WHAT I LEARNED …IN MY 20s
Susan Wokoma on getting to know herself
when I was 21, I was preparing to leave drama school and enter the real world, just as the economic crash happened. Everyone kept saying it was the worst time to be starting a career, so I had this real sense of foreboding. The world felt scary. Then, things took off and I started getting amazing acting roles. My success was a surprise to me, but really, the biggest surprise was that I got into comedy. I had always thought of it as this world that was closed off to me. I am the first to admit that my 20s must have looked busy and amazing, but there were difficult decisions and hard moments along the way. When I got out of drama school, I was out of work for three straight months. I know that might not sound like long to some people, but three months of living on custard creams because you didn’t line up any waitressing shifts is long enough to learn that you have to organise your life better! That is one of the big lessons of my 20s: to be more organised.
My ambition hasn’t really changed in the past decade: I have always just basically admired Olivia Colman and wanted to have a career like hers. That includes pre-oscars, pre-leading roles Olivia Colman. I used to watch her in Green Wing all the time and
"The greatest friendship you have to cultivate is with yourself"
‘YOU HAVE TO GET BEHIND, SUPPORT AND KNOW YOURSELF’
was so inspired watching her get a shot at all these different roles. Plus, she seems really lovely. Ten years in, I still want that kind of career. What has changed in the past few years is that I have realised I want to produce and direct and write. I sort of made this pact with myself that I wouldn’t write stories properly until I was 30 – like something magical would happen at 30! – but then I started writing at 28. I got near the end of that decade in my life and started thinking, ‘What stories do I want to tell?’ I know there are actors having roles written for them, but black women? We have to tell those stories because they are valid and they are just not present.
I have learned some huge lessons in my personal life in the past decade, too.
I have always been a fiercely loyal friend and seen friendship as this absolutely fundamental thing, but I have learned that not everyone is willing to give so much. Not everyone can be as fiercely loyal. I joke that I am year eight-level loyal. Like, if you hurt my friend, I am not going to talk to you – that kind of loyal. When you are in my inner circle, I love you to death. But in my 20s, the universe really did the culling for me. I am in my 30s now, with about half the number of friends I expected to have when I was younger, and that is great. People come into my life and they disappear, and that is okay. I have learned to be better at setting boundaries for myself emotionally, and realise that people will not always be there in the way that I need them to be. I have had people literally come up to me and say, ‘I really want to be friends with you,’ and we hang out loads and then they just drop me. I have had to say goodbye to a certain naivety and innocence about friendships. That has been heartbreaking, but I am stronger for it.
The greatest friendship you have to cultivate is with yourself. You have yourself for company for ever! You have to really get behind yourself, support yourself, know yourself. The way we choose who we want to be around is sad, but tremendously beautiful. It has been the same in love, really, in the way that I have had to learn this about people. My findings about love are that I attract a certain type of man. I am always the shiny half of the relationship and I keep thinking to myself, ‘Hey, why am I doing the emotive stuff for two people?’ Sometimes, you can’t be shiny and the pressure to always be that way takes its toll. Caitlin Moran once wrote about vampires being real; about people who take your energy from you. I’ve known people like that, boyfriends and friends. I know now that I need someone who can talk about his emotions. Someone who is not going to take my energy from me.
As women, we are taught shame from the moment we come out of the womb. Shame about our skin type, our body shape. I need someone who helps me to get rid of that shame. So, I have just learned to protect myself better from people who want something from me. In my 30s, I am gaining this joy in finding people who do not deplete me.
Working on not having shame is conscious, continuous and hard. I had a big break-up when I was 24 and I started dating after that, and it made me look at myself and think, ‘How do I see myself?’ I have been told my whole life that my skin tone is wrong, for example. People have said to me, ‘Oh, you would be pretty if you had lighter skin,’ or ‘You are pretty for a dark-skinned girl.’ I have been absorbing this information and
I am only really now actively trying to dismantle those messages. We have to do what we can, and I feel more able to take action now that I am in my 30s.
As for what I want from the next decade of my life? To travel more, go on more holidays and get a dog! I think I am ready to be a dog mum again. I am inspired by women who genuinely strive to leave the world a better place than the one that they came into, so I want that. I want to improve the world… and get a dog.
Susan Wokoma will be starring in Enola Holmes, out in 2020