The Spotlight Project - Sophie Thompson

A series of portraits where I reunite actors with their first ever headshot.

Sophie Thompson is hilarious. From the moment she opened the front door until she closed it behind me as I left she didn't stop talking, laughing and making me feel very welcome. Until recently Sophie was the kind of actress you might have seen stealing a scene or two in an English comedy or you might simply know of her as 'Emma Thompson's sister' but a cracking storyline in EastEnders (the only way to get more work nowadays or a berth on Celebrity Morris Dancing On Ice) has changed all that, casting her as a nasty piece of work for a change. What she has in spades is a wicked self-deprecating humour which was perfect for my purposes and meant that we had a lot of fun with the shoot.

It's always a slightly nerve wracking experience doing something like this especially given the one-shot nature of this particular project. If I don't get the shot, we can't exactly go back and act all surprised again. That might sound like a slightly absurd statement about photographing actors but the whole point was to capture them not acting, but reacting. Anyway, when your subject is relaxed it makes the whole experience much more pleasant. For those of you wondering; yes, that is a nose-stud back in the past (and still today in fact). Click on any image to see a larger version.







Click here to see other portraits from The Spotlight Project.