Mya-lecia Naylor
Actress who became a child star and worked with Tom Hanks
MYA-LECIA NAYLOR, who has died suddenly aged 16, was a popular face on children’s television, appearing in CBBC series such as Millie Inbetween and Almost Never. She was also heard on Radio 4, playing the part of Samantha Reasonable in the radio play Mr Reasonable by Fred D’aguiar, about a freed black slave who is engaged by Shakespeare to make costumes for the Rose Theatre. It was first broadcast in April 2015.
Millie Inbetween, which ran for 56 episodes from 2014 to 2018, is about 12-year-old Millie, whose parents have recently separated. The show reflects the reality of many modern families whose children spend part of their time with one parent and part with the other.
Mya-lecia Naylor’s character, Fran, who made her first appearance in the fifth episode, is the daughter of Millie’s father’s new partner, and the subsequent episodes explore how the teenagers adapt to suddenly being part of each other’s lives while missing their respective absent parents.
In the comedy-drama Almost Never, which also starred Emily Atack, Fleur East and Tess Daly and was first seen in January 2019, she played Mya, the leader of a girl band called Girls Here First who take part in a fictional television talent competition, The Spotlight. In one scene she was required to wear a silver tinfoil outfit, which gave her one of the best lines in the show: “What are we, a band or a packed lunch?”
However, Maya has a boyfriend who is a member of a rival boy band, “which can cause problems along the way,” Mya-lecia Naylor said, adding: “But it’s funny in the end.”
Mya-lecia Naylor was born in Warwickshire on November 6 2002 and, according to one social media profile, studied at Coloma, the Catholic girls’ school near Croydon. She made her first appearance on screen at the age of two as Saffy’s daughter, Jane, in Absolutely Fabulous. “I don’t really remember much about it,” she told Tresa magazine in an interview published two days before her death. “It was a Christmas special so from what my mum tells me, we
all got around on Christmas Day and watched it.”
Her next screen appearance was not until 2011, when she landed the title role in the children’s television series Tati’s Hotel, about an eight-year-old who runs a magical hotel. She recalled that there were several puppets in her scenes, and being so young they all seemed very real.
The following year she played Miro in the Tom Hanks film Cloud Atlas, which also starred Halle Berry. “Tom Hanks was so nice,” she recalled. “He took us on a tour of the set on the first day I was filming.” She was only involved in filming for a week, “but one of the memories I have is going into town, and it was around Christmas time and they had a big fairground set up and I remember going into town with my family.” She added that being of school age meant that between scenes she and the other child actors would be ushered into a nearby room for tutoring.
Away from the cameras Mya-lecia Naylor, who had been singing from about the age of 10, was a member of the London-based sevenpiece teen band Angels N’ Bandits, describing herself on their website as “a total geek, I just like to pretend I’m cool”.
Mya-lecia Naylor, who died two months before sitting her GCSES, had spoken recently of other projects. “I have been filming a few things here and there but everything’s a bit hush-hush at the moment so I can’t really speak about it yet,” she told Tresa. “But be on the look-out because there’s going to be some amazing projects out real soon.”
Mya-lecia Naylor, born November 6 2002, died April 7 2019