Steffan to appear in major new S4C drama
IT’S been quite a year for young Carmarthen actor Steffan Cennydd.
Not only was the former Ysgol Bro Myrddin pupil nominated for the Bafta Cymru breakthrough star award last month, but he is about to appear in S4C’s major autumn/winter drama Craith.
He will be starring alongside well-known faces such as Siân ReeseWilliams (Emmerdale, Line of Duty, Requiem, Hinterland) in this dark and twisting crime drama.
Steffan, 23, from Llangynnwr, was nominated as best breakthrough for his role in S4C drama Enid a Lucy which was set in south west Wales - and he appeared in the Bafta Cymru award-winning film Last Summer.
“I didn’t win, but Last Summer won the best film category, so I got the chance to go up on stage and celebrate,” said Steffan.
Steffan Cennydd began his acting career at Ysgol Berfformio Dyffryn Tywi in Carmarthen.
“We rehearsed at the Trinity Saint David campus in Carmarthen – I went there from the age of 10 until I was about 15 or 16. It was there that I got my first taste of acting,” said Steffan.
“I really enjoyed acting but never thought that I could do it as a job. It was a bit of a last minute decision to go into acting – we did a play in school and I thought, ‘I can do this’ and I went off to study at the Guildhall in London.
“It was a complete change after living in Carmarthen, I found myself in a flat by myself in the middle of London – you can’t get two more different worlds – from Llangynnwr to London! It was quite a shock really, but when you are studying at a drama school, it is so full on – you work from eight in the morning until night. You don’t have time to be lonely or depressed.”
Craith – which was filmed back to back in English and Welsh – begins on Sunday.
Steffan plays the part of Connor Pritchard – a troubled teenager who has moved with his family from south Wales to a tight-knit but somewhat claustrophobic north Wales town.
He becomes involved with a group of disaffected young people and gets tied up in a terrible series of events which sees an elderly man murdered in his bath.
“Connor is a boy who worries about things – he has a conscience,” Steffan explained.
“Everybody, I think, at some point, worries when something happens and we’re not quite sure how things are going to develop. So, once I read the script I knew exactly where this character was coming from – I understood his mindset and what he was going through.”
Because of the dark nature of Craith – and the fact that it was filmed in Welsh and English – Steffan said filming was quite exhausting at times.
“Sometimes, as I’m watching back, I remember leaving the set that day and being completely wrecked, really tired. After five months it was starting to become a strain. But I think it needs to be like that because it shows that you have completely committed to the drama.”
The second series of Craith begins on S4C on Sunday at 9pm. Produced by Severn Screen, it will appear on BBC Wales as Hidden next year.