Eben Figueiredo remembers a voice lesson at drama school in which he and his cohort of students at the Bristol Old Vic were asked if they wanted to change their accents to become more received pronunciation. “It was the idea that you could change who you were while you were there,” he says. “Your voice and your accent are key to your identity – who you are and how you present yourself.”
He has worn his London accent on his sleeve ever since – although he can change it to fit a part and is aware of its drawbacks in an industry that values certain backgrounds and accompanying accents above others. But it has also defined some of his biggest roles, such as in Jamie Lloyd’s Cyrano de Bergerac, starring James McAvoy and written in rap-style verse by Martin Crimp, in which he was cast as Christian. In last year’s artfully reworked A Christmas Carol, directed by Nicholas Hytner, he was encouraged to speak with his own urban inflections.
Reflecting back on the voice class, he says the teacher was one he loved but that “the system is not always built in the most progressive way”. The first time he realised he could bring his accent – and himself – wholly to the stage was during the audition for Cyrano: “I met Jamie Lloyd and Martin Crimp and both had a unique identity that they wore with pride. It was one of the first auditions where I could unleash who I am. That encouraged and revolutionised me.”
He hopes more roles like those open up and filter across the industry so that “a whole demographic of people who have not imagined themselves on stage” can see themselves reflected back.
Figueiredo grew up in south London, the son of a white British mother and an Indian British father. He says he became aware of race only when he started acting. Being a mixed-race actor is meaningful to him “because it’s part of my struggle – having a Portuguese last name, not always being Indian enough for the Indian roles, and not enough of the other for other roles”.
It is important that the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted systemic racism but he thinks that “we get lost in the BAME conversation and we are all regarded as the same, whether we are black or Asian”. In one instance, he inquired after a part that was specifically British Asian but was told it had gone to a mixed-race black actor.
His mother first noticed his love of the stage when he was cast as a donkey in a nativity play, aged five. “She always tells the story that I looked out at the audience and my face lit up. It was the first time she realised I loved having the attention.”
She suggested he join the National Youth Theatre at the age of 14, which inspired him to think of acting as a career. He got a part in Our Days of Rage, a play about Gaddafi and the Arab spring, directed by Paul Roseby, and also starring Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù and Regé-Jean Page.
What was also key, he says, was growing up in a Christian community church; both his parents were pastors and his love of stories was inspired by that background: “You grow up being aware of the magic of the world and hearing these incredible [biblical] stories and your imagination is saying, ‘Wow!’”
He was still at Dunraven school, in Streatham, when he secured an agent, serendipitously. Vanessa Kirby had come to give a talk to his class and he performed a speech for her. She was so impressed she called her agent, who signed him up. He left drama school after a year, when he was offered a part too big to refuse – a central role in Pitcairn, staged at Chichester Festival theatre and produced by Out of Joint.
Music-making runs alongside Figueiredo’s acting career. He was drawn to spoken-word poetry at the age of 16 after seeing Deanna Rodger at the Olympic Village, during the London Olympics, while he was welcoming athletes with the NYT. The poetry led him to writing song lyrics and he has been releasing music – a mix of neo-soul and urban jazz – online for two years.
He had his first big taste of screen acting in 2017 when he was called up by the casting director Nina Gold for Solo: A Star Wars Story, in which he played a mudtrooper. “Being there floored me. I had been such a Star Wars nerd as a child that I grew a plait – I wanted to be like the young guys learning to be Jedis.”
Aged 25, he feels as if theatre is now his home. He would like to do more screen work, he says, and recently signed up for a film adaptation of Gautam Malkani’s novel Londonstani, directed by Nirpal Bhogal. However, he regards the screen as a less progressive medium: “It’s about people not being able to stretch their imagination as much or take a chance in a way theatre is able to.”
From the CV
A Christmas Carol, Bridge theatre, London, 2020
Cyrano de Bergerac, Playhouse theatre, London, 2019
Solo: A Star Wars Story, 2017
Young Marx, Bridge theatre, 2017
The Attack, BBC Two, 2016
Ross, Chichester Festival theatre, 2016
Peter Pan, Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, London, 2015
Around the World in 80 Days, St James theatre, London, 2015
Pitcairn, Minerva theatre, Chichester, 2014
Our Days of Rage (National Youth Theatre), Old Vic Tunnels, 2011
