Mia McKenna-Bruce has revealed that she almost quit acting for good as she was so stricken by panic attacks, which made auditions a nightmare.
The former child star, 26, who found fame on CBBC drama The Dumping Ground, even dropped her agent and took a job in a call centre after deciding she was done with acting.
But after doing an U-turn, she has gone on to win rave reviews for her role in the new movie How To Have Sex, which follows a group of teenage girls on a rite-of-passage holiday.
Mia said: ‘It was really hard. I was putting so much pressure on myself and I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.
‘I was like, “Why am I doing this to myself?”
Traumatic: Mia McKenna-Bruce has revealed that she almost quit acting for good as she was so stricken by panic attacks that made auditions a constant nightmare
Opening up: The former child star, 26, dropped her agent and took a job in a call centre after deciding she was finished with acting but after doing an U-turn, she has gone on to win rave reviews for her role in How To Have Sex
‘Before auditions I would get myself in such a state I would think, why am I putting myself through it?
‘The actual audition would be fine – I would be in there and I would be loving it – but I would come out and have a panic attack because of how much I had worked myself up before.
‘I took myself away from it and went travelling. I got a job in a call centre and thought, maybe I have had that part of my life.
‘But I did that for a couple of months and then was like, no actually I remember what I love about it now, take me back.
‘My agents were great and were really supportive saying take your time. But it did get to a point where I didn’t think I wanted to act anymore and I left my agent then.
‘I thought, I don’t want to do this, there’s no point in taking up someone else’s space.
‘I was convinced I was done with it, but I very much wasn’t. For me it was taking a break and figuring out what I wanted to do.’
How To Have Sex is director Molly Manning Walker’s debut film and has been billed as the movie that will get ‘everyone talking about consent.’
The plot follows three teens out on the lash in party town Malia, Crete, as they celebrate the end of their GCSEs.
Mia said: ‘It was really hard. I was putting so much pressure on myself and I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I was like, “Why am I doing this to myself?”
Plot: The film follows three teens out on the lash in party town Malia, Crete, as they celebrate finishing their GCSEs. Mia plays Tara who finds herself in uncharted territory during a night out
Mia plays school leaver Tara who finds herself in uncharted territory during one night out.
The idea for the story came from a ‘formative memory’ the director had of seeing a man being given oral sex on stage during a bar crawl when she was younger.
Manning said: ‘We spent a bit of time in Malia doing research. We really tried to engage with real life and what was going on.
‘And then we did some workshops where we talked to 16-year-olds and their concept of consent, and it was quite wild what came out of that.’
Mia is now being hailed as the next big thing and she has already been nominated for the Best Lead Performance gong at this year’s British Independent Film Awards.
Having played minor roles on The Bill and EastEnders, she first came to public attention for playing Tee Taylor on the CBBC drama The Dumping Ground for eight years.
But Mia, from Bexley, Kent, said the role meant that she missed out on a ‘huge chunk’ of her childhood as she spent half the year filming.
Then, after she left the show in 2015, adult parts weren’t as easy to come by.
Speaking on Charlie Brooks’ ‘I AM PRO’ podcast, she said: ‘It’s weird, I went through a phase post Dumping Ground.
‘Obviously, I had been so lucky to have this job to go to every year, I hadn’t thought of a life after that.
‘When I left, I was auditioning as an adult and not a child. I would be asked, “Tell us what you think about the character?” And I would be like, “What?”
Amazing: Mia is now being hailed as the next big thing and she has already been nominated for the Best Lead Performance gong at this year’s British Independent Film Awards
Throwback: Mia found fame for playing Tee Taylor on the CBBC drama The Dumping Ground for eight years. But Mia said the role meant that she missed out on a ‘huge chunk’ of her childhood
‘It was stuff that you don’t necessarily think about as a child.
‘The further I went along the more pressure I would put on myself and the more nervous I would get and then I had to strip it back and think, why am I doing this?’
Mia is engaged to actor Tom Leach and she gave birth to their first child – a baby boy – in August.
She is now trying to find more balance in her working life.
She said: ‘It’s a really small world (acting) and within two days on set they are your family and your life.
‘I go into a bubble and that’s something I still need to work on because I completely throw myself into it, which is good to some degree, but I forget about my life back home.
‘Once it’s over and I come back home, I’m like two different people. It’s a lot. It’s like the post-holiday blues and you don’t know what you are doing with yourself.
‘Every job you do, you can never fully share that experience with someone unless they were on it, so it’s really hard.
‘I’m working on being able to combine it all and keep in touch with my regular life at home when I’m on a job.’