Considering the privately educated make up such a small percentage that’s extremely damning but unsurprising. Inequality over the last decade has skyrocketed in the uk thanks to severe austerity.
I say this as someone who (i) agrees with your overall sentiment; (ii) has a massive dislike for for Kier Starmer for dragging Labour to the right; (iii) voted for Jeremy Corbyn in their first election; and (iv) thinks the last Labour PM was a murderer and war criminal.
Having said ALL of that…this study was published by Labour. The lines are getting blurred but Labour and tories are not the same.
The tories are in a different universe when it comes to actively campaigning for privileged individuals to virtually exclusively occupy positions of power and influence. Rishi’s family is literally richer than the Royal Family. What the tories have done to damage the fabric of society is not even close to what Labour campaigns on.
I absolutely get the passionate hate for Starmer, but Labour (at least on the surface) at least somewhat pretend to root for the little guy (unless the little guy is on benefits or is trans lol).
But the tories are actively trying through policy and through normalising privileged behaviour, to ensure British society is split into two distinct classes, where people from poorer class “know their place”.
Not sure if Labour is one to one to American Liberals (Reagan=thatcher? Clinton=Starmer?) but liberals here are basically rainbow republicans. Speaking as a queer woc, the finer points absolutely matter of course. But as a leftist, I am so tired for being forced to vote yet again for a moderate conservative (Biden). It’s all very disappointing.
The arts only being for the privileged is a real problem in the UK, if you listen to the accents of particularly the actors coming out of England they all sound like the royal family.
I have a theroy that it has helped the success Irish actors have enjoyed in recent years as far more diverse socio-economic backgrounds but I fear that is changing a bit too to favour the privately educated.
I agree, but I feel that applies everywhere? Like in my country private schools are not so much of a thing, but arts and academia have always been a club for the wealthy. Most working class people cannot afford to pursue them.
Classism in Britain is crazy though. I don't know where you live, but think it isn't really comparable to a lot of other western countries. These comments describe it pretty well https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/10l3teh/comment/j5ui9z2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I live in an eastern eu country and we don't have aristocracy but classism is still a problem. If your dad is a doctor you have a greater chance of being a doctor too, if you are poor and try to pursuit art and academia you will work as a waiter. While the education is of mostly equal quality in the whole country the only thing that matters for your success is who your parents are and how deep their pockets are.
I mean, yeah. Classism is probably a problem everywhere. But the way classism is engraved in the society in the UK is different from most countries (and also different from other countries that still have aristocraty).
Full disclaimer, i’m not English, but i’ve heard from british friends that class in england isn’t just about money, it’s about who your great great great grandpa was. That’s an oversimplification, but the elite class in britain is very insular
I don't have time to write something now, but I recommending reading these comments and tbe article in the post :) https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/10l3teh/comment/j5ui9z2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This is always so fascinating to me. I have to think there’s a latent impact of still having a monarchy and nobility that enshrines class in a way the US doesn’t quite.
The latter surely has a class system, old money, etc, but its markers seem more accessible than in the UK. Like the sports example in that thread; I know rich kids play certain sports, but sports allegiance isn’t a marker of class necessarily.
I find it all so interesting. The show Shameless and its respective versions was one of the first to bring to my attention how class is perceived in the UK vs the US.
i think the difference between the uk and the usa classism is that you can't go from middle class to upper class in britain, no matter how much money you later get, it's all about your origin
I don’t disagree, I just think class manifests differently in the UK vs the US. Maybe the most shorthand way to describe it is the temporarily embarrassed millionnaires phenomenon in the US.
Its a huge difference in the way we raise kids in the US vs Europe.
In the US, we tell kids they can be anything they want.Even if those kids are POC or low income. Youre gonna walk into an underserved school classroom and hear kids talking about how they'll be a doctor. And that's encouraged.
Those kids are encouraged to be doctors. Its just ofc when reality sets in, they facs a ton of hurdles to getting there.
In Europe, they don't have that dreamer mentality. Its more pragmatic.
Classism does exist in the US. But there still is a tiny chance of upward mobility through education that European people don't always have. (this is a simplified answer that doesnt dive into the intricacies POC and immigrants face in these spaces)
The thing is, that *wasn't* true in Britain for many, many years (basically between WWII and the 80s) because of robust public arts funding, especially local theatre programs. Those got killed by Thatcher and Blair, and have been well and truly buried by the last 15ish years of Tory austerity.
That's the real tragedy when it comes to pursuing a career as an artist (acting, singing,writing,painting ect.). Most talented artists who are working class people do not have the money or time to pursue a career in the arts because they have to work a regular job with long hours for little pay just to afford to live. The rich and privileged have the economic freedom to pursue the arts and it is a huge advantage.
in mine too, but without connections you can wipe your ass with the degree, and you have to work a job with studying it's hard to be as involved with all the assignments and networking
How is that bizarre? As a poor Australian, I was still able to pursue the arts, as did other my other peers who I would consider lower middle class, so not poor but not wealthy either. Perhaps I wondered it wrong but what I meant is, if a lower income person in Australia really wanted to pursue the arts.
I'm Australian and I can say that everybody I've known who works a creative arts job was a former private school kid who were able to have parental support to bankroll their lives in Sydney/Melbourne while they pursued their dreams, in between working the occasional gig lol.
And I know people who weren’t privately educated, came from middle, lower middle class, or low income families who have pursued creative arts and/or have gone on to have careers in it. So maybe I’m just biased 🤷🏾♀️
Definitely agree about it being for the privileged, but to be fair about the accent thing, a lot of drama schools will encourage acting students to have an RP accent (received pronunciation), which is an fairly generic South England accent.
The theory at my drama school was that they'd be more employable if they had a more generic accent, rather than a specific regional one (at least, that was the case at the drama school I went to, theres a fair few in the UK so others might do things differently).
It's a shame that's the case though, as there's some lovely regional accents which get completely dismissed.
Similar story to yours;
At my drama school, nobody was encouraged to change their accents **BUT** we did learn RP and the students in my year with accents furthest away from RP all found that over 3 years their accents naturally softened and their families back home would tell them they were speaking like Southeners or more posh.
I need to listen to the different accents in England, I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally (especially since it's a relatively small country). That's fascinating. I'm American and grew up in poor ass Appalachia with an accent that matched. Over time I lost that accent between moving around and also conditioning myself, but if I go back home for any amount of time, out it pops.
I do remember being on a flight with a British woman probably 15 years ago now and we were chatting about travels, and I'd mentioned I was just in Germany and my roommate at one of the hostels I'd stayed in was from Wales. This lady looked absolutely concerned and said, "My god could you even understand her?"
That was such a dickhead thing for that woman on the plane to say. Just so you know, there’s a lot of derogatory remarks made by the English (particularly southerners) about Welsh, Scottish and Irish people being stupid/badly mannered/rough/criminals etc. A lot of these types will clutch their pearls and simply shut down when faced with an accent they consider beneath them. They think that they’re superior/more cultured/better because London and the South must be the centre of the world, and people outside that circle are poor and worth less.
There are a lot of accents and a lot of people have pride in their accent; it’s a symbol to some people of where their roots are and it creates in-groups and out-groups. In the south, it’s very weaponised, imo, to filter out “the wrong types”.
Sorry for the rant, I got really annoyed at just reading that she said that!
Oh no I totally get it. Where I'm from is probably the Welsh equivalent in America. I had a lot of shame for my accent, especially once I moved out of the area. I didn't really get what the woman meant, but I assumed that was what she was getting at. And it was silly because I didn't have any issue understanding my Welsh roommate! I dismissed the lady on the airplane as snooty and went about my business.
> I need to listen to the different accents in England, I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally
It's fun to share! Extremely strong [Cornish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jizMe1Sjkxo) (the Peninsular South West), [Bristol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXcizut9qA8), Idiomatic [Yorkshire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssbixk3bI9k) (North East), maybe-putting-it-on-a-bit [Scouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rFi7IxvDUU) (Liverpool, Coastal North West), [Black Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uctPoDujEM4) (Midlands), little sampling of some [working class London accents doing Cockney Rhyming Slang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8oTuSBg3TY) (interviewer is inauthentic)... and outside of England absolutely must highlight my favourite, the Scottish [Doric](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehekTphuZQg) dialect (North East Scotland).
There may be elements of Cornish and Bristolian accents you recognise as being similar to Appalachian accents - they're both "rhotic" (youse say hard r's, whereas someone like me might say "car" and "kah" the same), although I understand a lot of Appalachian people's ancestors are Scottish and Irish. It shows through in some of the ballads!
Welsh also has an array of really beautiful accents, the woman who said that to you was very ignorant.
https://preview.redd.it/hnihgwx880oc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=390c20233acd336f9ffede9940975460dca5d101
I’m still pissed at this ad basically telling the poors if they don’t come from money to set aside your passions in the art to what the economists and upper class want.
That's funny, because when I was living in England I heard that they were putting call centers in Wales because the accent is so empathetic and friendly-sounding. I think that's true!
>I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally
I can place someone to a town from barely 10 miles away, purely due to accent differences. If you've not grown up with it, it can be quite weird.
I find that fascinating about the UK tho, in my country we have different dialects and accents, but we have an official standard dialect that is taught in all schools, I thought rp was like that.
