Beverley’s Esme Kingdom says Netflix gave her ‘the best summer’

My Oxford Year star Esme Kingdom, 26, said she had to “pinch herself” when the film aired on Netflix.

Ms Kingdom, from South Dalton, near Beverley, secured her first major role as Maggie Timbs in the romantic drama which was the top film in the UK on the streaming platform last week.

Esme grew up attending musical theatre classes in Hull before going on to study at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) during the pandemic, which meant she had to attend classes on Zoom.

She said: “I had to pretend to be an owl in my back garden during Covid and my neighbours were probably looking out of the window thinking what the hell is going on in the Kingdom household.”

Esme said filming the movie was “the best summer of my life.”

“We were being so silly and eating so much food and it was the funniest summer I’ve ever had,” she said.

“And I see the the cast at least once a week still.”

The cast included Sofia Carson, an American actress who has starred in several Netflix and Disney shows and Corey Mylchreest – well known for his roll as King George in the Netflix show Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.

Esme said director Iain Morris “was very much on the vibe of improvise around the script. So, because the part felt quite similar to me, it came quite naturally.”

“I come from a very, very small village,” she said.

“So there wasn’t a huge amount of opportunity within the fields and the cows.”

She added: “I guess there is a lack of opportunity around here, but there’s so many actors and actresses that have seemed to come out of Beverley.”

The East Yorkshire town has seen a series of actors rise to stardom over the last decade including Anna Maxwell Martin, who starred in Line of Duty, Eleanor Tomlinson, who played a lead roll in Poldark, and Lewis Pemberton, known for his role in Adolescence.

While attending RADA remotely, she said she remembered “doing voice exercises and having to slap people over the screen. It was so silly but it got me to where I am today.”

Esme said she wished she could tell herself “everything is going to be fine and you’ll achieve your dream before you even know it.”

She hopes to be in more films in the future and continue to put East Yorkshire on the map.