo works under the pretext of fear. At the end of the camp exhibition, which was attended by the parents.

Khalik-Brown learned years later that Mr. Cleland, an acting teacher at the camp, had brought his parents with him and told them they should be allowed to “follow him” because “he’s a star.”

Khalique-Brown said her parents encouraged her to take action. “I truly believe that if your parents can make you feel like a star, it’s not because you’re natural, but because they tell you it’s happening.”

On his thirteenth birthday, his mother took him to see James McEvoy (His dark materials) play Macbeth. Remember to love McVeigh’s visceral performance. they have seen it too Swan Lake He performed that day at the Royal Albert Hall. I went to dance classes “because I was acting”.

While attending King’s College, he joined the King’s Players and appeared in plays by playwright Philip Riddle in 1994. Ghosts of an ideal place. “Many people have said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Go and be an actor? ‘ “I thought I was going to drop out of King’s School and go to acting school,” she said.

Instead, he stayed in college and performed in “over useless pubs” shows in his spare time.

“It’s absolutely crazy that my first big job was working with these people; “These are absolute legends,” she said, citing Rylans, Peggy and Jennings.

Rylance plays a veteran analyst at GCHQ, and he and Sarah form an incredible but wonderful friendship.

“Mark Rylance is an absolute master,” Khalik-Brown said. “I don’t know which planet he’s from, but he’s from another world, it’s just amazing.” He followed up with Peggy for his humor for her and Jennings for her therapeutic desirability.

This is a giant role for Hannah Halle-Brown The submerged war And it will remove it. Yes, Sarah is a genius. You can read code perfectly, but you can’t always read people.

This is a very demanding role for him, an intense and emotionally demanding job.

As Colin Calendar pointed out, he is our way Not announced War. “And it’s the real deal.”