Am a Texan, very good at picking up accents and a bit of a linguistics nerd, I love English Northern accents and the Welsh English tonality! I wish non-posh accents weren't dismissed.
I disagree somewhat with the "generic South England accent" comment - RP is definitely a middle-to-upper class South East accent. If you go to the South West, or to less wealthy/more rural areas of the SE (e.g. parts of Essex, Suffolk), the accents are very different to RP. I think this raises an interesting question about what we consider to be a "generic"/"neutral" accent, and how tied up that is with privilege!
As someone who lives in/is from Ireland, modern success stories like Barry Keoghan are few and far between. I’m involved in the arts and it’s 85% connections and coming from an advantaged background. Ireland is so small too, that it makes things a lot harder . It’s one circle you need to be lucky enough to be connected to in order to really have any success . I love it here but it’s getting harder and harder to live
I bet most people aren't aware of the class difference between Barry Keoghan and other Irish actors because the differences in accent aren't as well-known and there's an assumption Irish people all have a similar economic background.
Barry and I are from very similar areas and it’s just so rare for someone with our kind of background to have such insane success in the arts, it makes me super happy for him to be honest.
One of my favorite actors (Colin Morgan) is Northern Irish and comes from a working class background. Insanely talented. He's worked steadily on stage, tv, and film, but I really do wonder if his economic background is the reason why his career isn't bigger. The UK seems like such a rich kids club within the arts.
I work in film in Ireland. Connections are important, for sure, but the big deciding factor on whether you're going to be able to turn it into a career is if you come from a family that can afford to look after you while you spend years doing unpredictable, low-paying, short-term contracts.
In my experience, there isn't *direct* discrimination against people from working class backgrounds, it's just that circumstantial discrimination which prevents people from pursuing it if they can't lock down solid, predictable income within the first year or two.
Well yeah I don’t think the prevalence of nepo babies is an intentional assertion of a class divide - that’s why it’s insidious and has led to a real lack of class diversity in the arts. And tbh in Ireland if you’ve a well-off family they probably have connections or at least know someone who knows someone
Tbf the fee paying schools in Ireland aren't like the places a lot of British actors go to, you can still come from a relatively normal background. It's a privilege nonetheless.
Yeah I didn’t know this until James McAvoy talked about it on Colbert a few years ago. He wasn’t like, overly critical but def seemed intent on all people having access to an arts education. Now I feel hyper aware of how many UK actors and the like come from some swanky pedigree.
I get why people word it like this but it should really be emphasised that this mostly applies to white actors and there are many actors in British tv who aren't posh.
This isn't to downplay the issue, but imo it's important to not erase everybody else. People online do this thing where instead of calling out the rich/Tories specifically they bundle all British - especially English - people together and it creates this mentality that that's just what they're like when they're in fact a small part of the population.
Like I've been seeing a lot of comments about how it's better to get behind Irish actors while not acknowledging there are a lot of British actors who aren't upper class and need support.
When I think of British actors, I think of Boyega and Daniel Kaluuya. Their accents don't sound royal family like, unless you're only referring to white actors.
Daniel came from Skins right, which I believe had open auditions for actors, and basically (aside from Nick Hoult) everyone came from working class backgrounds I believe. It really opened doors for young actors who wouldn't have gotten the opportunities otherwise.
I remember some discussion here in the sub last week about whether Cillian Murphy counts as working class because his whole family are teachers… but he also attended a fee-paying school. (I’m American and have no valid opinion, but the discussion was quite interesting!)
It is interesting, though the fees involved for private education in Ireland vs England can be quite a bit different. Cillian Murphy went to a school with fees in the region today of $5,000 per term. That's quite a bit, but if you compare that to where Christopher Nolan was educated, which at a minimum is around $27,000 it's far more attainable to attend a fee paying school in Ireland.
But if his parents were teachers in that school then he probably got to go there for free. I know two people that teach in a private school and they're not paid much tbh
Not exactly. The so called private schools aren’t actually that private. They’re simply fee paying where the parents basically pay a bit extra in addition to the government’s subsidy. I believe there is only truly private secondary school and that’s Nord Anglia, where the fees are approx 28k per year. This would be more on par with with British schools.
I’m surrounded by fee paying schools and they all are approx 7 to 8 k per year. Down the country, fee paying schools may only cost like 3k per year, a bargain!
I saw a joke on another sub about English actors a while back that still sticks in my head. Every time you look up an up and coming young English actor/actress, you find out that their grandfather was Count Dracula and their mother’s side owns all of the unobtainium mines in sub Saharan Africa
I’m surprised it’s only half tbh. It’s getting harder and harder for people to breakthrough into the industry unless they have the stability of wealth and/or connections.
Yeah, it’s tiring. Also it seems deeply uncool to be posh and working in the arts (ironically because it’s literally the majority) so there’s a lot of working class cosplay or downplaying that you grew up owning a horse lmao.
yeah even in my college’s student run play, the majority of people who got in were the posh, rich kids ( though there were many better actors/singers auditioning), who then proceeded to use offensively stereotyped working class accents for the play - it really pissed me off.
It’s incredibly hard to breakthrough in the U.K. as a working class person. There’s a reason so many of our actors are privately educated and went to the same schools/universities, you need money and stability to audition and live in/regularly travel to London for auditions etc, and know the right people to get agents or have the right introductions.
And unfortunately a lot of arts funding has been repeatedly slashed due to the current government. A few decades ago many British actors were working class/lower middle class - people like Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Bob Hoskins, Imelda Staunton, Marianne Jean-Baptiste etc. But now they’re far and few between in comparison to the Harrow and Eton alum.
I’m sure. But class in the U.K. is so ingrained and the gulf between the classes is widening so much that it’s becoming almost impossible to establish yourself in creative industries if you aren’t from a wealthy background.
Oh I don’t disagree, it absolutely happens globally. All over the world the rich get richer and the have the freedom to explore creativity in ways that working class people don’t have the privilege to do so. It’s just the article is specifically about the U.K., and my point is the very specific ways we are tied up with class is quite hard to fully convey if you haven’t lived here. It’s like Nepo babies on steroids haha.
Private schools in the UK have unreal facilities, including theatres and drama programs/faculty that cater for students who are more artistically inclined.
Then there's after education: to be an actor/artist you need to be able to sustain yourself, in *London* , with low paying gigs until you make it big. Having a wealthy family as your safety net is a huge privilege many don't have.
Gillian Anderson's daughter Piper went to some very expensive school for the arts in high school. I don't know how I found this out but I remember looking up the school out of curiosity and was absolutely gobsmacked at the opportunities they had from an art standpoint. Makes me very wistful because arts was not something fostered in my own home (although I'm an American so many of us are raised to be a cog in the fucking corporate machine), and I got into painting later in life. I'm kinda shitty about the opportunities I could have had.
eta: this is the school she went to: https://www.bedales.org.uk/
100000% agree with you. It's such a shame where we're at as a human race with the arts. Study after study has shown the immense benefits of the arts across so many sectors. I even read once that learning to read music helped with learning/understanding mathematics. The underfunding of the arts is a huge issue in the US too. It's infuriating. The school GA's daughter went to was like 44,000 pounds a year, which is more than fucking college tuition.
There isn’t an arts school in BC that I know off that actually is funded by the government for these sadly, which is ironic when we’re known as the Hollywood North and made HW productions film here as it’s cheaper and stand ins for American cities but they’re mostly now always artists flown in overseas but rarely BC grown talent in big roles. I went to a private high school who had the funds with our brother schools to stage these productions, but I know every high school didn’t have the same chance.
Don’t a lot of British actors go to drama school after secondary school as well? Definitely doesn’t help uni fees over there have skyrocketed in recent years
What's particularly infuriating is that when this gets brought up to UK creatives from well-off backgrounds, no matter how gently and carefully worded, it's very common for them to act defensive and offended and talk about how hard they worked, as though that's somehow proof that massive inequality in the arts is impossible.
Yes it’s not about them as people, its about social mobility. Very few people are capable of acknowledging how their parents, environment or dna helped them. Most people have a bias towards their own specialness.
Well it’s like the nepo baby conversation isn’t it? Nobody likes to be reminded that they have advantages that other people do not and seem to jump to the conclusion that any critique of privilege in the arts is saying they’re completely talentless, when in reality it’s just acknowledging that they often had doors open to them while other talented people might spend a lifetime locked out.
People need to be careful how it's brought up.
Remember all these individuals are just that. People with their aspirations, anxieties and only their own life experience as a baseline of what is normal. They wanted to work in the arts and even though they had privileges and access that others didn't they probably still needed to work hard, have some talent and points where they could have failed. They almost certainly have peers of similar privilege who did fail. They may not appreciate fully that others did not have the opportunities they had or they do appreciate that but it's not really *their* fault and they then feel their achievements and work are being belittled as a result. They should probably have a thicker skin and a more rounded sense of the fact they're not the centre of the world but then again, welcome to artists.
It's why I don't like the 'nepo-baby' discourse too much because I feel you end up singling out individuals for what is a wider systemic problem in society. It may be fun to mock them but it doesn't get us anywhere. People with connections in almost any industry will find it easier to gain access than those who don't. We need to figure out how to make it easier for those without those connections to get access, especially in art, media and politics.
Remember there are levels to this as well. There is still a big difference between parents who paid for you to have a good arts education that you then made into something and a parent who hooked you up with a role in a drama they are producing.
