Lucy Heath is a British actor and writer known for her versatile talent in both screen and stage performances. She has appeared in various film and television roles, often blending sharp wit with a strong emotional presence. Alongside her acting career, Lucy is a skilled writer who has contributed to projects highlighting her unique voice and perspective. Her work often showcases her keen eye for character and storytelling, earning her recognition as a creative force in contemporary British entertainment.

Heath chats with us today about the new TV Drama 'Sweetpea', balancing being in and out on set and other genres she would love to sink her teeth into.

Your role in Sweetpea has received much attention - what about the character or the story initially drew you to this project?

Lucille is a vapid, disingenuous, flirt - what’s not to love about playing a character like that?! 

After being sent all the episodes, I could sense the purpose of Lucille’s character was to help the audience empathise with a psychotic serial killer, Rhiannon (Ella Purnell) whilst also bringing humour to some darker subject matters. Which is a gift of a part because it means you can play around with being extra-irritating. If no one needs to like your character or even side with them - it gives you free license to see how far you can push the other character’s buttons - and creating friction in scenes is always fun.

I also love the fact that in the audition tape, and on set, we were encouraged to improvise little comedic moments (one of my favourite things to do) and it felt like Ella Jones, our director, really trusted us with that, which made for a very playful set indeed!

How do you embody complex characters in darker shows like Sweetpea, especially when balancing different tones in your other work?

I suppose what often makes for interesting characters is a total lack of self-awareness (we all know those people) so the character is never really aware of their role within its narrative. So, in a way, my approach is quite similar; play the absolute truth of their version of events. 

It’s really important you can trust the director to nudge your performance in the right direction tonally. In my mind that’s often what distinguishes my roles, knowing where to pitch it - I actually love a tonal comp to help navigate that. I think I can often judge a tone by my costume/hair and make-up too, in Sweetpea for example my sheer, ruffle-clad funeral attire hinted that my character may be a tad on the ridiculous side. If I ever take a comedy character too far (which is highly likely) then the director will reel me back in.

When it comes to approaching drama I give myself a lot more time and patience to ground the character in my body. With comedy you’re often needing to find an entertaining comedic rhythm, and essentially “show off’, but with drama you let the camera/audience come to you and witness your inner monologue - it feels less performative. I always need to sit in these kinds of characters’ feelings for a while, so that I can trust I don’t need to ‘show’ anything, I can just breathe and listen to the other character, and trust the audience will understand what’s going on for me.

You've now worked on both sides of the camera as a writer and actor - do you find that one influences the other? For instance, does acting inform how you approach writing?

Yes, 100%! From an acting perspective, I can understand the purpose a part serves in informing the protagonists’ story - which is super helpful when deciding how to pitch a performance. Being a writer also gives me a lot of confidence to make slight alterations to my character’s dialogue to fit ‘my way’ of speaking - because as a writer you really want each of your characters to have as distinctive voices as possible, so if an actor can help you with that, then I find that to be such a gift. I also try not to take stage directions too literally in audition tapes, as I know with my own writing, stage directions are often a scaffolding to inform a performance - not a dictatorship over how that performance should be played.

As a writer, I try to never write stage directions that will trip the actor up, I.E. “A single tear falls from their eye” - That can really scare an actor, and the most believable reaction from that specific actor might be ‘laughing in shock’ - so if that’s how they would respond to this situation, then that will tell my story so much better than them squeezing a tear out.

Being an actor also helps me always try and find the humour in my writing, even in darker stuff, because it can actually feel quite unnatural to play a part who never has lighter moments - you almost feel like your suppressing something. Also, making your fellow actors and crew members laugh on set is my favourite thing to do, so I always want to encourage that on my own sets.

PRAGMA is a project that tackles unique themes; can you tell us about the project and what you hope audiences take away from it?

PRAGMA is a short film I wrote during the pandemic that screened at Tribeca Film Festival and the BFI and has now been optioned for TV by Monumental Television. It’s set in the world’s first school in sustainable love, where couples learn how to be in a healthy, happy, pragmatic relationship - told through a grounded, funny and unexpected story.

