The acting prowess from the cast of hit new series Everything I Know About Love is undeniable, but what you might not realise is that Aliyah Odoffin, who plays Amara in the series, is brand new to the scene.
Amara, along with Maggie (Emma Appleton), Birdy (Bel Powley) and Nell (Marli Siu) mesh together perfectly onscreen. Their early 20s friendship, which revolves around their first share house together in Camden, London, provides an all-too-familiar backdrop for women across the world.
And all the while, it would be easy to assume Odoffin was a seasoned actor like her onscreen peers—she blends in so seamlessly, her character arc devastatingly realistic. But as it turns out, the seven part series is actually Odoffin’s very first role out of her prestigious drama school, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
“I had a re-call [to audition] in between [drama] classes,” Odoffin tells marie claire Australia. “It all happened kind of right in the midst of training, which is nice in a sense because you can kind of do your audition and just get back to learning more about the crafting.”
And it was at drama training specifically where her life changed for good.
“I was outside of my school when I got the phone call [saying she got the part], like, I’m ready to go into rehearsals,” she explains.
“I remember sliding back into the room I was just like in my head ‘Oh, my gosh.'”
It was game on from there. Odolfin went straight into pre-production for the show, which was adapted from Dolly Alderton’s bestselling memoir of the same title.
“In terms of my consciousness, I knew about [the memoir] because every time I’d go on to the tube, I’d look up and I see that famous yellow front cover,” Odoffin continues.
“There’s such an authenticity of [Alderton’s] experience that you can just feel when you’re reading it.”
Of course, the character of Amara wasn’t explicitly a part of the book—nor were any of the other characters (although they’re all loosely based on people in Alderton’s life). This gave Odoffin the opportunity to feed into her character and inject more of herself into the part.
“You see the transition of Amara from having braids into having an afro which is just such a normal thing for a young black woman,” Odoffin tells us.
As it turns out, she herself had suggested that put this in the series—and with the help of hairstylist Nicole Ruby Rose, she made it happen.
“I changed my hairstyles all the time and I was like it’d be really cool if we can see her undoing her braids onscreen. You get to see it, literally for like a split second, but it meant so much because I haven’t seen that onscreen before.”
Odoffin also found a deeper connection with her co-stars, not unlike what we see between them onscreen.
“We had a week of rehearsals and we were put into this room and all sort of like, improvised.
“Since we all live together [in the show] we did this scene where all of us walk into someone’s room with like, chips and we’re all like, ‘does anybody have a spare this’ or ‘can I borrow a spare that?’,” Odoffin laughs.
“It was one of those moments where it’s like, you either go all in or you don’t, and every single one of us completely went there and it was this moment where we were like, ‘Okay, we’re all ready.’
And while filming wrapped up months ago, all four actors have kept in contact.
“We have a group chat and it’s never not active,” she tells us. “especially in these recent days where [the show] has been released and we’ve all been there telling each other things like, ‘oh my gosh you look insane!’ for interviews.”
For those that have watched the show from start to finish, this picture is easy to imagine after seeing their friendship translate to onscreen. As for the supposed fictional events, dynamics and personalities that click and clash throughout the series, Odoffin is confident that there’s plenty of things people will relate to from their own lived experiences.
“I think there’s a sense of aimlessness that the girls don’t even know they have, they’re like partying and they’ll be somewhere together and then they’ll run along to another bar and then they’re rolling down a hill and they’re doing this and they’re doing that,” she explains.
“I feel like is very spot-on in your 20s like, you go out with plans to go to one place and then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Nope, the night has to continue!’, this sense of aimlessness I think is so, so correct and spot on.”
Everything I Know About Love is streaming exclusively on Stan in Australia. Log in or sign up to watch it here.