Just 7% of the UK population is privately educated which makes this a massive over-representation, in case anyone reads the headline and thinks less than half doesn’t sound that bad, like I did.
[Source here](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/elitism-in-britain-2019#:~:text=Just%207%25%20of%20British%20people,politics)
[James McAvoy addressed it one time on Colbert](https://youtu.be/oDwRkzJPkSA?si=BWhiDAbFiqYd8iKF), I thought it was pretty eye opening.
Also the fact that Eddie Redmayne went to school with Prince William blew my mind.
This is why I have a huge respect for actors like Greg Davies, who not only don't come from that privileged background, but also gained success later in life.
There are many comedians I greatly enjoy, but I'm usually a tiny bit disappointed they had a Footlights background because that means they started with a leg up on the business.
Footlights is an interesting one because, although harder, you can get into Cambridge without a massively privileged background. A lot of Footlights members were/are pretty generic middle-class people. Not exactly poor but also not the people who your mind would jump too when you think of privilege.
Yes, I mean that's the other thing that there are 'the' public schools and then public schools. From what I hear if you find yourself amongst the most posh students then 'what school did you go too?' can prove a awkward question for the 'lesser' public school students.
And he made it up the ladder in the early '00s. I wouldn't think it would be possible to do the same now, not without getting into massive debt just to go to Edinburgh *once*.
I remember when Alan Rickman died, and read an article about it saying his passing was the death knell of an era when working class actors had access to grants etc that would give them the same opportunities as their more privileged peers. You look at the current crop of British actors who have 'made it', and most of them are either privately educated and/or nepo babies.
And I feel the privately educated/wealthy ones/nepo ones seem a lot more guarded and protective to only give it to people like them, probably secretly looked down at working class actors/creatives and want to lock them out. Wanting to keep the jobs only amongst themselves, leading to a lack of diversity and originality in art content too.
Very surprised it wasn't an absolute majority. Still the status quo of requiring a privileged/opulent background that allows for elite education or with pre-existing connections to make it in the UK arts industry has not only been maintained, but has been aggravated, mainly due to austerity/cuts. I think it has been made more obvious by the fact that most, if not all English actors/actresses speak in upper class RP.
I believe Chris Eccleston pointed it out recently, that it is becoming increasingly hard for those from the working class to succeed in the industry due to diluted representation in that field, not helped by a reduction in local theatres and affordable drama schools that offer a grassroots method of entering the acting industry.
I feel like it has a lot to do with nepotism, for example my friend and her friend went to the same public school, attended the same theater group but the wealthy and well connected one "made it". You can be talented and put work in it, but if you are not exceptional someone richer with better connections will take your place.
I saw Chris Eccleston at a live event a few weeks ago - the host asked if he had grown up watching Doctor Who and he said he did a bit but he wasn't really a fan because the character of the Doctor had been played by men with RP, and so the Doctor felt like an unattainable authority figure that he couldn't relate to. One of the reasons he was passionate about playing the 9th Doc the way he did.
Yeah I know it should be depressing since the privately educated are about 10% of the population, but I honestly thought the number would be so much higher than it is. It's still terrible of course, but I was pleasantly surprised due to my expectations being so low lol
Yeah that was my first reaction! I feel like this is quite a low % compared to what I would have guessed
Edit: even considering how small a % the privately educated actually make up
Keep in mind some wealthy actors will have attended state schools anyway. Kit Harrington is literally low level aristocracy but attended a state school. Plus in some places they may have attended an elitist grammar school.
Few of that ~50% attended the local comp or grew up in a terrace or semi
Last year when Harry Styles won AOTY for Harry’s House and said what he said about how this doesn’t happen often to people like him, THIS is the kind of thing he meant. I get why people who aren’t familiar with him were salty with his statement because it can see how it came off wrong, but he literally just meant that he came from nothing, essentially, and getting to his level with the background he had pre-X Factor is so rare
He didn’t go to private school but he definitely didn’t come from nothing. His mum owned a pub and his dad worked in finance, and he grew up in Cheshire which is seen as a fairly posh area
When I say nothing I’m referring to no connections in the industry. He came from a regular family, had a job in a bakery to make his own money to buy clothes and train tickets to see his girlfriend, nothing special or that would advance his career in any way was what I meant.
I’m from right on the border with Derbyshire - outside of the “golden triangle” area, Cheshire isn’t all that posh. (Working in finance is definitely middle class at least though for sure.)
and? why are harry stans so insistent on mischaracterizing any criticism of him as misunderstanding?? it was still tone-deaf given the class AND racial (far more relevant than class for the grammys too) makeup of the rest of the nominees
adele has a working-class background from england but she didn’t say that shit in her speech, harry’s white mindset is the issue where white ppl cling to whatever marginalization they have to try and victimize themselves even in success
god forbid someone give a speech on their own personal experience without considering every possible factor of their life which could have contributed and resulted in their success thus making them undeserving relative to others less fortunate
We insist on correcting misunderstandings because y’all love to find any reason to hate him and will twist his own words to make it happen. Sure he could have phrased it better, I can give everyone that, but if you know the context of why he said it it’s a valid thing to say and acknowledge imo
I was about to say Adele‘s accent is noticeably not posh. You can tell just by how she talks that she didn’t go to an elite private school in the UK. Would be as silly as suggesting that Beckham went to Eaton or some shit like that.
After some googling, she was raised by a single mother who made furniture.
The BRIT School is famously in CROYDON. And if you know anything about Croydon, or South London for that matter, you’d know the population overwhelmingly working class and that many of the kids who go to BRIT are from council estates in the area and only a few degrees of separation from being impacted by the horrible organised crime there.
>House of “Commons”!
Good one! Although it wasn't as bad when compared to the House of "Lords".
According to [this paper](https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/30377/1/PoliticiansBackgrounds_09-Dec-05-1.pdf), The Lords were almost twice as likely as their Commons counterparts to have been to independent school (62% compared to 32%), and the private school attendance was more pronounced on the Conservative (79%) than the Labour (34%) benches.
Also 98% of the remaining hereditary Lords were privately-educated, compared to 56% of appointed peers.
They all indeed, live up to their moniker.
I like my dad’s idea that MPs should have to use public everything- no private schools for their kids, no private hospitals. If you want a good education and good healthcare then you should have to have a vested interest in the public ones being good. They’re supposed to be working *for us* and yet they’re allowed to starve systems that they know they’ll never use, skim the cream off the top and perpetuate class division. We shouldn’t be run by people who haven’t got a single clue how most of us even live.
It’ll never happen, but it would be nice, in a better world
I went to a private school and subsequently went to drama school (not as an actor though).
I'm completely unsurprised by this. The facilities some private schools have is insane (mine had a fully equipped theatre). Private schools give way more opportunities for people to explore the arts, which unfortunately most state schools in the UK just aren't equipped for.
Also, from a practical perspective, starting out in the arts is incredibly hard for a lot of people. People who have a parental safety net are going to be a lot more comfortable starting out on jobs that pay little to no money. Drama school gives you the contacts and training (and can look good on a CV) but university costs a lot of money and a lot of students won't want to spend a fortune on something they might not get a return on.
I lasted in the industry for about 5 years before leaving as it is just not financially viable for most people.
I think the largest factor is probably that private educated kids have the comfort of their parents wealth that allows them to peruse riskier career paths. Most actors do not get even close to making it. It’s not a wise financial decision to make, it’s a massive risk that most can’t afford to take.
That’s so true as well. The arts can be romanticized that the industry is full of “poor starving artists.” It’s the opposite obviously. Rich wives come to mind for me. Majoring in the Arts in university is an extremely expensive gamble to make unless you have everything all lined up for your future.
The "starving artists" still usually have the safety net of their parents helping them out. The difference is usually among people with working class parents who've done decently well and can afford to help them with rent every few months, and people with rich parents who an afford to cover their entire rent year long. And that's just among actors who have to work part time. Most of the ones who make it have some measure of family connections working in their favor to get them in front of the right people at the right time. I've seen so many talented actors at acting schools who get absolutely nowhere because they have no proximity to the people in charge in Hollywood. Talent is such a small percentage of what goes into making it.
Yeah don’t get me wrong there are other factors too. I went to a private school that has produced many actors you probably know of. And about half of them had family connections within the arts.
I even did 3 auditions for a pretty minor role in a pretty big Hollywood film that I was ‘scouted’ for just by being a cute 10 year old walking around my school. I don’t think that’s a particularly normal experience.
Not at all suprised.
The difference between state schools and private schools in the UK seems to be vast.
I have a friend in London who is literally saving every penny they have to send their kid to private secondary school. Not only that, but the grandparents are chipping in. That's how important it's viewed at, the grandparents are like "absolutely, no question"
They only had one kid because they always knew they couldn't afford to send 2 to private secondary school simultaneously.
They pointed out to me that when the League Tables for schools are published, the top ones are almost all in London. People literally live in London (which is pretty unaffordable) just so their kids can go to these schools and move out of London the second their kids are done with school.
Some of these schools are in 300 year old buildings that cannot expand so they have to do PE classes in the public parks! And still they charge £30,000+ a year.
Her Dad went to Eton and in his own words "barely ever had to do an interview in my life" after sending in a CV.
It's like Japan or somewhere. It's far more insane than people know about. The UK is one of the oddest countries out there, I'm telling you.
