Mimi Keene Interview

“Oh my god, what are we going to do with you now?” Despaired Mimi Keene’s mother when she – unlike her family, a long line of academics – didn’t get into grammar school. At the time, it felt like the be-all, end-all. Now, Mimi thanks her lucky stars for it.

“The worst thing that happened to me turned out really great and I wouldn’t be doing anything that I’m doing now if that hadn’t happened. I always remember that: that when the worst things happen, it’s probably leading to the best,” she affirms over Zoom. Her failure really was her blessing: she spent the summer after results day auditioning for theatre schools—and landed an offer in every single one. She packed up and moved to London, began her training at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, cut her acting chops on the sets of EastEnders, Casualty and the like. Then, in 2018, she booked the part of Ruby Matthews in Netflix’s Sex Education: a role which – in more ways than one – solidified her as one of the industry’s ‘untouchables’. 

Most recently, Mimi stars as Kay Elliott; the other-woman-turned-wife of Nevile Strange, an affluent tennis star with whom she travels Towards Zero. Thick in the middle of BBC One’s screen-adaptation of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery novel, Kay marks Mimi’s first major role after Ruby hung up her witty one-liners in Sex Education’s final season—but despite living in different centuries, the two characters aren’t exactly worlds apart. 

You see, Mimi has achieved something not many can boast during the blossoming stages of an acting career; she found her niche. Stepping into the shoes of women often contested for their authenticity – because god forbid a glamorous female character could actually host a multitude of layers – Mimi has become well-versed in making seemingly materialistic figures entirely multi-faceted. In short, she books the characters audiences are supposed to loathe, yet sooner or later grow to love. 

Five minutes into my call with Mimi, I already understand why. Having spent the weekend watching her as Kay – eloquent, poised, dressed-to-the-nines – my laptop screen soon focuses on Mimi lying in bed with her cat, Darling, and too-many-to-count puppies. One of them has already pissed on her sheets, she’s still in recovery from a heavy Mother’s Day weekend, and she was up late last night dealing with a flat tire—relatable from the off, you could say. Covering topics from career stability to hopes and dreams, witchcraft to feminism, we dive straight into her story so far in the spirit of Agatha Christie: leaving no page unturned. 

ELLA WEST: Let’s start with what excites you, whether in career or life? 

MIMI KEENE: Oh, animals. My life is animals and driving. Those are my two happy things that I love to do. I love my job. My job is very fun, but I'm not a massive extrovert. I can be extroverted because I think my job has made me that way from a child. But naturally, I just like to be in the middle of nowhere, with no one else around, just all the animals. And if it's far away, great, because I have a long drive there.

ELLA: And what turns you off? What are your biggest pet peeves? 

MIMI: Okay, things that I'm really bad at is waking up early. No matter what, unless it’s a work thing or the airport, I just can't get ready on time. I don't know what is wrong with me…maybe there's so many animals around so I’m just tripping over them but the worst thing about myself is I take too long to get ready. But actual pet peeves, I don't even want to get started because I have a list on my phone and it's really long and each one is like an essay. I'd die of shame if anyone went through my notes app on my phone and found my pet peeves. 

ELLA: But now I really want to know…

MIMI: This is the point. They're too embarrassing, but they're really weird. One of them is people falling over. You know when people fall over, you have certain people that think it's funny—my mum included. But when people embarrass themselves, oh my god, I can't take it. It gives me such bad secondhand embarrassment that I just get annoyed and I actively try and prevent any embarrassment from going on. If someone trips over next to me, I'm like, “What are you doing? Stand up. No one has time for this.” Because if I do that, no one will laugh. I can't bear if someone starts laughing. I'll throw up. I’d have to leave. One day, once we've developed our relationship, I can share them with you. 

ELLA: Fine, maybe in a pub when the conversation isn’t being recorded. So in terms of your career, have you always wanted to be an actor? What did the journey into it look like? 

