‘Being up for an Oscar is surreal’
Previously known for a role in ‘Hollyoaks’, Rachel Shenton tells Karen Yossman how losing her father led her to Hollywood
When former Hollyoaks actress Rachel Shenton walks down the red carpet at the Oscars tomorrow in a custommade Suzanne Neville gown, it will be a bona fide Cinderella moment – albeit one with a modern twist. For rather than relying on a fairy godmother to make her dreams come true, Staffordshire-born Rachel, whose screenwriting debut, The Silent Child, will be competing for Best Live Action Short Film at the ceremony, not only got herself to the ball but also her proverbial prince – fiancé Chris Overton, who directed the 20-minute short in which she also stars.
“It’s so bizarre, so surreal,” marvels the 30-year-old, best known for a two-year stint playing Cheryl Coleinspired Wag Mitzeee Minniver on Channel 4 series Hollyoaks (with her glossy brunette tresses and dimpled smile, Rachel bears more than a passing resemblance to the former X Factor judge).
Despite having already enjoyed a glimpse of what she has to look forward to during the nominees’ luncheon in Beverly Hills last month, where she found herself snapping a selfie with Steven Spielberg and chatting animatedly to The Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin, Rachel has yet to fully comprehend that she’ll soon be joining them at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, exclaiming: “I still can’t get my head around that we’re going to the Oscars!”
When she does finally step on to the red carpet this weekend, however, it will be bittersweet.
For there is another element of the Cinderella story to which Rachel, an only child, can relate, having lost her father, Geoff, when she was just 14. And while Rachel’s “incredibly proud and excited” mum, Joy, has flown out to Los Angeles to watch her daughter get glammed up before waving her off to the ceremony, Geoff ’s absence will be acutely felt – not least because it was witnessing him lose his hearing as a result of aggressive cancer treatment that first set Rachel on her path to the Academy Awards.
“I think that was probably the first time I’d ever seen him vulnerable,” she recalls. “My dad certainly found it very difficult to come to terms with, and initially the idea of sign language was an absolute no-go.”
Sign language is the central theme of The Silent Child, which tells the story of a profoundly deaf four-yearold, Libby (played by profoundly deaf six-year-old Maisie Sly), who is trapped in a silent world until social worker Joanne, played by Shenton, teaches her how to sign. Tragically, Geoff, who was in his late sixties, only came around to the idea of learning sign language shortly before he died, preferring instead to rely on lip-reading. He struggled in group situations, however, and increasingly became isolated as he sat out social events. “For men of a certain age, I think it is really hard to accept [losing their hearing],” she says. “My dad dealt better with having cancer: he was very gallant and brave, and tackled it head-on. But with deafness, I actually saw him feel vulnerable.” Having barely had an introduction to sign language before her father’s death, there seemed little reason for Rachel, by then a pretty and charismatic teenager with a burgeoning acting career, to pursue it, which makes her decision at the age of 16 to enrol in an evening class at a local college all the more remarkable. By the time she was acting professionally, with small roles in television dramas such as Holby City and Waterloo Road, she had also begun volunteering as a qualified British Sign Language interpreter and working with a local charity, ddeaflinks, in Staffordshire.
“I still consider my dad
‘My dad dealt better with cancer, but with deafness I actually saw him vulnerable’
very lucky because he had a voice. He had hearing all his life so he knew how lip patterns sounded, he knew how words sounded, so lip-reading was easier for him,” Rachel says. “And the more I got involved with the deaf community, the more I started thinking, ‘Oh my God, imagine if he never had that.’”
It was this revelation that caused her to focus her campaigning on better provision for deaf children, the overwhelming majority of whom are born to hearing parents.
In one particularly poignant scene in
The Silent Child, Libby sits at her desk daydreaming while a teacher gives the class a spelling test. It’s a scene, says Shenton, which is replicated in schools around the country that don’t have the resources to supply deaf children with sign language teachers and interpreters. “If children know sign language, then we have a chance of one day wiping out all the isolation and all the misconceptions about deafness,” she says, pointing out that deaf children can grow up to do almost anything hearing children can do if provided with the right support.
That lack of support, she is also keen to stress, is unrelated to wealth or education. In The Silent Child, which is loosely based on experiences recounted to her by deaf friends, Rachel deliberately portrays Libby’s family as well-spoken and middle class. Yet despite their advantages, they have little interest in encouraging their daughter to learn to sign – let alone learning it themselves.
“There is a huge lack of education regardless of your social standing on this subject and I just wanted to show that it doesn’t discriminate,” Shenton says passionately, recalling one young man she met whose parents, both doctors, never learned sign language. I ask, aghast, how they communicated with their son. “It happens all the time, you wouldn’t believe it,” comes her quiet reply. “He’d point at what he wanted for his dinner.”
If such stories gave her the inspiration to conceive The Silent
Child, it was her fiancé Chris, 29, who gave her the push she needed to write it. As well as battling impostor syndrome (she says she felt “hugely under-qualified”), she had to contend with the film’s shoestring budget, which meant that as well as writing and starring in it, other roles were forthcoming. “I was chief fundraiser and chef at some point,” she quips.
Chris, an actor and filmmaker whom she first met seven years ago when he had a walk-on part in Hollyoaks, stepped up as director, learning enough sign language to enable him to communicate with Maisie. “He didn’t want it to go through an interpreter so he learned the basics,” Shenton says proudly, adding that he is still keeping up with signing and has even brought several instruction books to LA.
Whether or not The Silent Child wins an Oscar, Rachel couldn’t have envisioned a better outcome than the journey the film has had so far, given its primary goal was always to raise awareness. She’s already finished the first draft of a feature-length version and has more screenings planned for the short, including two in the Houses of Parliament, which she hopes will convince “educational movers and shakers” to initiate legislative changes to provide deaf children with more support.
Then, of course, she and Chris have a wedding to plan. “I’ve not had any time to think about [it],” she laughs. “But we will. People keep saying ‘What’s next?’ and we’re like, ‘We’re going to plan a wedding!’”
While her nuptials will be another occasion where her father is sorely missed, there’s no doubt
The Silent Child has proved to be a cathartic experience, not to mention a wonderful tribute. Had he been alive to see it, Shenton hopes it would have helped him come to terms with his hearing loss. “I had a moment yesterday where I thought none of this would have been possible without him,” she says contemplatively.
“It felt like such a sad thing at the time and it is. But something really – hopefully really – positive has come from that,” she continues, “so I hope if he can see me, he’s really proud.”
Regardless of what the Academy decides, how could he not be?
‘My dad lost his hearing, but he still had a voice’