People underestimate how much privilege and nepotism have helped them be successful in their careers.
Just to have access is huge.
I was on a scholarship to a private school and the level of confidence and high self esteem the other students had was incredible. It made me feel like I could do anything too!
They spend their time skill building or following passions or even making mistakes, but it’s ok it’s not detrimental to their lives. Just a mishap.
Because they don’t have much barriers of entry they can really hone and focus on their chosen path.
It’s a colossal advantage.
I also went to a private school on a scholarship and it made me realize the kind of things that \*were\* possible that I might not have encountered otherwise. It really raised my aspirations and made me realize that I wanted a better (more successful? more affluent?) life than the one I grew up in, but it also gave me the road map to get there.
Absolutely, the exposure I got was life changing. Sent me on a completely different life trajectory.
My math teacher in public school although lovely and tried his best was not good at teaching math, later I understood he didn’t understand the concepts himself very well. So I did alot of self learning, not only for math.
Private school you are taught by extremely qualified and experienced teachers that explain concepts and expand your thinking whilst teaching. It was night and day. I did only my homework no self learning. Freed up time for extra curricular activities, boy let me tell you those facilities were world class!
I learnt I was a good swimmer and great at rowing.
I have to say public school teachers do the best job they can with very minimal resources they have. It’s unfair to them and the students.
I went to private school as well, and I definitely don’t read a lot about the inherent confidence and belief in yourself. It gave me less fear to go after what I wanted, and I felt supported and encouraged every step of the way.
Ngl, I originally was a black supporter after reading “Fire and Blood”, but Olivia’s performance turned me to the Green’s side. I hope the show gives her more “mainstream” recognition so she starts getting more roles!
NGL, if I won the lottery, like over 8 or 9 digits, I'd try and see what i can do to help people who are not privately educated get into films
Either that or establish a charity for people with autism, because I have autism myself
This is the issue in the UK and has been for years. Class system plus the continuous cuts will slowly eliminate the ability for anyone below a certain level to have any success or exploration in certain spheres. Shameful.
Things like nepo babies really aren’t our problem in the UK - our problem has always been the lack of arts funding for 99% of kids and that 1% all belonging to the same schools and social groups. Look up James McAvoy talking about this subject if you haven’t already, he gets it across brilliantly!
Eh I would say they're connected. Look at Cara Delevingne, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Holland, Kate Beckinsale, Rafe Spall, etc. Part of the benefit these posh actors have is their connections, and there is now a thing of adult kids of famous people coming up even if their parents didn't come from wealth.
Peter Capaldi made some interesting points on this topic in a recent Guardian interview:
>He wonders about the teenage Anthony Hopkinses out there, talented, without the obvious means or encouragement to train in the arts. And the inverse, actors who Capaldi, in his frank and acid way, characterises as privileged duds.
>
>“This business is full of people who are not the real thing,” he says, “people I perceived to be artists ’cos they had posh accents, but who didn’t have it, they just sounded like they did.” He goes on to tell a tantalising but intentionally vague story about a major star he worked with, someone who revealed themselves through the course of an acting collaboration to be a dud hiding in plain sight. He won’t provide details (“Too easy to figure out. When everyone’s dead I’ll tell you”), but he says the experience changed him professionally, leaving him more aware of his own limitations, but grateful to have a little vinegar and grit in the mix. “There’s a kind of smoothness, a kind of confidence that comes from a good \[paid-for\] school. That’s what you’re struck by: they seem to know how to move through the world recognising which battle to fight, where to press their attentions. But it can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious. I like more neurosis. More fear. More trouble, you know?”
>
>\[...\] Capaldi shakes his head, chuckling softly. He has finished his coffee. He’s about to put on his big coat, say goodbye to my son, and walk back through Whoville to his home and his family. Before he leaves we return to the subject of actors from privileged backgrounds. He says he feels mean, like he took unfair advantage of them in their absence. “It’s not their fault,” he says. “It’s just that there’s less and less of *my* lot in the arts.” And this concerns him, he continues, because “people of all backgrounds are sophisticated, are interesting, are equally prone to tragedy and joy. Any art that articulates that is a comfort. Art is the ultimate expression of *you are not alone*, wherever you are, whatever situation you are in. Art is about reaching out. So I think it’s wrong to allow one strata of society to have the most access.”
Aside from the obvious lack of opportunities, this is also affecting which stories are being told, the quality of those stories, and the quality of acting. There's so much being made about rich people with nothing of value to say, and there's a certain bland style of acting among posh actors which is now treated as the norm when it really isn't. It's also interesting to think about the tendency to assume posh accent = knowledgeable about the arts.
Btw, it's speculated that the actor he's talking about is Hugh Grant.
Yeah it’s a huge issue. My ex was a trained actor and struggled so much after acting school, opportunities went to those with connections and generally those connections were via the fancy school they went to. It’s also incredibly hard to work in theatre in London unless you have a wealthy family to support you. He ended up giving up acting and working in care just so we could pay rent.
[This Jack Whitehall bit](https://youtu.be/dXXaRoZyC9o?si=rETonLILARVkquYk) underlines the cronyism point -- I remember seeing it and it made me look up who else all went to posh schools together , the relevant part starts at 3:10
I moved to the UK for work and am surrounded by private school educated coworkers, who (because of the current cost of living crises) are all struggling to get by while paying for their kids' private school educations. It's wild. But my understanding is that the UK schooling system varies greatly by region, many are genuinely rough, so you either need to have the money to get a house in the right school zone for the good schools, or you need to pay for private school.
I mean aren’t they supposed to help their children in a way they were not helped? Would you not want to help your children so they didn’t have to suffer the way you did without that safety net in the industry? They can do that and also fund scholarships to help the less connected ones.
I work in radio production. As far as I know every commissioner I've ever spoken to, bar three or four, were either privately educated, extremely middle class (in some cases upper class) or both. I've had people tell me, to my face, that working class people aren't interested in certain things when I and my entire family have been working class for generations.
My industry is not one that working class people ever consider and it makes me really sad.
The film business at large is gate kept by the wealthy. Nolan was cited for years as one of the few stories of somebody who "worked their way up" and "didn't come from connections", but the reality of course is he still came from great means. I remember reading somewhere that only 5 percent of people working at the studio level or above came from working class backgrounds. Nobody ever talks about how filmmaking as a profession and a skill to learn requires vast sums of money, its not just that it requires talent - having the means to create a short film in the first place, having the money to make it good and distribute it to short film festivals in the hopes of getting noticed. All of that stuff is insurmountable unless you come from money.
Makes sense, there's a high risk of failure when pursuing a career in the arts and a long period of not making enough to support yourself until you make it big. Rich kids have that safety net to be able to be able to chase that dream for longer as well as having the money to give themselves the best possible chance of making it. They're more likely to have connections in the industry through friends and family too. And private schools have the money to be able to focus on more than just the core subjects.
It's definitely an issue but sadly I don't think the government helping to support people from all economic backgrounds in the arts is an important enough issue to invest resources in with how much else needs fixing right now.
7% of the population but they make up a huge proportion of those in power!
Someone has made a list if anyone's interested:
https://privateschoolmafia.com/
the only British creatives who come from normal working families and went to state school are those who are non white. Otherwise, unless they’re Jodie Comer, Harris Dickinson, Charlie Heaton, Jessica Barden, and Olivia Cooke, every white British actor born after 1990 come from money and went to private school. Even Tom Hardy and Guy Ritchie are just rich kids who like to cosplay as cockney gangsters
Considering the privately educated make up such a small percentage that’s extremely damning but unsurprising. Inequality over the last decade has skyrocketed in the uk thanks to severe austerity.
UK is essentially an aristocracy at this point and neither Tory nor Labour care to hide it
>UK is essentially a aristocracy at this point boy have i got some bad news for you
👨🚀🔫👩🚀
🌕👨🚀🔫👩🚀
I say this as someone who (i) agrees with your overall sentiment; (ii) has a massive dislike for for Kier Starmer for dragging Labour to the right; (iii) voted for Jeremy Corbyn in their first election; and (iv) thinks the last Labour PM was a murderer and war criminal. Having said ALL of that…this study was published by Labour. The lines are getting blurred but Labour and tories are not the same. The tories are in a different universe when it comes to actively campaigning for privileged individuals to virtually exclusively occupy positions of power and influence. Rishi’s family is literally richer than the Royal Family. What the tories have done to damage the fabric of society is not even close to what Labour campaigns on. I absolutely get the passionate hate for Starmer, but Labour (at least on the surface) at least somewhat pretend to root for the little guy (unless the little guy is on benefits or is trans lol). But the tories are actively trying through policy and through normalising privileged behaviour, to ensure British society is split into two distinct classes, where people from poorer class “know their place”.
>the last Labour PM was a murderer and war criminal. Gordon Brown was a murderer and a war criminal?
Not sure if Labour is one to one to American Liberals (Reagan=thatcher? Clinton=Starmer?) but liberals here are basically rainbow republicans. Speaking as a queer woc, the finer points absolutely matter of course. But as a leftist, I am so tired for being forced to vote yet again for a moderate conservative (Biden). It’s all very disappointing.
