Sam Robertson

 “I was totally shitting myself,” exclaims Sam Robertson, the lead star of E4’s recent comedy hit Beaver Falls. The 25-year-old actor (who plays Andrew “Flynn” Spencer in the show) has joined us in a south London studio to showcase the autumn/winter collection from Diesel and has us rapt with one of his tales from the TV show’s South African film set. “For the last episode, my character is contemplating suicide and goes to the actual Beaver Falls and climbs to the highest peak. So we filmed the scene on this cliff with the waterfall beneath and there was such a sharp drop. There was lots of planning, but no one had factored in the weather and it had started to rain, so when it stopped I returned to the cliff edge to film and kind of slipped. The whole crew gasped and my heart leapt,” he recalls, running a hand through his hair at the thought of the nerve-wracking experience, before quickly snapping to reality. “Obviously, I was all harnessed up, so even if I did fall, I would have been pulled back up by the safety guards. So it was all cool.”
Having come into acting seemingly by accident, the young Scotsman says working on the show (which followed three hapless Brits who had blagged themselves jobs at an elitist American summer camp) was by far his most enjoyable job to date since first appearing on screens in ITV’s long-running Coronation Street. “Most actors would say there was one element of a job that was underwhelming, but everything about it was fantastic – the location, the weather, the cast, the crew. I’ve got my fingers crossed for [a second series] because I think there is potential to return to the summer camp a year on and see how everyone’s changed. And to go back to South Africa to film for three or four months with those guys would be great.”
Robertson got his break in acting while undertaking some part-time modelling as a student when he auditioned for his role in Corrie as Adam Barlow. His next role took him closer to home in Scottish soap River City, following which the actor feels he is “soaped out”, but is optimistic he has what it takes to embark on a long career.
“There is a stigma in the acting worked if you are a soap star,” he confesses. “But people have already shown me opportunities and now I’ve done this E4 show. The number of people from British soaps who have gone on to do really well are very small, but in Australia there are loads. Guy Pearce, Heath Ledger, Chris Hemsworth and a fair few Australian actresses have all come from Home & Away and Neighbours. I don’t know what the difference is between them going to Hollywood and the Brits. But Rob Kazinsky was an actor in EastEnders [he played Sean Slater] and he will be in The Hobbit. So it’s happening for him. I’ve got an agent in America and they believe I can do the same, but it’s easier said than done. And I think you need to be able to do a great American accent and mine needs a bit of work.”
So while Hollywood looks like a more long-term plan, Robertson does have his sights on someone in the industry that he would love to work with that resides across the continent as opposed to across the Atlantic. “I would love to work with Pedro Almodovar,” he says enthusiastically. “I know he loves Spanish soap operas and I think if you watch his work – or maybe being from a soap background – I totally see him mixing in elements to his film-making. There will be certain scenes that are filmed like a soap but they’re in a film and in a really stylised way. I would love to be in something like All About My Mother.”
And how are his language skills if he were to work with the Spanish director?
“Absolutely terrible,” he laughs. “I don’t know a single word but I would learn it for him. I read somewhere that Antonio Banderas went to Hollywood without knowing English and he has carved out a career. So if Antonio Banderas can do it, so can I.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster magazine, Issue 3, September 2011. Photography Alastair Strong]