MIMI: No, no one in my family is in the industry. Everyone is an academic or would have had to get good results in school—which was kind of the expectation for me. My mum is one of eight kids and my mum had me at 23 while at university and my mum is dead in the middle of her brothers and sisters…so I was more like a sibling growing up. I called my grandparents mum and dad, which people still find weird. MY parents are called mummy and daddy or I call them by their names—it’s odd, but everyone's used to it around here. So anyway, all of the brothers and sisters went to the grammar schools where we live. The oldest brother had to get in first but then everyone got in after that…so they really do gas themselves a little bit too much. Obviously, that wasn’t the case once it got to our generation. I was alright in school but I don't test well. I'm not good under pressure, so I did not get in and my mum was like, “Oh my god, what are we going to do with you now?” The school that she wanted me to go to was quite hard to get into. No one else I know got in. So she went and spoke to my year six teacher who said to her that there's a gifted and talented register that they keep in schools but they don't tell the parents. It's more just for knowing if a child is more passionate about something or does better in a certain subject. The teacher said I was on there for singing and dancing, because they don't really have acting—it’s all drama. Because I was on that register, she told my mum I should go down that route. So I spent that summer auditioning for stage schools—my mum is very good at finding stuff and doing new things, she’s very adventurous. She definitely had a lot more confidence in me than I had in myself. I auditioned for three and I got into all of them. I picked one and then we moved to London—I lived in London for 10 years while I was going to school. In there, you have your own agency and then you do acting, singing and dancing. So I only realised after I started school that I was good at acting because you don't really know until a teacher tells you you are. So it was all actually through the worst thing that happened to me, but it happened to turn out really great and I wouldn't be doing anything that I'm doing now if that hadn't happened. I always remember that, that when the worst things happen, it's probably leading to the best. 

ELLA: It’s also really rare to have parental support in those pursuits—

MIMI: —A hundred percent. My mum is very unique in that way. She’s still like, “I don't know why I was so confident. I just thought, ‘There's no way that you can't do it.’” The school wasn't free, it's a private school, so you have to pay. She put money into it and because you have to do a lot of auditions, you can't really have a job. My mum never had a job that she had to be really committed to. She very much dedicated a lot to me. So I really do have my mum to thank for a lot of that. You couldn't do it without that.

ELLA: And even once you become an actor, it’s never a ‘stable’ job either. Are you good at dealing with that uncertainty? 

MIMI: I am now because I think with every year that you get older and things have never fallen apart – like having no work or I've run out of money – you begin to worry less. The more you do, the less scary that worry becomes, I suppose. It just always seems to work out. But it's never a guarantee, unlike more traditional jobs or careers. I'm sure that you usually get to a point by 26 where you’ll feel very safe. Most people will begin to have a five year plan or 10 year plan. But I know that's not going to happen for me. A lot of it is definitely thanks to my mum, but you also have to have blind confidence. 

ELLA: I admire it, it's a hard quality to earn. 

MIMI: I definitely wasn't born with it. I remember when I first started out, I was in a workshop and I went out in the first round. I was outside crying and was so upset. My mum was like, "If you can't deal with rejection, maybe this might not be the right job for you. There's gonna be a lot of rejection. This is gonna happen all the time. We need to be prepared for this. But if it's too much for you, then we'll find something else.” She never pressured me. She always gave me the option—I could do something else if I wasn't enjoying it or if it was too much for me. And I think that's what made it easier for me. When the pressure is not there, you feel more safe, because you don't feel like you have no choice. It was really weird, after I was done crying, we went to the train station to go home. While I was there, a policeman came over to me and was like, “I should probably get your autograph because you're going to be famous one day.” And I was like, “Oh my god, what was that?” I looked at my mum and said, “Wow, you must think I'm really naive…you have clearly gone over to that policeman and pulled on his heartstrings and told him to come say that to me.” To this day, she's like, “Mimi, I did not do that.” I'm a bit spiritual anyway. I'm very into the signs and the moons and a few of my friends are very into it too.

ELLA: My mum is a full on witch. I'm on board. 

MIMI: We go out sometimes into the woods in the middle of the night. In a very big group. Only in a very big group at night—obviously, safety. But every full moon, we’re very into it. That's why I love witch movies—they are my favourite, or anything about magic. I'm definitely the right person to do something like that too, because I really believe in it. So there's a lot of weird stuff that happened that led me here. But it was not a simple journey. I'm very lucky—I think a lot of it is luck, to be honest. I'd like to say it's talent, but there are so many talented people in the world. Not everyone who's talented is successful because there's so many talented people. And so I think a lot of it is to do with luck.

ELLA: And now that you're in it and you've got there, you’re an established actor, what are the reasons you continue to do it?

MIMI: God, it's never even crossed my mind. Especially because as I said, I feel like you have to be very lucky to be successful in this industry—it’s not easy. I kind of think it would be a waste of an amazing opportunity. I could never turn down something I'm so lucky to have. My dream originally was that I would be a vet. But right now, this is my job. And it's such a special job and very unique. I get to do stuff that is just ridiculous. I do sit on it sometimes and think how crazy the things I get to do work-wise are. One minute I'm in Africa and I'm smashing up someone's car, the next I'm pretending to smash up a supermarket…no one gets to do that. I'm one of those people, when I’m at a ceremony or something like that where everyone's really quiet and someone's talking, I get the intrusive thought to just stand up and scream. My job actually allows me to do really crazy shit that you would never get to do in real life because it's part of a script or a story. I literally did a scene recently set in the supermarket and I just had to knock as much shit as I could off all of the shelves. It's just mental. That is one of the beauties of this job. It's not profound, but it's really fun. I could never think of doing anything else, but I will always have my animals.