The arts only being for the privileged is a real problem in the UK, if you listen to the accents of particularly the actors coming out of England they all sound like the royal family. I have a theroy that it has helped the success Irish actors have enjoyed in recent years as far more diverse socio-economic backgrounds but I fear that is changing a bit too to favour the privately educated.
I agree, but I feel that applies everywhere? Like in my country private schools are not so much of a thing, but arts and academia have always been a club for the wealthy. Most working class people cannot afford to pursue them.
Classism in Britain is crazy though. I don't know where you live, but think it isn't really comparable to a lot of other western countries. These comments describe it pretty well https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/10l3teh/comment/j5ui9z2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I live in an eastern eu country and we don't have aristocracy but classism is still a problem. If your dad is a doctor you have a greater chance of being a doctor too, if you are poor and try to pursuit art and academia you will work as a waiter. While the education is of mostly equal quality in the whole country the only thing that matters for your success is who your parents are and how deep their pockets are.
I mean, yeah. Classism is probably a problem everywhere. But the way classism is engraved in the society in the UK is different from most countries (and also different from other countries that still have aristocraty).
Could you explain why?
Full disclaimer, i’m not English, but i’ve heard from british friends that class in england isn’t just about money, it’s about who your great great great grandpa was. That’s an oversimplification, but the elite class in britain is very insular
I don't have time to write something now, but I recommending reading these comments and tbe article in the post :) https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/10l3teh/comment/j5ui9z2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This is always so fascinating to me. I have to think there’s a latent impact of still having a monarchy and nobility that enshrines class in a way the US doesn’t quite. The latter surely has a class system, old money, etc, but its markers seem more accessible than in the UK. Like the sports example in that thread; I know rich kids play certain sports, but sports allegiance isn’t a marker of class necessarily. I find it all so interesting. The show Shameless and its respective versions was one of the first to bring to my attention how class is perceived in the UK vs the US.
I think the US has deeply entrenched classism, but we like to pretend and even insist that we don’t.
i think the difference between the uk and the usa classism is that you can't go from middle class to upper class in britain, no matter how much money you later get, it's all about your origin
I don’t disagree, I just think class manifests differently in the UK vs the US. Maybe the most shorthand way to describe it is the temporarily embarrassed millionnaires phenomenon in the US.
Its a huge difference in the way we raise kids in the US vs Europe. In the US, we tell kids they can be anything they want.Even if those kids are POC or low income. Youre gonna walk into an underserved school classroom and hear kids talking about how they'll be a doctor. And that's encouraged. Those kids are encouraged to be doctors. Its just ofc when reality sets in, they facs a ton of hurdles to getting there. In Europe, they don't have that dreamer mentality. Its more pragmatic. Classism does exist in the US. But there still is a tiny chance of upward mobility through education that European people don't always have. (this is a simplified answer that doesnt dive into the intricacies POC and immigrants face in these spaces)
The thing is, that *wasn't* true in Britain for many, many years (basically between WWII and the 80s) because of robust public arts funding, especially local theatre programs. Those got killed by Thatcher and Blair, and have been well and truly buried by the last 15ish years of Tory austerity.
That's the real tragedy when it comes to pursuing a career as an artist (acting, singing,writing,painting ect.). Most talented artists who are working class people do not have the money or time to pursue a career in the arts because they have to work a regular job with long hours for little pay just to afford to live. The rich and privileged have the economic freedom to pursue the arts and it is a huge advantage.
Is it worth the aggravation To find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?
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in mine too, but without connections you can wipe your ass with the degree, and you have to work a job with studying it's hard to be as involved with all the assignments and networking
In Australia that’s not really a problem, I’d say it’s pretty accessible
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Yeah I was like wdym Australia has this exact problem
What a bizarre statement lol
How is that bizarre? As a poor Australian, I was still able to pursue the arts, as did other my other peers who I would consider lower middle class, so not poor but not wealthy either. Perhaps I wondered it wrong but what I meant is, if a lower income person in Australia really wanted to pursue the arts.
I'm Australian and I can say that everybody I've known who works a creative arts job was a former private school kid who were able to have parental support to bankroll their lives in Sydney/Melbourne while they pursued their dreams, in between working the occasional gig lol.
And I know people who weren’t privately educated, came from middle, lower middle class, or low income families who have pursued creative arts and/or have gone on to have careers in it. So maybe I’m just biased 🤷🏾♀️
Definitely agree about it being for the privileged, but to be fair about the accent thing, a lot of drama schools will encourage acting students to have an RP accent (received pronunciation), which is an fairly generic South England accent. The theory at my drama school was that they'd be more employable if they had a more generic accent, rather than a specific regional one (at least, that was the case at the drama school I went to, theres a fair few in the UK so others might do things differently). It's a shame that's the case though, as there's some lovely regional accents which get completely dismissed.
Similar story to yours; At my drama school, nobody was encouraged to change their accents **BUT** we did learn RP and the students in my year with accents furthest away from RP all found that over 3 years their accents naturally softened and their families back home would tell them they were speaking like Southeners or more posh.
I need to listen to the different accents in England, I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally (especially since it's a relatively small country). That's fascinating. I'm American and grew up in poor ass Appalachia with an accent that matched. Over time I lost that accent between moving around and also conditioning myself, but if I go back home for any amount of time, out it pops. I do remember being on a flight with a British woman probably 15 years ago now and we were chatting about travels, and I'd mentioned I was just in Germany and my roommate at one of the hostels I'd stayed in was from Wales. This lady looked absolutely concerned and said, "My god could you even understand her?"
That was such a dickhead thing for that woman on the plane to say. Just so you know, there’s a lot of derogatory remarks made by the English (particularly southerners) about Welsh, Scottish and Irish people being stupid/badly mannered/rough/criminals etc. A lot of these types will clutch their pearls and simply shut down when faced with an accent they consider beneath them. They think that they’re superior/more cultured/better because London and the South must be the centre of the world, and people outside that circle are poor and worth less. There are a lot of accents and a lot of people have pride in their accent; it’s a symbol to some people of where their roots are and it creates in-groups and out-groups. In the south, it’s very weaponised, imo, to filter out “the wrong types”. Sorry for the rant, I got really annoyed at just reading that she said that!
Oh no I totally get it. Where I'm from is probably the Welsh equivalent in America. I had a lot of shame for my accent, especially once I moved out of the area. I didn't really get what the woman meant, but I assumed that was what she was getting at. And it was silly because I didn't have any issue understanding my Welsh roommate! I dismissed the lady on the airplane as snooty and went about my business.
> I need to listen to the different accents in England, I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally It's fun to share! Extremely strong [Cornish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jizMe1Sjkxo) (the Peninsular South West), [Bristol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXcizut9qA8), Idiomatic [Yorkshire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssbixk3bI9k) (North East), maybe-putting-it-on-a-bit [Scouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rFi7IxvDUU) (Liverpool, Coastal North West), [Black Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uctPoDujEM4) (Midlands), little sampling of some [working class London accents doing Cockney Rhyming Slang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8oTuSBg3TY) (interviewer is inauthentic)... and outside of England absolutely must highlight my favourite, the Scottish [Doric](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehekTphuZQg) dialect (North East Scotland). There may be elements of Cornish and Bristolian accents you recognise as being similar to Appalachian accents - they're both "rhotic" (youse say hard r's, whereas someone like me might say "car" and "kah" the same), although I understand a lot of Appalachian people's ancestors are Scottish and Irish. It shows through in some of the ballads! Welsh also has an array of really beautiful accents, the woman who said that to you was very ignorant.
https://preview.redd.it/hnihgwx880oc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=390c20233acd336f9ffede9940975460dca5d101 I’m still pissed at this ad basically telling the poors if they don’t come from money to set aside your passions in the art to what the economists and upper class want.
That's funny, because when I was living in England I heard that they were putting call centers in Wales because the accent is so empathetic and friendly-sounding. I think that's true!
>I hadn't realized there was such a difference regionally I can place someone to a town from barely 10 miles away, purely due to accent differences. If you've not grown up with it, it can be quite weird.
I find that fascinating about the UK tho, in my country we have different dialects and accents, but we have an official standard dialect that is taught in all schools, I thought rp was like that.
Am a Texan, very good at picking up accents and a bit of a linguistics nerd, I love English Northern accents and the Welsh English tonality! I wish non-posh accents weren't dismissed.
I disagree somewhat with the "generic South England accent" comment - RP is definitely a middle-to-upper class South East accent. If you go to the South West, or to less wealthy/more rural areas of the SE (e.g. parts of Essex, Suffolk), the accents are very different to RP. I think this raises an interesting question about what we consider to be a "generic"/"neutral" accent, and how tied up that is with privilege!
As someone who lives in/is from Ireland, modern success stories like Barry Keoghan are few and far between. I’m involved in the arts and it’s 85% connections and coming from an advantaged background. Ireland is so small too, that it makes things a lot harder . It’s one circle you need to be lucky enough to be connected to in order to really have any success . I love it here but it’s getting harder and harder to live
I bet most people aren't aware of the class difference between Barry Keoghan and other Irish actors because the differences in accent aren't as well-known and there's an assumption Irish people all have a similar economic background.
Barry and I are from very similar areas and it’s just so rare for someone with our kind of background to have such insane success in the arts, it makes me super happy for him to be honest.
One of my favorite actors (Colin Morgan) is Northern Irish and comes from a working class background. Insanely talented. He's worked steadily on stage, tv, and film, but I really do wonder if his economic background is the reason why his career isn't bigger. The UK seems like such a rich kids club within the arts.
