The star of the hit series Sex Education and the upcoming adaptation of Death on the Nile, actress Emma Mackey is on a meteoric journey to stardom

With bleached pink hair and wearing a miniskirt, Dr. Martens, and a bomber jacket (a little goth, a lttle punk, but above all fierce), Emma Mackey made her sensational debut a year ago in the Netflix series Sex Education. She plays Maeve Wiley, a brilliant but rebellious social outcast and &quot;bad girl&quot;, who hides her insecurities&nbsp;behind a biting sarcasm.&nbsp;

And with Season 2 of Sex Education having been released earlier this year, Emma Mackey has become much more than an ingenue. She is a bona fide star, who has skyrocketed from drama school to one of the leading roles in a critically&nbsp;acclaimed series.&nbsp;

She also caught the eye of famed British actor and director Kenneth Branagh, who has entrusted her with the role of Jacqueline de Bellefort &mdash; alongside Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer &mdash; in the new screen adaptation of Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie, which will hit cinemas sometime next fall.&nbsp;

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Contrary to what one might think when watching Sex Education, Mackey was born and raised in Sarthe, France&nbsp;to a French father and English mother, a perfectly bilingual and bicultural universe.

&ldquo;My British family loves music and theatre very much.&nbsp;As a child, I played characters, I dressed up.&nbsp;It has always been part of me, of my education.&nbsp;My dream as a teenager was the Royal Shakespeare Company.&nbsp;I went there at 16 for the first time to see a production of Much Ado About Nothing with my parents, and it moved me deeply.&nbsp;I said to myself, that&#39;s what I want.&nbsp;But I had to go to&nbsp;the University of Leeds&nbsp;to study literature before I understood that it was possible to make a career out of acting.&nbsp;In my first semester, I staged a play, and then&nbsp;I met people who had the same passion and I started auditioning.&rdquo;

In Sex Education she found this same shared spirit, in a different, very rural setting in the Wye Valley between Wales and England.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We lived the shoots as in a bubble: we saw each other every day, we worked very intensely&nbsp;on a campus, and it lasted four months.&nbsp;The chemistry we&nbsp;see&nbsp;on the screen comes from there.&nbsp;A group where everyone adores and supports each other. It was great opportunity.&quot;

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A worthy successor to Skins, Sex Education features a cast of tremendously endearing characters: Jean Milburn played by Gillian Anderson (also known as Scully in&nbsp;the X-Files), a sexologist who often argues with her son Otis, played by Asa Butterfield (a favourite of Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton), a teenager ill at ease with himself but a therapist at heart. Other important characters who flourish in Season 2 include Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), Otis&#39; best friend, and Adam (the extraordinary Connor Swindells).&nbsp;

Maeve is the only &ldquo;adult&rdquo; in the group,&nbsp;living alone in a rented caravan. Mackey loves the&nbsp;ambivalence of her character.

&ldquo;This season is a little darker, more in depth, we see everyone growing up, becoming emancipated, and I find it beautiful,&nbsp;sometimes even heartbreaking.&nbsp;It broke my heart to shoot certain scenes between Maeve and her mother, but it&#39;s a challenge that I love.&nbsp;I live for that.&quot;&nbsp;

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Sex Education talks about&nbsp;all identities (bi, hetero, gay, lesbian&nbsp;etc.)&nbsp;to everyone, without drama and with humour and honesty.&nbsp;Paraphrasing the legendary &ldquo;Nobody&#39;s perfect&rdquo; from&nbsp;Some Like It&nbsp;Hot, one could say that Sex Education demonstrates that perfect sexuality does not exist. A fun series but above all benevolent, it speaks not only to Gen Z but also to all ages. Mackey&nbsp;confirms that, saying, &quot;We have created unique characters but it is still a tool; we are not there to tell the truth&nbsp;but to support&nbsp;open discussions on sexuality.&rdquo;

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In a radical change of scenery, just months after having finished&nbsp;Season 2 of Sex Education, Mackey found herself in the luxurious but lethal world of Dame Agatha Christie, filming in Eypt alongside a cast of renowned actors. This hard worker is still stunned by the experience.&nbsp;&ldquo;During these two surreal months, I woke up in the morning as if on a spring; it was a joy from start to finish.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Kenneth Branagh, actor and director but above all a man of the theatre, always identifies actors with an unparalleled flair.&nbsp;An excellent sign for Mackey,&nbsp;who was amazed by &ldquo;Monsieur Shakespeare&rdquo;.&nbsp;

&quot;To be guided and instructed by him, to create my character and refine it in a very technical, fairly &#39;drama school&#39; way, it was extraordinary.&nbsp;For Jacqueline, I took voice and choreography lessons.&nbsp;There was a fantastic atmosphere, very sensual with magnificent costumes and light.&nbsp;Even if I was a bit of the &#39;baby&#39; of the group, I felt like a woman for the first time in this film, an adult.&quot;&nbsp;

Emma may be&nbsp;only 24 years old, but with a year of meteoric success under her belt,&nbsp;we can&#39;t wait to see where her star will lead her.

Emma Mackey: "We Are Not Here To Tell The Truth"

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