ELLA: Speaking of your job, huge congratulations on Towards Zero which just came out. You look absolutely stunning in it, by the way… 

MIMI: Oh my god, I mean, I’m so happy because I was apprehensive about the wig. I've never had short hair in real life—my hair is like my security.

ELLA: Did it tempt you? Do you think you'd chop it? 

MIMI: No, I'm not that crazy. It's also a different time. I think back in the day, in the ‘30s, the style was to have the hair all curled and pinned and they kept it like that every day. If I had the dedication of a 1930s woman to do that every day, then possibly. But I mean, I had a fringe once. I had a fringe a few times, actually. I did a job where I have the fringe that hasn't come out yet, but it will do. I actually did most of it with my fringe and then we had to do some extra bits and I didn't have my fringe anymore. And I was like, “There's no way, I'm not cutting that again.” So we had a “winge’, a fringe wig…don’t even ask me. I can't even maintain a fringe. I'm very grateful to the hair and makeup department who were so fantastic and every single day were baking that wig. My makeup call is always the earliest on every job. I don't know why, but I get very lucky because I always get really good looks. 

ELLA: We get to meet your character, Kay, on stand in full glam. She's being called a gold digger, a parasite. But what were YOUR first impressions of the character and what made you want to step into her skin (and wig)? 

MIMI: Well, definitely the fact that she is what would be considered a modern woman for the times. She's very outspoken and she wants attention on her, not necessarily for the reasons that people would speak of her—like, “Oh, she’s a bit uncouth." She dresses a bit sexy, which I love, so obviously there's the fun side of it in terms of hair and makeup. But also, I think I enjoy a character that's different…one who is viewed usually in a more negative way at the start or as a first impression of a character—which is kind of similar for Ruby [in Sex Education]. It's fun in the sense that you get to sort of play two characters in one, it's nice to have a character where you’re part of the evolution of the character on a single job. So it starts out with the audience being like, “Oh no, I fucking hate that character. She's annoying, she's mean.” And then over the course of—I mean, in this case, it's three episodes, or it could be a season or a few seasons, but in the end, people are then like, “Oh my god, I've really fallen in love with that character.” You see more of the humanity. And I think everyone most of the time – obviously there are exceptions – but most of the time, if you really know someone's story, then you know that there's a reason that they are the way that they are. I think it's really important that we see that because if you're playing a character that's supposed to be stereotypically pretty or popular, those things often have negative connotations. I think it's fun to open people's eyes to remember that everyone's a human, even if they don’t seem it at first. When people are judging, you never know what's going on in someone's life. One could be caring for someone, someone could have a hard family life, someone could have come from a family like with Ruby where she has a parent that's ill and her life is caring for that parent while trying to come across as being more wealthy and more fancy than she actually is. In Kay’s case, she comes from a family of criminals. I think that's what's made her an opportunistic character. Being opportunistic can be seen very negatively, I think, a lot of the time. But imagine if you come from a family where your parents are criminals and you get lumped in with that, you can't really do anything about that or help that. Distancing yourself or disowning yourself from your family is not an easy thing to do. And she's done that. So I think she's a lot tougher than people realise. And this story is you seeing her getting those opportunities – probably the kind of opportunity she's always dreamed of – like having a famous husband, being on the cover of Vogue, living in an amazing house. You can see when she turns up to the house, Lady Tressilian's house, she's so taken aback. Her part of the story is you seeing her get those opportunities and seizing them and then finding out whether they're worth it—which I think is also very interesting. A lot of the time in life we get opportunities that seem like what you've always dreamed of—because opportunities are only opportunities. They're not actually the end result. And they come at a cost, and that's what you're seeing. You have to ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” Not to ruin it for anyone, but I think in the end for Kay, probably not. 

ELLA: You’re so damn good at playing heartless while breaking the hearts of audiences. Is there anything in particular you do to achieve it?

MIMI: Personally, I'm always biased for my character—no matter who they are, even if they’re considered a “bad guy”. The thing is, no one hates themselves. If you're the worst character and you’re evil, you wouldn’t actually think you are because you're you. To play a character convincingly, you need to love your character blindly—like the way that a person would about themselves. No matter what, I’m always defensive of my character in the story. To get people to understand your character and sympathise with your character – especially if it's not a typically sweet character – you need to do it first. So that's what I do. And maybe that helps with the audience’s change of opinion on a character that's not necessarily considered a lovely one. When I'm doing a scene like the scene in Towards Zero with Inspector Leach, I think that is the scene where most people would sympathise with Kay. You're sort of understanding her feelings within the story—that was actually sad for me. I'm not pretending to be sad, I’m really believing it. I can't really pretend to cry, I actually get upset inside myself. If a character’s journey didn’t make me feel sad, I would struggle. I usually get butterflies and feel physically sick myself when I’m in those sad moments for a character. That's why Matthew [Rhys—playing Inspector Leach] was really helpful because he was really great in that scene, he was sort of ad-libbing a little bit back to me and sympathising with my character while he was still in his character. So I think it also depends who you're acting opposite…I’ve always been very lucky. If it's something emotional, I'm always acting opposite really great people who are so generous and not just concerned about their own performance—they really help you in your own. That can make all the difference. I'll give him more credit for that scene than I do to myself because he really was brilliant. 