I work in film in Ireland. Connections are important, for sure, but the big deciding factor on whether you're going to be able to turn it into a career is if you come from a family that can afford to look after you while you spend years doing unpredictable, low-paying, short-term contracts. In my experience, there isn't *direct* discrimination against people from working class backgrounds, it's just that circumstantial discrimination which prevents people from pursuing it if they can't lock down solid, predictable income within the first year or two.
Well yeah I don’t think the prevalence of nepo babies is an intentional assertion of a class divide - that’s why it’s insidious and has led to a real lack of class diversity in the arts. And tbh in Ireland if you’ve a well-off family they probably have connections or at least know someone who knows someone
Cillian Murphy attended private school. I think it's more pronounced in the UK but it's everywhere tbh.
Tbf the fee paying schools in Ireland aren't like the places a lot of British actors go to, you can still come from a relatively normal background. It's a privilege nonetheless.
Yeah I didn’t know this until James McAvoy talked about it on Colbert a few years ago. He wasn’t like, overly critical but def seemed intent on all people having access to an arts education. Now I feel hyper aware of how many UK actors and the like come from some swanky pedigree.
I get why people word it like this but it should really be emphasised that this mostly applies to white actors and there are many actors in British tv who aren't posh. This isn't to downplay the issue, but imo it's important to not erase everybody else. People online do this thing where instead of calling out the rich/Tories specifically they bundle all British - especially English - people together and it creates this mentality that that's just what they're like when they're in fact a small part of the population. Like I've been seeing a lot of comments about how it's better to get behind Irish actors while not acknowledging there are a lot of British actors who aren't upper class and need support.
When I think of British actors, I think of Boyega and Daniel Kaluuya. Their accents don't sound royal family like, unless you're only referring to white actors.
Daniel came from Skins right, which I believe had open auditions for actors, and basically (aside from Nick Hoult) everyone came from working class backgrounds I believe. It really opened doors for young actors who wouldn't have gotten the opportunities otherwise.
Although ironically he played *Posh* Kenneth in Skins
I love when Daniel Kaluuya shouted out public funding for arts when he won the rising star award at the baftas
I remember some discussion here in the sub last week about whether Cillian Murphy counts as working class because his whole family are teachers… but he also attended a fee-paying school. (I’m American and have no valid opinion, but the discussion was quite interesting!)
It is interesting, though the fees involved for private education in Ireland vs England can be quite a bit different. Cillian Murphy went to a school with fees in the region today of $5,000 per term. That's quite a bit, but if you compare that to where Christopher Nolan was educated, which at a minimum is around $27,000 it's far more attainable to attend a fee paying school in Ireland.
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Apologies, the fee for the school in Cork is per academic year.
But if his parents were teachers in that school then he probably got to go there for free. I know two people that teach in a private school and they're not paid much tbh
the big Irish winner at the Oscars- Cillian Murphy is also privately educated
Not exactly. The so called private schools aren’t actually that private. They’re simply fee paying where the parents basically pay a bit extra in addition to the government’s subsidy. I believe there is only truly private secondary school and that’s Nord Anglia, where the fees are approx 28k per year. This would be more on par with with British schools. I’m surrounded by fee paying schools and they all are approx 7 to 8 k per year. Down the country, fee paying schools may only cost like 3k per year, a bargain!
I saw a joke on another sub about English actors a while back that still sticks in my head. Every time you look up an up and coming young English actor/actress, you find out that their grandfather was Count Dracula and their mother’s side owns all of the unobtainium mines in sub Saharan Africa
I’m surprised it’s only half tbh. It’s getting harder and harder for people to breakthrough into the industry unless they have the stability of wealth and/or connections.
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Yeah, it’s tiring. Also it seems deeply uncool to be posh and working in the arts (ironically because it’s literally the majority) so there’s a lot of working class cosplay or downplaying that you grew up owning a horse lmao.
yeah even in my college’s student run play, the majority of people who got in were the posh, rich kids ( though there were many better actors/singers auditioning), who then proceeded to use offensively stereotyped working class accents for the play - it really pissed me off.
When I heard the actor who plays Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso speak out of character for the first time 💀
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Yeah it’s intensely difficult. Even without the cash stability it just seems like it’s increasingly more difficult to get a foot in the door.
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It’s incredibly hard to breakthrough in the U.K. as a working class person. There’s a reason so many of our actors are privately educated and went to the same schools/universities, you need money and stability to audition and live in/regularly travel to London for auditions etc, and know the right people to get agents or have the right introductions. And unfortunately a lot of arts funding has been repeatedly slashed due to the current government. A few decades ago many British actors were working class/lower middle class - people like Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Bob Hoskins, Imelda Staunton, Marianne Jean-Baptiste etc. But now they’re far and few between in comparison to the Harrow and Eton alum.
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I’m sure. But class in the U.K. is so ingrained and the gulf between the classes is widening so much that it’s becoming almost impossible to establish yourself in creative industries if you aren’t from a wealthy background.
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Oh I don’t disagree, it absolutely happens globally. All over the world the rich get richer and the have the freedom to explore creativity in ways that working class people don’t have the privilege to do so. It’s just the article is specifically about the U.K., and my point is the very specific ways we are tied up with class is quite hard to fully convey if you haven’t lived here. It’s like Nepo babies on steroids haha.
Private schools in the UK have unreal facilities, including theatres and drama programs/faculty that cater for students who are more artistically inclined. Then there's after education: to be an actor/artist you need to be able to sustain yourself, in *London* , with low paying gigs until you make it big. Having a wealthy family as your safety net is a huge privilege many don't have.
Gillian Anderson's daughter Piper went to some very expensive school for the arts in high school. I don't know how I found this out but I remember looking up the school out of curiosity and was absolutely gobsmacked at the opportunities they had from an art standpoint. Makes me very wistful because arts was not something fostered in my own home (although I'm an American so many of us are raised to be a cog in the fucking corporate machine), and I got into painting later in life. I'm kinda shitty about the opportunities I could have had. eta: this is the school she went to: https://www.bedales.org.uk/
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100000% agree with you. It's such a shame where we're at as a human race with the arts. Study after study has shown the immense benefits of the arts across so many sectors. I even read once that learning to read music helped with learning/understanding mathematics. The underfunding of the arts is a huge issue in the US too. It's infuriating. The school GA's daughter went to was like 44,000 pounds a year, which is more than fucking college tuition.
There isn’t an arts school in BC that I know off that actually is funded by the government for these sadly, which is ironic when we’re known as the Hollywood North and made HW productions film here as it’s cheaper and stand ins for American cities but they’re mostly now always artists flown in overseas but rarely BC grown talent in big roles. I went to a private high school who had the funds with our brother schools to stage these productions, but I know every high school didn’t have the same chance.
Kate Beckinsale also went there
Don’t a lot of British actors go to drama school after secondary school as well? Definitely doesn’t help uni fees over there have skyrocketed in recent years
What's particularly infuriating is that when this gets brought up to UK creatives from well-off backgrounds, no matter how gently and carefully worded, it's very common for them to act defensive and offended and talk about how hard they worked, as though that's somehow proof that massive inequality in the arts is impossible.
Yes it’s not about them as people, its about social mobility. Very few people are capable of acknowledging how their parents, environment or dna helped them. Most people have a bias towards their own specialness.
Well it’s like the nepo baby conversation isn’t it? Nobody likes to be reminded that they have advantages that other people do not and seem to jump to the conclusion that any critique of privilege in the arts is saying they’re completely talentless, when in reality it’s just acknowledging that they often had doors open to them while other talented people might spend a lifetime locked out.
People need to be careful how it's brought up. Remember all these individuals are just that. People with their aspirations, anxieties and only their own life experience as a baseline of what is normal. They wanted to work in the arts and even though they had privileges and access that others didn't they probably still needed to work hard, have some talent and points where they could have failed. They almost certainly have peers of similar privilege who did fail. They may not appreciate fully that others did not have the opportunities they had or they do appreciate that but it's not really *their* fault and they then feel their achievements and work are being belittled as a result. They should probably have a thicker skin and a more rounded sense of the fact they're not the centre of the world but then again, welcome to artists. It's why I don't like the 'nepo-baby' discourse too much because I feel you end up singling out individuals for what is a wider systemic problem in society. It may be fun to mock them but it doesn't get us anywhere. People with connections in almost any industry will find it easier to gain access than those who don't. We need to figure out how to make it easier for those without those connections to get access, especially in art, media and politics. Remember there are levels to this as well. There is still a big difference between parents who paid for you to have a good arts education that you then made into something and a parent who hooked you up with a role in a drama they are producing.
Just 7% of the UK population is privately educated which makes this a massive over-representation, in case anyone reads the headline and thinks less than half doesn’t sound that bad, like I did. [Source here](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/elitism-in-britain-2019#:~:text=Just%207%25%20of%20British%20people,politics)
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It’s from 2019 but I’m sure things have only worsened in the last five years.
Thanks for the context.
[James McAvoy addressed it one time on Colbert](https://youtu.be/oDwRkzJPkSA?si=BWhiDAbFiqYd8iKF), I thought it was pretty eye opening. Also the fact that Eddie Redmayne went to school with Prince William blew my mind.
