Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Laird.
Hi Tiffany, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I’ll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). I was born in England, and I grew up in a small beach town called Felixstowe, a couple of hours east of London. My mum was English, born and raised in Felixstowe, and my dad was an American, who had met my mother while he was based in England with the Air Force. At the age of two, I found my way into a local talent contest, which I won by singing a nursery rhyme. In retrospect, the fact I was small and cute may have had more to do with my victory than my actual level of talent, but either way, I knew from that moment onwards that I wanted to be on stage.
When I was eight years old, my father returned to America and left my mother alone to raise my sister and me.
Despite any struggle she faced as a single mother, she did an excellent job of raising us and she never stopped supporting my creative endeavors. I began attending extracurricular amateur dramatic groups at the age of 7, and that’s where my love of theatre truly began.
I was always a shy and quiet child. I kept to myself and had difficulty making friends. This made it especially difficult to stand out amongst the outspoken “theatre kids” that were my peers. As such, I was often overlooked. Stuck in the background or the chorus. But I knew that if I worked hard and continued developing my talents, there was no reason why I couldn’t be just as successful as anyone else.
I’ve dedicated every aspect of my life to performing. Working my way up through various drama societies, student films, and local theatre productions. Eventually, I found myself in my late teens, studying drama full-time at a local college, working part-time in a theatre, and on the committee of a local theatre company. It was at this point in my early career that I really began to develop my skills and techniques as a performer, while also opening the doors to incredible experiences, for example, I had the opportunity to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which will forever be a career highlight for me. This is where things really started to gain traction for me, I was surrounded by like-minded supportive creatives and I finally started to come out of my shell and become a more confident, social person. But it wasn’t until a (now ex) boyfriend told me that I’d never be smart or talented enough to get into university, that I decided that was the next logical leap in the path of my career.
Not only was I smart enough and talented enough to get into university, but I was able to get into my first choice university on my first try, and pretty soon I was moving to Central London to study drama full-time. It was during my time at London South Bank university that I began to be taken more seriously as an actor, and began my transition from stage to screen. Don’t get me wrong, I still adore live theatre, but this is where I honed my skills in performing in front of the camera. London South Bank also offered me the professional level of vocalist training I had been looking for, and my confidence and skill as a singer improved immensely during my time there.
But this was also when I suffered one of the most difficult experiences of both my professional and personal life.
During the beginning of my second year of study, I was involved in a freak accident that resulted in my left leg is badly broken in three places. I spent some time in the hospital, which was especially difficult because I had no family in London, so I felt incredibly isolated during what was already an extremely difficult time. I underwent surgery and was able to return to Felixstowe where I spent the next several months either bed-bound or in and out of a wheelchair while I worked with a physiotherapist to learn how to walk again. I wouldn’t be able to walk unaided until a full year later.
My doctors and teachers all advised me to defer the year and do an extra year of university instead, But I insisted that I would find a way to stay on top of my coursework, despite not being able to attend classes in person. Working with my lecturers, I devised a way for me to meet the basic curriculum through written essays that could be worked on off-campus, and for a full semester, I effectively taught myself the material. I passed with some of the highest grades on my course and was able to return to London the next semester, walking stick in hand, a full six months earlier than expected. This whole experience taught me to have real gratitude for all the little things we usually take for granted in life. Every time my fellow students would complain about having to be up early for morning lectures, I was so grateful that I had the ability to get up and walk to class without needing assistance. This changed my entire outlook on life and it is a mindset I try to keep in the forefront of my mind going forward.
This experience also taught me how difficult and isolating it can be to navigate the world of the theatre industry when you have a disability. I consider myself incredibly lucky that I was only temporarily affected, but I have really opened my eyes to the accessibility of the world (or lack thereof) and this is something I have taken forward with me and will always have in mind when theatre-making or working with other creatives in the future.
During my third year of university, I was able to get signed with my first agent and found my way into the world of professional film and television. But unfortunately, this was abruptly stopped, as was my university experience, because I was due to graduate in the summer of 2020. But instead, we found ourselves firmly locked down at the beginning of the pandemic. Fortunately, thanks to my written alternative coursework idea from when my leg was broken, my fellow classmates were able to complete our degrees from the confines of our respective homes. Our graduation finally took place in person in January of 2022.