ELLA: Has there ever been a moment where you've realised the real impact of your work on other people?

MIMI: With regards to people’s reactions – like really emotional reactions or people opening up to me – there's been a lot of that, mainly from Sex Education…because that's the longest standing character that I played. You grow with the character and so I get to have more of an input and insight into them. When you play a character for a long time, you can't avoid putting yourself into the character—I'm growing in real life, she’s growing in pretend life. I feel like especially with Ruby, over a long period, a little piece of my heart and soul went into the character. When people open up to you or if your character has affected someone or made an impression on them emotionally, it means a lot more because it feels more like you yourself. It's very humbling and it's a very special experience. It's making me feel emotional now. There have been a lot of times where I've bumped into someone – I spend most of my time in very mundane places like the supermarket or Costco, that’s pretty much my life – and there's just a lot of random hugs with strangers. Because I find that's the best thing; if someone opens up to you, I can’t not give them a hug. I always ask first. Everyone always says yes, no one's ever turned me down. It's a special thing, which I think a lot of people don't get to experience in life. What job do you do where random people you've never met are willing to just come up to you and hug you in the street? So hopefully, fingers crossed, it keeps going. 

ELLA: In Sex Education, you played Ruby in a very character-driven show. Then you've gone to Towards Zero, where it's Agatha Christie's plot-driven world. Where do you think you want to go next? Is there something in particular you haven't tackled that you want to? 

MIMI: No and yes. 

ELLA: I’m picturing something in witchcraft already…

MIMI: Did you say witchcraft? Read my mind. I've definitely said that many times. But everything I've done, I loved. I would never turn down something and be like, “Oh, I've already done that.” Nothing is impossible for anything to be that similar because it's a crazy world. The industry doesn't make money by making the same boring thing over and over again—that’s what makes things special. That's what makes someone pick up a story and produce it and put it out there because to some degree it’s new and interesting and fresh. So there's always going to be something about every job where I’ll say, “I've not done this before.” But my dream would be at the end of my career, when I can't walk anymore – because I'm sure that's the only thing that would stop me but then I’ll just do sitting parts – I would want to look back and see that I left no stone unturned. I want to do everything. I would do any stunt—they actually don't like it when you do your own stunts, found that out recently. I want to do as much action, physical, mental and fantasy as possible. For me, my favourite type of movie is when something is going on that doesn’t happen in real life. 

ELLA: When someone asks you about your future, do you think about your personal life or do you think about work?

MIMI: I think when someone asks me about my future, I see my personal life and then the way that my professional life fits into that life. So if you’re asking me right now, what I see in my mind is me on my farm—and then I get to do really cool stuff but I don't have to work for the rest of my life. In my dreams, the majority of my life is at home with lots of animals and lots of children and a big family. That's my plan. I was just this only child growing up. I have two brothers, but they're from my dad's marriage after my mum. But because my mum grew up with such a big family, I want to go in that direction. 

ELLA: How many kids are we talking?

MIMI: So my mum's one of eight and my best friend's one of nine. So I'm like, “Okay, 10.” Obviously time wise, I’m under a bit of pressure. It's a bit like why I have so many animals. I've been doing this since I was 12…my oldest dog is 15. I just don't know any other life. So my idea is just to keep going and have as big a family as God provides. Of course, there’ll also be more dogs. I think at least four dogs for every baby. I'm going to need the farm because logistically, we need the space. 

ELLA: You need a whopper of a farm for that. Finally, what’s one thing you could tell your younger self that you've learned in your now mid-20s?

MIMI: I feel like it would be two. The first thing would be, “Don’t worry about whatever goes wrong because it could be so important that it goes wrong.” Sometimes, you really need things to go wrong. You don't realise that you don't know best, but the universe has a plan. Something that seems like the worst thing in the world could be guiding you. The second is, “Don’t be scared of time going on and you not having done something you wanted to do.” When I was younger, there were things that I took a lot longer to do than other people—and that's every area of my life from the personal to professional to my family life, everything. But once you've done something, it’s done. You wonder why you worried so much and wish you could do it all over again. There is so much time, I need to still tell myself that now.