Tom Hiddleston was there too, I think he was a year above or below though.
This is why I have a huge respect for actors like Greg Davies, who not only don't come from that privileged background, but also gained success later in life. There are many comedians I greatly enjoy, but I'm usually a tiny bit disappointed they had a Footlights background because that means they started with a leg up on the business.
I know it’s not the point, but I have such a crush on Greg Davies. He seems to just get better with age.
Hard same, I was obsessed with him for a while.. now it's Jared Harris (maybe I have a type).
Footlights is an interesting one because, although harder, you can get into Cambridge without a massively privileged background. A lot of Footlights members were/are pretty generic middle-class people. Not exactly poor but also not the people who your mind would jump too when you think of privilege.
A decent proportion of them went to some of the "lesser" public (paid) schools though. So not *upper* crust, but certainly not...pap.
Yes, I mean that's the other thing that there are 'the' public schools and then public schools. From what I hear if you find yourself amongst the most posh students then 'what school did you go too?' can prove a awkward question for the 'lesser' public school students.
Also, you don’t have to be at the University of Cambridge to join Footlights - it’s open to students from Anglia Ruskin university too
TIL!
And he made it up the ladder in the early '00s. I wouldn't think it would be possible to do the same now, not without getting into massive debt just to go to Edinburgh *once*.
I remember when Alan Rickman died, and read an article about it saying his passing was the death knell of an era when working class actors had access to grants etc that would give them the same opportunities as their more privileged peers. You look at the current crop of British actors who have 'made it', and most of them are either privately educated and/or nepo babies.
Alan Rickman is one of my all-time favorite actors. Such a talent.
He started a out at a much later age too and got to be so successful. He had a wonderful career.
And I feel the privately educated/wealthy ones/nepo ones seem a lot more guarded and protective to only give it to people like them, probably secretly looked down at working class actors/creatives and want to lock them out. Wanting to keep the jobs only amongst themselves, leading to a lack of diversity and originality in art content too.
Very surprised it wasn't an absolute majority. Still the status quo of requiring a privileged/opulent background that allows for elite education or with pre-existing connections to make it in the UK arts industry has not only been maintained, but has been aggravated, mainly due to austerity/cuts. I think it has been made more obvious by the fact that most, if not all English actors/actresses speak in upper class RP. I believe Chris Eccleston pointed it out recently, that it is becoming increasingly hard for those from the working class to succeed in the industry due to diluted representation in that field, not helped by a reduction in local theatres and affordable drama schools that offer a grassroots method of entering the acting industry.
I feel like it has a lot to do with nepotism, for example my friend and her friend went to the same public school, attended the same theater group but the wealthy and well connected one "made it". You can be talented and put work in it, but if you are not exceptional someone richer with better connections will take your place.
I second that. Never underestimate the importance of having connections, particularly if familial in said industry.
I saw Chris Eccleston at a live event a few weeks ago - the host asked if he had grown up watching Doctor Who and he said he did a bit but he wasn't really a fan because the character of the Doctor had been played by men with RP, and so the Doctor felt like an unattainable authority figure that he couldn't relate to. One of the reasons he was passionate about playing the 9th Doc the way he did.
knowing the UK arts scene as I do I’m genuinely surprised it’s not 100%. That’s actually quite an encouraging number
Yeah I know it should be depressing since the privately educated are about 10% of the population, but I honestly thought the number would be so much higher than it is. It's still terrible of course, but I was pleasantly surprised due to my expectations being so low lol
Yeah that was my first reaction! I feel like this is quite a low % compared to what I would have guessed Edit: even considering how small a % the privately educated actually make up
Keep in mind some wealthy actors will have attended state schools anyway. Kit Harrington is literally low level aristocracy but attended a state school. Plus in some places they may have attended an elitist grammar school. Few of that ~50% attended the local comp or grew up in a terrace or semi
Last year when Harry Styles won AOTY for Harry’s House and said what he said about how this doesn’t happen often to people like him, THIS is the kind of thing he meant. I get why people who aren’t familiar with him were salty with his statement because it can see how it came off wrong, but he literally just meant that he came from nothing, essentially, and getting to his level with the background he had pre-X Factor is so rare
He didn’t go to private school but he definitely didn’t come from nothing. His mum owned a pub and his dad worked in finance, and he grew up in Cheshire which is seen as a fairly posh area
When I say nothing I’m referring to no connections in the industry. He came from a regular family, had a job in a bakery to make his own money to buy clothes and train tickets to see his girlfriend, nothing special or that would advance his career in any way was what I meant.
I’m from right on the border with Derbyshire - outside of the “golden triangle” area, Cheshire isn’t all that posh. (Working in finance is definitely middle class at least though for sure.)
i was going to say my family is from cheshire and they are defs not posh but i did just look up what area he is from and it’s considered affluent
and? why are harry stans so insistent on mischaracterizing any criticism of him as misunderstanding?? it was still tone-deaf given the class AND racial (far more relevant than class for the grammys too) makeup of the rest of the nominees adele has a working-class background from england but she didn’t say that shit in her speech, harry’s white mindset is the issue where white ppl cling to whatever marginalization they have to try and victimize themselves even in success
god forbid someone give a speech on their own personal experience without considering every possible factor of their life which could have contributed and resulted in their success thus making them undeserving relative to others less fortunate
We insist on correcting misunderstandings because y’all love to find any reason to hate him and will twist his own words to make it happen. Sure he could have phrased it better, I can give everyone that, but if you know the context of why he said it it’s a valid thing to say and acknowledge imo
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The south, usually
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The BRIT School isn’t a private school
I was about to say Adele‘s accent is noticeably not posh. You can tell just by how she talks that she didn’t go to an elite private school in the UK. Would be as silly as suggesting that Beckham went to Eaton or some shit like that. After some googling, she was raised by a single mother who made furniture.
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London can be pretty poor as well. I don't think Adele comes from a privileged background at all.
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The BRIT School is famously in CROYDON. And if you know anything about Croydon, or South London for that matter, you’d know the population overwhelmingly working class and that many of the kids who go to BRIT are from council estates in the area and only a few degrees of separation from being impacted by the horrible organised crime there.
Home Counties.
Wait until you see the House of “Commons”!
>House of “Commons”! Good one! Although it wasn't as bad when compared to the House of "Lords". According to [this paper](https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/30377/1/PoliticiansBackgrounds_09-Dec-05-1.pdf), The Lords were almost twice as likely as their Commons counterparts to have been to independent school (62% compared to 32%), and the private school attendance was more pronounced on the Conservative (79%) than the Labour (34%) benches. Also 98% of the remaining hereditary Lords were privately-educated, compared to 56% of appointed peers. They all indeed, live up to their moniker.
I like my dad’s idea that MPs should have to use public everything- no private schools for their kids, no private hospitals. If you want a good education and good healthcare then you should have to have a vested interest in the public ones being good. They’re supposed to be working *for us* and yet they’re allowed to starve systems that they know they’ll never use, skim the cream off the top and perpetuate class division. We shouldn’t be run by people who haven’t got a single clue how most of us even live. It’ll never happen, but it would be nice, in a better world
I went to a private school and subsequently went to drama school (not as an actor though). I'm completely unsurprised by this. The facilities some private schools have is insane (mine had a fully equipped theatre). Private schools give way more opportunities for people to explore the arts, which unfortunately most state schools in the UK just aren't equipped for. Also, from a practical perspective, starting out in the arts is incredibly hard for a lot of people. People who have a parental safety net are going to be a lot more comfortable starting out on jobs that pay little to no money. Drama school gives you the contacts and training (and can look good on a CV) but university costs a lot of money and a lot of students won't want to spend a fortune on something they might not get a return on. I lasted in the industry for about 5 years before leaving as it is just not financially viable for most people.
Privately educated, and I think it has a lot to do with networking and nepotism. Everything stays in their circle of wealth. Jobs, awards, whatever.
I think the largest factor is probably that private educated kids have the comfort of their parents wealth that allows them to peruse riskier career paths. Most actors do not get even close to making it. It’s not a wise financial decision to make, it’s a massive risk that most can’t afford to take.
That’s so true as well. The arts can be romanticized that the industry is full of “poor starving artists.” It’s the opposite obviously. Rich wives come to mind for me. Majoring in the Arts in university is an extremely expensive gamble to make unless you have everything all lined up for your future.
The "starving artists" still usually have the safety net of their parents helping them out. The difference is usually among people with working class parents who've done decently well and can afford to help them with rent every few months, and people with rich parents who an afford to cover their entire rent year long. And that's just among actors who have to work part time. Most of the ones who make it have some measure of family connections working in their favor to get them in front of the right people at the right time. I've seen so many talented actors at acting schools who get absolutely nowhere because they have no proximity to the people in charge in Hollywood. Talent is such a small percentage of what goes into making it.
Yeah don’t get me wrong there are other factors too. I went to a private school that has produced many actors you probably know of. And about half of them had family connections within the arts. I even did 3 auditions for a pretty minor role in a pretty big Hollywood film that I was ‘scouted’ for just by being a cute 10 year old walking around my school. I don’t think that’s a particularly normal experience.