This project has been such a baby of mine for a few years now it’s actually quite hard to distill what I want people to take away from it. I wrote it because I was lost in love, cliche I know, I needed guidance in how to be in a healthy romantic relationship (I didn’t get how my friends seemed to just naturally know what to do it?!) And I wanted to create a space where I could learn these tools. 

I also thought PRAGMA could be a fun way of sneakily teaching people’s inept partners how to be in a healthy relationship - I wanted friends to trick their significant others in to watching a ‘funny TV show’ whilst unwittingly learning about ‘Healthy Communication’ (you can see why I needed help).

Then as the project has gone on, I really want the series to act as one big fat hug to our generation of ‘self-improvers’ and say that nobody knows what they’re doing when it comes to matters of the heart, we’re all figuring it out together and that’s ok! - And your friends are allowed to be the loves of your life too.

Are there any specific challenges you've faced in your dual role as a writer and actor on different projects, and how do you balance the two?

I think when it comes to short films, there are so many moving parts and so little money that I’ve always had to take on some producing responsibilities so it can feel a bit overwhelming in that respect. I remember taking lunch orders in-between takes and organising peoples taxi’s at midnight the night before shooting - that can always fry your creative brain a bit.

I also think when you’re writing for yourself, you can fall into the trap of making your character slightly submissive, or I can anyway. I think it’s the younger people-pleaser in me. It’s always really important to make your protagonist super-proactive, so you can’t be afraid to play a really out-spoken, demanding, ‘un-likeable’ version of yourself - the older I’ve gotten the less I worry about that, but I can see in my earlier work how I shied away from my character causing too much chaos.

A gift of writing for yourself is being able to riff off of your own work in real time, letting other actors inform your performance, and having the freedom to change your lines and theirs, and hopefully make them funnier/ more realistic within the context of these new voices - because you hadn’t met them yet whilst you were just imagining it all in your head. Watching incredible actors bring your character’s to life in front of you, and getting to play along with them, is SUCH a joy.

With such a range of projects in your career, are there any genres or themes you haven't tackled yet that you'd love to explore in future writing or acting roles?

So many to be honest! I feel like I’m just getting started!

Acting wise; I’d love to play some really messy parts, character’s that you never know what they’re going to do next, and neither do they, free of inhibition and worry - very Villanelle in Killing Eve. I’d love to play a character who really existed - to take on that challenge would be so all-encompassing and really scratch my love-of-research itch. A character who’s deeply in love and get to really create that relationship with another actor, I recently watched Nick Payne’s ‘We Live In Time’ and I thought Florence Pugh’s character was my idea of a perfectly written woman, there was comedy, high stakes, deep love and ambition. I’d also love to do some more fun comedy roles, I’m really finding my confidence in that space at the minute and it’s bringing me a lot of joy.

Writing wise, I'm constantly having new ideas. My main focus is always about depicting the truth of womanhood on screen, well my truth at least. Too often we see female characters surrounded by men on screen and that just isn’t my version of reality at all, I’d say 80% of my life is made up of epic, hilarious, incredibly bright women - and I think we seldom see groups of women like that portrayed on screen. I’m currently writing a series with a friend that explores the injustice that gay couples face when it comes to IVF, whilst also telling the story of a drifting best-friendship that can feel inevitable as we grow up. I’m exploring mother-daughter relationships, that shift from being a mother and their child to being two independent adult women who could potentially be very different, and how you re-meet one another as adults. I’m exploring the concept of sabotage as a means of revenge and what holding on to that resentment can do to a person (In a fun action/heist comedy). I’m writing a period dramedy set on an all-female pirate-ship - lots of different things. The one thing all of my writing has in common is a comedic undertone for sure. 

Lastly, if you had the opportunity to ReVamp anything, What would it be and why?

I would love to ReVamp comedy sketch shows like Absolutely Fabulous - it seemed like such a fun, chaotic era of television. Every episode was insane, yet hilarious, it spoke to such a wide audience yet it’s whole purpose felt like it was just about having a laugh with some other creatives. I think we’re missing sit-coms in general at the minute, shows that are about relatable characters, like ‘Friends’, where they actually feel like your friends! The world is sort of an intimidating place at the minute - so having the comfort of some funny familiar faces on screen is an excellent tonic in my eyes.