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Aspiring Sittingbourne actor speaks of role on BBC 2s brand new drama Life After Life
05:00, 30 April 2022
A Sittingbourne lad desperate to break into TV and film has landed a role in a BBC drama.
By day 21-year-old Cameron Ralph works at Kent Cycle Hire in Whitstable, but by night he has appeared as an extra on the small and big screens.
He has shared a stage with the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Christopher Eccleston and Ethan Hawke.
But his most recent role is in Life After Life on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
He said: “It came out on Tuesday, April 19, and you’ll be able to see me in episode three.
“In terms of that job, it was a bit different as I was a singing German in the scene around a camp fire.”
Life After Life is four-part drama based on a novel about death and rebirth by Kate Atkinson.
The show follows Ursula Todd (Thomasin McKenzie) who dies multiple times in different circumstances before being born again, as she navigates each new life, which includes the Second World War and an encounter with Hitler.
Cameron, who portrays a member of the Hitler Youth, explained: “My scene is quite a happy one.
“It’s showing that they didn’t really know what was going on - at this point the Hitler Youth group was almost like the Scouts in a way.
“To them it is just somewhere where they can go and be with other people out in the forest and talk to others their age.
“It’s not really materialised as to what something like the Hitler Youth would turn into, as I think this part of the show was based before everything kicked off properly in the Second World War.”
Cameron was chosen for a singing part alongside the lead actor.
He said: “That was a really nice process, just sort of being able to go up to London and be in a room together and sort of hash out this little trio.
“But in terms of the set, we were based in a woodland area and we had a guy who had been in the military on the sets, advising us on what to do and he had said he actually worked on 1917.
“He was teaching us to march, as there was a scene where we had to march down a hill as these Hitler Youth.
“While we were marching, we had to sing this German hunting song.
“After we finished we actually got to speak to the director and he thanked us personally and said that everything was how they’d imagined.”
The 21-year-old, who has been acting since he was six, explained he’d been cast for a few wartime German roles due to his blond hair and blue eyes, but said being picked for TV work isn’t always easy.
He said: “I wanted to become an actor after I saw an advert on TV about child stars.
“Off the back of that, I realised, ‘wow, I do actually really like this’.
“I joined an academy in London and for about three or four years I was learning acting, comedy, TV and film.”
One of the big lessons Cameron was taught was how to cope with rejection from auditions.
He added: “They would deliberately send us to auditions that we weren’t actually the right pick for, physically, just to get us used to dealing with not getting a job or whatnot.
“But it was at one of these script readings that I read alongside Sir Ian McKellen.
“He was the reading partner in that audition, and foolishly as a kid, back in 2009, I did not realise it was him.”
Since then, Cameron has worked with many household names, appearing on shows like The Bluebirds on Amazon Video and Midsummer Murders as a younger version of Pat Everett.
He worked alongside Thor and Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston on a Channel Four drama called Close to Me.
Cameron also worked with the Marvel Moon Knight actor Ethan Hawke on a romantic comedy called Juliet Naked with Chris O’Dowd.
He said: “On these things you don’t really interact with the main actors too much in case you distract them.
“So it’s kind of practice that you can talk to them if they talk to you, that sort of thing.
“I was filming a beach scene and I heard an American voice behind me say ‘Hey, throw that over here’ because I had a tennis ball that I was throwing with another extra.
“And it turned out it was Ethan Hawke and I ended up playing catch with him on a beach in Ramsgate.”
Cameron is now hoping to secure an agent and even bigger roles.
The next episode of Life After Life is on at 9pm on Tuesday.
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