AN ACTOR who grew up in Rhyl was over the moon to secure a part in BBC One drama Casualty.

This was Harri Rees-Jones's first major role since graduating last September 2020.

The former Ysgol Dewi Sant pupil and later, Ysgol Glan Clwyd - who attended drama workshops at TiC - Theatre in the Community - played Sam Richards in Casualty on June 5; Sam appears as a patient and it is suspected he has damaged his nose by taking drugs. He is also involved in a storyline where he demonstrates homophobic language.

He will be appearing in a further episode which is to be shown in the next few weeks.

Harri, 22, who studied BA Hons in Acting at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, said: "It meant the world to get this role. More than anything it gave me confidence that I could do the job and that I was chosen for a reason. Everytime I went to bed I would imagine how the experience would be. I lost a lot of sleep. Moving forward, I hope this will help me get a step ahead into the acting industry after being seen by so many people.

"The role came about in mid January through my agent - Brian at Brood Management. Normally when I get an audition through I try not to put any pressure on myself because the reality is most of the time I won't get past the first round.

"There is so much competition out there and many many brilliant actors competing for that one role. When I heard that it was an audition for Casualty of course it got me excited. The description of the character and his storyline was really interesting to me and so I wanted to give it my all.

"A week later, after busying myself with work I received a phone call from my agent to tell me the good news," Harri added.

"I can describe that moment as pure elation. January is notoriously a really dull month for the obvious reasons of post Christmas blues, rubbish weather and dark winter nights, that is before you add in a global pandemic in its peak. To get this kind of news when I did was incredible and it still makes me grin even now.

"The experience of working on such a high profile continuing drama (and recently a BAFTA award winning programme) was an unforgettable experience.

"As my background is theatre based it was really interesting to notice the differences in TV and theatre.

"Having to do multiple takes from different angles while still keeping up the stakes of that specific moment was challenging. Also, because TV programmes rarely shoot scenes chronologically, you have to bring all of the previous circumstances of an entire episode with an actor you only met two seconds ago.

"Although there is technically no audience in TV, you still have to do your thing in front of about 30 crew members, who were all brilliant and worked extremely hard to make my job easier for me."

Talking about how his family reacted to seeing him on Casualty, Harri, who in the past has taken classes and performed with Only Boys Aloud, Powerplay Musical Theatre Company and Step One Performing Arts School, said: "To get this kind of news at a time when the pandemic was incredibly serious with constant bad news everywhere you look, it was like a breath of fresh air for me and my family.

"It was an exciting thing to look forward to and to share with others.

"I like to think that by getting this news, it kept us all going through the pandemic.

"This was my first experience of a professional film set," Harri added.

"The Covid protocol and restrictions were obviously very strict. There was a two-metre gap between every actor on set at all times and markers were placed on the floor to guide us. I had to do all of my makeup myself, including the facial injuries, which was a big learning curve.

"Things had to be adapted in the story so that there was no contact between actors, which did make things a bit trickier and took longer for us to figure out, but credit to the whole team at Casualty for making the episodes work so well.

"Meeting the cast was really cool. It was a real pleasure to work alongside such talented actors and I learned a lot just from chatting to them off camera when we were waiting to set up the next shot/scene."

Casualty is on BBC One on Saturday nights.

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