Kaya’s vow to build new life for mum who raised her alone while suffering depression
DAY 3: HEARTACHE OF BRIT PIRATE QUEEN
She is the new star of Pirates Of The Caribbean, playing plucky Carina Smyth, who is on a quest to make her long-lost father proud. But for British actress Kaya Scodelario, it is the life of her beloved mum that she is determined to change.
The Skins actress is about to be catapulted into the Hollywood A-list, starring alongside Johnny Depp in the latest instalment in the hit swashbuckling franchise. But at the forefront of Kaya’s mind as she steps out on the red carpet at premieres around the world is a promise she made herself years ago – to give her mum Katia “her life back”.
Her mum moved from Brazil to the UK in the hope of starting a new life, only for Kaya’s father to leave when she was one. Katia, 54, raised Kaya alone in a London council flat, working all hours to make sure her child never went without, all while battling depression.
It is a sacrifice Kaya, 25, is determined to repay. The actress, now a mother herself, says: “Mum built a life for me in a difficult place, at a difficult time.
“When I was growing up, we didn’t have much money. What was important in my house was to have food on the table, be happy and have our family.”
Now, her dream is to buy a beachside house in Brazil’s coastal city of Natal, where she has spent holidays with her mum. Kaya says: “I want to give a life back to her as she gave her whole life up for me.
“She had to play the role of mother and father at the same time, and she did it to perfection. I managed to find a way through because of her. My mother is my biggest inspiration.”
Katia’s cousin, Simone Cristina, who still lives in the small Brazilian town of Itu, near Sao Paulo, where Katia and her family grew up, said yesterday: “Katia has always been a great warrior, who was both mother and father to Kaya. “She always fought to give the best education to her daughter.” With Kaya reportedly earning £1.5million for her leading lady role in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge, and her salary expected to triple for future movies, the actress will have her pick of Brazilian beach houses. It is a world away from Kaya’s early life, in Holloway, North London, and from how Katia herself grew up. The daughter of a council employee, at the age of 27 Katia left her large family in Itu and came alone to Britain. Here, she met Kaya’s English dad, Roger Humphrey. But, a year after they had Kaya, he walked out and Katia moved from their home in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, to London. Roger did not make contact again until a year before his death in November 2010. To make ends meet, Katia held down various jobs, at times making Brazilian food for restaurants, working as an office cleaner and as an accountant for a hospital. Kaya says: “We lived in a council flat and I spent most of my time on estates. My
Katia is a warrior. She has been both a mother and father to her SIMONE CRISTINA KATIA’S COUSIN ON RAISING KAYA
mum was very strict. I used to hate it. But she didn’t want me to get pregnant like the people around me. I always knew about sex, about drugs.”
The strain took its toll on Katia, who struggled with depression, particularly while Kaya was a teenager.
Kaya has said: “She raised me alone and she suffered depression most of her life. It can be very dark, very difficult, especially as a teenager. It put a lot of pressure on our relationship.
“I wanted to help but I was 16 and probably not saying the right thing.”
Katia has now recovered and since studied teaching art therapy.
And Kaya also reveals how her mum faced racist abuse in London. She says: “She worked as hard as she could to support me but still people come up to her and tell her to go back on the ‘banana boat’, complaining she’s, ‘taken their jobs’.
“It’s so rude and upsetting. She’s put up with this for years.”
As a youngster, Kaya was bullied by pupils at Bishop Douglas Roman Catholic School, East Finchley in North London for being thin and “posh”.
She says: “It was never physical. I was really skinny and flat-chested with frizzy hair.
“I don’t consider myself posh but my mum brought me up to speak properly and they picked up on that.”
Kaya’s big break came at age 14, when she nabbed the role of Effy Stonem in the cult Channel 4 show Skins. She made her film debut in 2009’s Moon, directed by David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones, and won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Catherine Earnshaw in the 2011 adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. She also starred as Billie Piper’s lover in TV’s True Love in 2012.
But, as her career took off, Kaya was having much less luck in her love life. Her romance with fellow Skins actor Jack O’Connell, 26, ended in 2009 after a year, with Kaya saying that he broke her heart. She reveals: “I spent a whole week crying.”
And her next relationship, with Shameless actor Elliott Tittensor, came to end, after Elliott was convicted of driving without insurance after an accident. But in 2014, while filming The King’s Daughter – which will be released this year and co-stars Pierce Brosnan – Kaya met US actor Benjamin Walker, 34.
He had split from wife Mamie Gummer, Meryl’s Streep daughter, and the pair fell for each other big time.
They tied the knot in New York the year after they met, and Kaya gave birth to their son last November.
With her personal life back on track, Kaya’s turning to her professional goals. She says: “I’ve got a dream about doing a drama about my mum’s background in Brazil and the struggles she faced to make the life for me, for us.
“It would be set in Brazil and I’d play the young her. Mum’s fine with that, but she wants script approval.”