Emma Mackey has been riding a career-high since her breakout role as Maeve Wiley in Sex Education. The show is speeding towards its fourth and final season but Mackey is not a face that will fade into oblivion once the hit show wraps up.
She garnered applause for her role as the Wuthering Heights author in Emily, as one of the many Barbies in Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster, Barbie. Unsurprising, she has other projects lined up for life after Sex Education is over due to the brilliance of her performance.
As a young actor trying to find her niche in the industry, Mackey told Stylist that she tends to overthink everything as an actor. “I’m now in the phase of my life where I’m trying to figure out what my taste is and be really precise about the kinds of projects I do. It’s really important to figure out your taste, and no one tells you to do it.”
In the same interview, Mackey also revealed how she is terrified of snakes and cannot go through a day without speaking to her loved ones. But the cincher came when she mentioned that two movies that she thinks are “perfect” happen to be Hook and Ratatouille, “They’re both perfect films, in very different respects.”
Hook, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred the incomparable Robin Williams as the grown-up Peter Banning, who has forgotten his childhood adventures as Peter Pan. When Captain Hook kidnaps his children (played with villainous charm by Dustin Hoffman), Peter must rediscover his inner child to save them. For Mackey, it’s likely that Hook has a lot of nostalgic value.
However, Spielberg himself does not feel too great about one of his most critically panned works. “I felt like a fish out of water making Hook… I didn’t have confidence in the script. I didn’t quite know what I was doing and I tried to paint over my insecurity with production value,” the director admitted to Empire, “the more insecure I felt about it, the bigger and more colourful the sets became.”
In contrast to the fantastical world of Hook, Ratatouille is a delightful animated film directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava. The story follows Remy, a rat with an extraordinary palate and a dream of becoming a renowned chef. Emma Mackey’s admiration for this one is also quite understandable.
Sex Education season four starts streaming on Netflix on September 21st, 2023.
