Blue Jean’s Rosy McEwen: ​“It’s about getting it right for the sake of these women”

“Loony lesbian” protestors abseiling into the House of Lords and invading the BBC Six O’clock News. Margaret Thatcher foghorning that ​“children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.” The Larks singing pogo-punk agit-anthem Maggie Maggie Maggie (Out Out Out). Defiant graffiti in the bogs in a gay club: ​“Resisting the shame regime”.

This was Britain in 1988, the year in which Thatcher’s Tory government introduced Clause 28 of the Local Government bill. Its provisions, as paraphrased in a news report at the time, were that ​“homosexuality must not be promoted in state schools… [A]nd it outlaws teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” Whatever a ​“pretended family relationship” is.

This is the backdrop, ludicrous and frightening in equal measure, of Blue Jean. The remarkable debut feature from writer/​director Georgia Oakley – which scooped four awards at December’s British Independent Film Awards – tells the story of Jean, played by Rosy McEwen, a PE teacher in Newcastle in the late Eighties. She’s adored by her pupils, and by her girlfriend, but closeted by fear of what will happen if she’s open about her sexuality.

And no wonder. As McEwen, 29, points out, teachers in Jean’s position at the time were embattled by ​“micro homophobic aggressions and also by the very gendered, binary way that we saw men and women, and how everything was very heteronormative”. Even the episodes of Peak Eighties dating show Blind Date that Jean watches home alone on a Saturday night ​“worked to reassure her that whatever she was feeling wasn’t ​‘normal’”.

Throw Clause 28 into that climate of fear and you have a daunting prospect for teachers such as Jean: keep your real self hidden or, in all likelihood, lose your job. And since it took 15 years for the homophobic legislation to be repealed, it meant Jean was far from alone. Oakley and McEwen did their best to honour that: at the end of the closing credits to Blue Jean, the filmmakers give thanks to Professor Catherine Lee, Dr Sarah Squires ​“and all the other teachers who shared their stories with us”.

“Oh my gosh, you just wouldn’t believe how helpful it was talking to them,” says South London native McEwen, Zooming in from her flat in Peckham. ​“I’d done my research and was able to work out exactly what I was doing. Then I went on Zoom and had three-hour chats with each of these women. It just changed everything.

“When you speak to someone and you realise this is their lives and their story, you’re like: ​‘This is not about me doing really good acting. This is about getting this completely right for the sake of these women.’”

McEwen, though, not only did ​“really good acting”, enough to win her the BIFA for Best Lead Performer. In her moving portrayal of Jean, whose personal trials are brought to the fore by the arrival of a gay 15-year-old in her netball class, she honours the women whose stories Blue Jean distils.

“I felt like I was cheating, because I could ask them everything: ​‘How did this feel? What was that like?’ They were so brave, they were so vulnerable. It was clearly very close to home, still, after over 30 years. And that also rang very true to me. This is set in 1980s, but all this stuff still happens now [in terms of] all the little microaggressions.”

Jean was originally written as a woman in her 40s, so McEwen clearly did something brilliant in her audition to persuade Oakley to age her down. It’s a long way from her first professional audition: as a 13-year-old, she went up for one of the young leads in Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. She got down to the last two.

“I did a chemistry read with Juno Temple. When you’re in the room with another actor, that young, you’re very present. When you’re older you’re thinking: ​‘Is this good?’ Your third eye is twitching. But at that age you’re just completely present. God, I wish I could do that again!” she says, wild-eyed and smiling.

It wasn’t to be and McEwen lost out to Saoirse Ronan. But she kept going for (and landing) the odd role, appearing as a school-age teen in telly staples Waking the Dead and Cranford. She later paused the acting to attend uni in Leeds, where she studied history of art, but then, aged 24, took a drama course at Bristol Old Vic.

Now, with her BIFA in Jean’s tracksuit pocket, she’s just finished a run as Desdemona in Othello at London’s National Theatre, and has completed filming for her next onscreen appearance. Apartment 7a is a prequel to legendary Sixties horror Rosemary’s Baby, set in the US but filmed in the UK, with McEwen playing ​“a very bitchy American dancer” opposite Julia Garner.

First, though, here are the steps that got her here…

The actor that made me want to get into acting was…

One of my favourite performances of all time was Charlize Theron in Monster. That really inspired me, because she’s so far away from herself, aesthetically and in [terms of everything] about herself. As a woman, we always feel like we have to play a very stereotypical, say, love interest role. So to see a woman break free from the aesthetic was very liberating for me.