In August 2020 I connected with a like-minded group of creatives online who had launched a completely digital theatre company ‘Virtuoshow’ over Zoom, and I have been working with them to create online entertainment ever since. This group has become like a family to me and we have developed a series of successful original productions, with hopes to take things even further in the future, now that we’re no longer restricted by the pandemic. It has been a real personal victory for me to create theatre in this way because it’s completely inclusive and no one involved is limited by their physical abilities, Something that has been a personal goal of mine as a creative since recovering from breaking my leg in 2018.
Now that we’re no longer locked down, and I am able to work remotely creating theatre with ‘Virtuoshow’ from anywhere in the world, it felt like the natural time to broaden my horizons and begin exploring the entertainment industry overseas.
This brings me to America. I arrived here at the beginning of October 2022, with the goal of reconnecting with my father, visiting family members I haven’t been able to see in years, and developing a professional relationship with creatives from different backgrounds to my own. In the short time that I’ve been here, I’ve already managed to get involved with a couple of actor networking groups, met some like-minded creative individuals, and learned about the theater and film culture and industry here. I also had the privilege of visiting Nashville, where my Grandma lives and seeing the incredible live music scene there. It was fantastic to meet such talented musicians, and I even had the opportunity to perform a little myself.
I’m excited to see where my time here will take me and how it will further my career as a creative.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, but I believe anything worth doing is rarely easy. The main obstacles I’ve faced have already been discussed in detail in the previous answer, most specifically the accident resulting in my broken leg and the challenges presented by the pandemic.
In early 2022 I ended up being involved in a similar accident that resulted in me also breaking my left arm and having to face similar challenges again. But I think, this time around, served to show me how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown as an individual.
Although the actual break was much worse this time around, and I ended up having my surgery postponed for a month because I contracted covid while in the hospital, the overall experience felt much better because I had dealt with it before, and because I had a solid support system around me. Career-wise, I was still able to film with Virtuoshow despite my injury, and that really put into perspective for me the benefits of creating an inclusive entertainment platform.
I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of person who embraces challenge and turns it into something positive. And that brings me to my current challenge, transitioning my career to the US. It’s been amazing embracing the acting community in the States so far, and I can’t wait to see where this journey will take me.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I try to do a bit of everything in the entertainment world and I’m always looking for opportunities to learn new elements of the industry.
I’m currently developing my on-screen portfolio, having most recently worked on ‘Travesuras de la Niña Mala’ a television series that recently premiered, and a few feature films, including ‘The Art of Love’ and ‘One Shot’ over the last couple years in the UK, and I’m now looking to find an agent in the USA and continue progressing my career over here.
Alongside this I’ve also worked in a lot of live theatres, ranging from Shakespeare to musicals, both on and off stage.
But the main thing I’m most proud of to date would be the work I’ve done with Virtuoshow over the last few years and I’m excited to see how we can continue to create groundbreaking content in the years to come. As well as acting, I’m also a vocalist. Predominantly I’ve performed as part of the cast of theatre musicals, but I’m currently in the process of transitioning to performing as a solo artist and am in the early stages of writing some original martial.
What makes you happy?
I would say that there are two main things that make me happy. Firstly, the adrenaline rush I get from performing.
There’s something unique about stepping on stage or in front of a camera and allowing yourself to become someone new for a little while, that nothing else in life feels quite like, and I consider myself incredibly lucky that I get to experience that.
The other main thing that makes me happy, and something that fuels every decision I make, is the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from making other people happy. I think that’s a huge part of why inclusivity is so important to me in my work. Anything I can do to give back, educate, create opportunities, or just a moment of magic for someone is what makes it all worthwhile to me. Working in the entertainment industry is wonderful in the way that it allows me to create memorable experiences for my audience members that I hope they can take away and cherish.
Any opportunity I have to welcome someone into the world of theatre is always a win for me. One of my happiest memories, and what I consider to be one of my greatest achievements as an actor, was when I was playing Hermia in a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and we did a matinee performance with a number of high school students in the audience. At the end of the show we had a Q&A and a young girl told us that she had never cared about Shakespeare, she’d always found it boring and found the female characters to be stereotypical and old-fashioned. But, she said, my performance as Hermia changed that for her and showed her that Shakespearian women can be entertaining and inspiring.
Having the opportunity to inspire people in that way, is the main drive behind why I do what I do.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/tiffany_rose_actor
- Other: https://www.spotlight.com/9179-0197-9396
