How to make it as a young actress in the film industry

Ever since set­ting up a children’s act­ing agency with her broth­er and sis­ter at a ten­der age, Bebe Cave has been stead­fast in her deter­mi­na­tion to make it in the film indus­try. In 2012 she starred in Mike Newell’s Great Expec­ta­tions, and has since per­formed on-stage along­side Helen Mir­ren in between appear­ing in var­i­ous tele­vi­sion series. Now she’s fol­lowed that up with a meati­er role in Mat­teo Garrone’s oth­er­world­ly Tale of Tales, which hits cin­e­mas this week. In it Cave plays Vio­let, a young princess thrown into a test­ing sit­u­a­tion where, con­trary to most fairy tales con­cern­ing princess­es, she has to save herself.

Vio­let pro­gress­es from a state of naivety and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to one of great resolve and strength. As an 18-year-old bid­ding to make a name for her­self in a ruth­less busi­ness, it’s a role she found easy to relate to. Cave admits she has always felt mature for her age, and her dri­ve and devo­tion to her craft (not to men­tion her impres­sive knowl­edge of the films of Jean-Luc Godard) are imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent upon meet­ing her. Here, she talks about her expe­ri­ences up to now, her aspi­ra­tions mov­ing for­ward, and offers some sage advice for aspir­ing actors hop­ing to get a foothold in the industry.

“I sup­pose when you’re a child actress, it’s com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent because you see the same faces at audi­tions and it’s all rel­a­tive­ly laid out for you. It’s very straight­for­ward, and child char­ac­ters and teenage char­ac­ters tend to be more arche­typ­al – the moody teenag­er or the geeky best friend. It takes a lot of prac­tice to be able to add what you can to those char­ac­ters. Even Princess Vio­let in Tale of Tales, at the begin­ning she’s very much an arche­typ­al moody teenag­er who wants free­dom. I’m enter­ing wom­an­hood with a more enlight­ened vision, a bit like my char­ac­ter in the film. I think a huge part of being an actor is being able to por­tray your own life expe­ri­ence. And as an 18 year old, obvi­ous­ly I don’t have a world of expe­ri­ence behind me, but I’m slow­ly get­ting to grips with who I am. I’ve done so much grow­ing up in the past cou­ple of years, I feel like I’m a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent per­son to who I was when I was a teenag­er, still audi­tion­ing for those kind of roles.

“It’s been hard, you know. It’s not like any­thing was plain sail­ing, but I sup­pose it’s more grat­i­fy­ing that way because it means that when some­thing amaz­ing does hap­pen, you appre­ci­ate it so much more. There are hun­dreds and thou­sands of girls who are just as tal­ent­ed, who are just as moti­vat­ed, all want­i­ng to do the same thing, so it’s about real­is­ing that there’s no point in me com­par­ing myself to all these oth­er girls. At the end of the day, if you keep on try­ing, there is room for all of us. Nobody wants to see the same actress doing every sin­gle role because oth­er­wise the indus­try wouldn’t exist.

“There’s a rea­son why I want to do this with my life, but there are also so many things that make me hap­py and that’s what I’m start­ing to realise, that you need to build on those own things. I real­ly like writ­ing. I’m also into direct­ing a lit­tle bit as well. I direct­ed my sister’s show this year. I think it’s enrich­ing to be able to work on dif­fer­ent things at the same time. I also hope that my writ­ing will get bet­ter and that I’m going to pro­duce some things for myself. I would rec­om­mend writ­ing some­thing of your own, basi­cal­ly to cast your­self in some­thing. I’m so inspired by peo­ple that can just decide to do some­thing for them­selves. It’s about putting the hard graft in and hav­ing a go, and it’s also a great way for peo­ple to see who you are.”