The first time I performed on a stage of any kind was…

I was a breadcrumb in Hansel and Gretel in a church! I had this cape that my mum made, and I was in a ball in the aisle, and then my cape got flipped over. It was shiny on the back because it was the moonlight shining on the breadcrumbs. I was six or seven.

My most embarrassing audition moments was…

You’re always told in auditions that you have to get in and out really fast. Don’t faff around, say a few funny quips at the beginning. But when you’re done, just leave because they’re just trying to get through people. One time I went to two auditions in a day, and I was really late to the second one. So I was really flustered, went in, did the thing and ran out. I thought: ​“That’s really weird, why have I done that so quickly?” So I ran back in, and there’s about five of them there. I stood there, stuck my hand out and shook all of their hands and went: ​“Really nice to meet you.” Then I walked back out again. And I was like: ​“What the fuck? That was so not normal human mode.”

The biggest lie I’ve ever told to get a part was…

I always say I can sing and I’m a terrible singer. And I say I can pick up tunes really easily. I did this Lithuanian film [2022 sci-fi flick Vesper] and I had to play this traditional Lithuanian instrument. I said, ​“oh yeah, that’s fine”, and tried my best to learn it. But when I watched the film back, they had changed the tune entirely to match what I’m doing because what I was doing was so wrong. Obviously, editors are amazing. That’s what I think: say yes because editors will have your back in the end.

The funniest thing that’s happened to me on set was…

It’s not something so specific but I always get the giggles. When you’re so exhausted and you’ve been working from 4am till 10pm, there’s a point where you just crack and can’t get through a certain line. I remember very vividly being up in [the North East] doing Blue Jean, it was a Friday night, we were out on this beach, and it was so cold. We had to get this one last shot before everyone could wrap and go home for the weekend. And I could not get through this line. Every time Kerrie [Hayes, playing girlfriend Viv] said ​“how many lezzers on your team?”, I couldn’t get through it. Eventually it just made it into the film with me laughing.

The co-star star I’ve learned most from…

I want to say it’s in theatre because you watch other people’s rehearsal process in a way that you don’t get the luxury of when you’re shooting on screen. You’re in the rehearsal room for eight weeks and you’re watching people get it wrong, get it right, try something new…

So in that case, watching Giles Terera who played Othello and Paul Hilton who played Iago. I felt like I was let into a secret club, just being able to watch them work it all out.

The best costume I’ve ever worn is…

It has to be the Blue Jean tracksuit. If I could wear tracksuits every time, I’d be a happy woman. On Apartment 7a, I’m wearing a leotard for most of it. I came straight off Blue Jean, and I had no time to think about that! But on The Alienist, which was set in 1890s New York, the corsets! Dude, having lunch and then having to go back and shoot the same scene that you were shooting, still in your corset – different story! Everything gets pushed downwards! It’s so uncomfortable. So there is nothing like getting to wear a tracksuit all day long.

The thing I need to have in my trailer or dressing room is…

Snacks. I get very hungry, and you’re filming at really bizarre hours. Sometimes you’re on a night shoot, so your lunch is at 11pm. So I’m always very well stocked up with snacks. I’m a conserving energy kind person, so it’s healthy things like bananas, nuts. And Earl Grey tea bags.

My dream role is…

I really love very psychologically damaged people. What is it about them that’s made that way? And anything to do with rewriting female roles to have more nuance also really fascinates me and is something that I’d always be up for doing. I’d also love to play a man.

The TV show I’m bingeing at the moment is…

Happy Valley. I went back to the beginning. Sarah Lancashire’s is one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen. The fact that it’s back is so thrilling, which is why I’m bingeing again.

The one thing I wish you’d known about being an actor…

Don’t get too attached to your hair! No one tells you this. Your hair’s going to be cut. It’s going to be dyed. It’s going to be curled. It’s going to be redyed. It’s going to be extended. Yes, you can probably ask for a wig, but it’s not always possible. So if you’re an actor and you love your hair, get ready, because it might not be like that forever. I’ve had it all: long red curly hair, a pixie blonde cut, a short dark wig. I used to have very long thick curly hair and it’s just all gone!

Blue Jean is in cinemas from 10th February