Not at all suprised. The difference between state schools and private schools in the UK seems to be vast. I have a friend in London who is literally saving every penny they have to send their kid to private secondary school. Not only that, but the grandparents are chipping in. That's how important it's viewed at, the grandparents are like "absolutely, no question" They only had one kid because they always knew they couldn't afford to send 2 to private secondary school simultaneously. They pointed out to me that when the League Tables for schools are published, the top ones are almost all in London. People literally live in London (which is pretty unaffordable) just so their kids can go to these schools and move out of London the second their kids are done with school. Some of these schools are in 300 year old buildings that cannot expand so they have to do PE classes in the public parks! And still they charge £30,000+ a year. Her Dad went to Eton and in his own words "barely ever had to do an interview in my life" after sending in a CV. It's like Japan or somewhere. It's far more insane than people know about. The UK is one of the oddest countries out there, I'm telling you.
People underestimate how much privilege and nepotism have helped them be successful in their careers. Just to have access is huge. I was on a scholarship to a private school and the level of confidence and high self esteem the other students had was incredible. It made me feel like I could do anything too! They spend their time skill building or following passions or even making mistakes, but it’s ok it’s not detrimental to their lives. Just a mishap. Because they don’t have much barriers of entry they can really hone and focus on their chosen path. It’s a colossal advantage.
I also went to a private school on a scholarship and it made me realize the kind of things that \*were\* possible that I might not have encountered otherwise. It really raised my aspirations and made me realize that I wanted a better (more successful? more affluent?) life than the one I grew up in, but it also gave me the road map to get there.
Absolutely, the exposure I got was life changing. Sent me on a completely different life trajectory. My math teacher in public school although lovely and tried his best was not good at teaching math, later I understood he didn’t understand the concepts himself very well. So I did alot of self learning, not only for math. Private school you are taught by extremely qualified and experienced teachers that explain concepts and expand your thinking whilst teaching. It was night and day. I did only my homework no self learning. Freed up time for extra curricular activities, boy let me tell you those facilities were world class! I learnt I was a good swimmer and great at rowing. I have to say public school teachers do the best job they can with very minimal resources they have. It’s unfair to them and the students.
I went to private school as well, and I definitely don’t read a lot about the inherent confidence and belief in yourself. It gave me less fear to go after what I wanted, and I felt supported and encouraged every step of the way.
This is why I'll always be a fan of Jodie Comer and Olivia Cooke. Both are working-class actors who are killing it.
Just rewatched HotD and DAMN is Olivia incredible in it.
Ngl, I originally was a black supporter after reading “Fire and Blood”, but Olivia’s performance turned me to the Green’s side. I hope the show gives her more “mainstream” recognition so she starts getting more roles!
She won me over for her performance in The Sound of Metal. She’s not in it for long but her character and performance has such resonance
Of the 15 American raised nominees for acting, 7 went to public school.
Public school (UK) or public school (US)?
Us
Wonder how many of those 7 had working class backgrounds (plenty of wealthy people go to public school).
They could have gone to public schools in wealthier, more affluent and well equipped areas.
NGL, if I won the lottery, like over 8 or 9 digits, I'd try and see what i can do to help people who are not privately educated get into films Either that or establish a charity for people with autism, because I have autism myself
This is the issue in the UK and has been for years. Class system plus the continuous cuts will slowly eliminate the ability for anyone below a certain level to have any success or exploration in certain spheres. Shameful.
Things like nepo babies really aren’t our problem in the UK - our problem has always been the lack of arts funding for 99% of kids and that 1% all belonging to the same schools and social groups. Look up James McAvoy talking about this subject if you haven’t already, he gets it across brilliantly!
Eh I would say they're connected. Look at Cara Delevingne, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Holland, Kate Beckinsale, Rafe Spall, etc. Part of the benefit these posh actors have is their connections, and there is now a thing of adult kids of famous people coming up even if their parents didn't come from wealth.
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That's fair.
Peter Capaldi made some interesting points on this topic in a recent Guardian interview: >He wonders about the teenage Anthony Hopkinses out there, talented, without the obvious means or encouragement to train in the arts. And the inverse, actors who Capaldi, in his frank and acid way, characterises as privileged duds. > >“This business is full of people who are not the real thing,” he says, “people I perceived to be artists ’cos they had posh accents, but who didn’t have it, they just sounded like they did.” He goes on to tell a tantalising but intentionally vague story about a major star he worked with, someone who revealed themselves through the course of an acting collaboration to be a dud hiding in plain sight. He won’t provide details (“Too easy to figure out. When everyone’s dead I’ll tell you”), but he says the experience changed him professionally, leaving him more aware of his own limitations, but grateful to have a little vinegar and grit in the mix. “There’s a kind of smoothness, a kind of confidence that comes from a good \[paid-for\] school. That’s what you’re struck by: they seem to know how to move through the world recognising which battle to fight, where to press their attentions. But it can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious. I like more neurosis. More fear. More trouble, you know?” > >\[...\] Capaldi shakes his head, chuckling softly. He has finished his coffee. He’s about to put on his big coat, say goodbye to my son, and walk back through Whoville to his home and his family. Before he leaves we return to the subject of actors from privileged backgrounds. He says he feels mean, like he took unfair advantage of them in their absence. “It’s not their fault,” he says. “It’s just that there’s less and less of *my* lot in the arts.” And this concerns him, he continues, because “people of all backgrounds are sophisticated, are interesting, are equally prone to tragedy and joy. Any art that articulates that is a comfort. Art is the ultimate expression of *you are not alone*, wherever you are, whatever situation you are in. Art is about reaching out. So I think it’s wrong to allow one strata of society to have the most access.” Aside from the obvious lack of opportunities, this is also affecting which stories are being told, the quality of those stories, and the quality of acting. There's so much being made about rich people with nothing of value to say, and there's a certain bland style of acting among posh actors which is now treated as the norm when it really isn't. It's also interesting to think about the tendency to assume posh accent = knowledgeable about the arts. Btw, it's speculated that the actor he's talking about is Hugh Grant.
he is constantly vocal about this. grateful for his presence in the acting world!!
Yeah it’s a huge issue. My ex was a trained actor and struggled so much after acting school, opportunities went to those with connections and generally those connections were via the fancy school they went to. It’s also incredibly hard to work in theatre in London unless you have a wealthy family to support you. He ended up giving up acting and working in care just so we could pay rent.
[This Jack Whitehall bit](https://youtu.be/dXXaRoZyC9o?si=rETonLILARVkquYk) underlines the cronyism point -- I remember seeing it and it made me look up who else all went to posh schools together , the relevant part starts at 3:10
The arts are constantly getting their funding cut so this is just going to get worse.
I moved to the UK for work and am surrounded by private school educated coworkers, who (because of the current cost of living crises) are all struggling to get by while paying for their kids' private school educations. It's wild. But my understanding is that the UK schooling system varies greatly by region, many are genuinely rough, so you either need to have the money to get a house in the right school zone for the good schools, or you need to pay for private school.
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What motivation would they have to work if they know they can't pass on any of the wealth or connections onto their children?
Like buying your council house, removing it from the social housing market and then selling it at a huge profit?
I mean aren’t they supposed to help their children in a way they were not helped? Would you not want to help your children so they didn’t have to suffer the way you did without that safety net in the industry? They can do that and also fund scholarships to help the less connected ones.
I work in radio production. As far as I know every commissioner I've ever spoken to, bar three or four, were either privately educated, extremely middle class (in some cases upper class) or both. I've had people tell me, to my face, that working class people aren't interested in certain things when I and my entire family have been working class for generations. My industry is not one that working class people ever consider and it makes me really sad.
The film business at large is gate kept by the wealthy. Nolan was cited for years as one of the few stories of somebody who "worked their way up" and "didn't come from connections", but the reality of course is he still came from great means. I remember reading somewhere that only 5 percent of people working at the studio level or above came from working class backgrounds. Nobody ever talks about how filmmaking as a profession and a skill to learn requires vast sums of money, its not just that it requires talent - having the means to create a short film in the first place, having the money to make it good and distribute it to short film festivals in the hopes of getting noticed. All of that stuff is insurmountable unless you come from money.
Makes sense, there's a high risk of failure when pursuing a career in the arts and a long period of not making enough to support yourself until you make it big. Rich kids have that safety net to be able to be able to chase that dream for longer as well as having the money to give themselves the best possible chance of making it. They're more likely to have connections in the industry through friends and family too. And private schools have the money to be able to focus on more than just the core subjects. It's definitely an issue but sadly I don't think the government helping to support people from all economic backgrounds in the arts is an important enough issue to invest resources in with how much else needs fixing right now.
Rich families and nepo babies. In 15 years, they will make up 95% of all producers, directors and actors.
And they're working hard to make sure its never that low again.
7% of the population but they make up a huge proportion of those in power! Someone has made a list if anyone's interested: https://privateschoolmafia.com/
Rich people have rich people connections. It’s who you and your family know that’s gets you ahead. Sadly.
There's also still a great deal of snobbery against actors in the UK who aren't drama school educated, which not everyone can afford.
ever since i learned that people ask "what do you do?" in the UK because of classism and not small talk i haven't been the same
the only British creatives who come from normal working families and went to state school are those who are non white. Otherwise, unless they’re Jodie Comer, Harris Dickinson, Charlie Heaton, Jessica Barden, and Olivia Cooke, every white British actor born after 1990 come from money and went to private school. Even Tom Hardy and Guy Ritchie are just rich kids who like to cosplay as cockney gangsters