Yesterday, I posted a quote from Danny Dyer about working-class people making up only 7% of the arts, and it really struck a chord with me. As someone who grew up in South East London, in an area made up of young families from lower economic backgrounds, I’ve been reflecting on how this has shaped me—particularly my feelings around scarcity, finding my place in the world, and fitting in.
I don’t remember feeling different until I was accepted onto the Acting course at Arts Educational School when I was 19. Up until that point, my exposure to different levels of wealth had been limited. I grew up in a loving and safe home with parents who did their best to provide a world where I had everything I needed. But things were not easy for them. Although they shielded me from it, we had an inconsistent cash flow. While I never truly went without, there were moments when we had nothing.
In my late teens, I experienced a pivotal moment—I found something I loved, and that love was acting. That place was drama college: a small performing arts theatre education course at the Miskin Theatre in Dartford, Kent. Having hated secondary school, I left straight after my GCSEs, lost and lacking purpose, and found myself in an environment where I met people who shaped my formative years. There was a common feeling of being an outsider, yet we had found a space where we could be confident and explore different ways of being.
It was here that I started to find my feet with my sexuality. Although it wasn’t always easy, it allowed me to push my edges and realise I wasn’t alone. Everyone there was either from South East London or Kent, and our worldview was limited, but it was here that I first discovered that news didn’t just come from red-top newspapers.
Moving from that world to Chiswick to attend ArtsEd was the first time in my young adult life that I truly felt out of my depth. Meeting people who spoke better than me, had “better” upbringings, and whose families could financially support them without it affecting their security was daunting.
I’m aware that my position there came from privilege—my parents gave me everything, I had a scholarship, and I never had to worry about money. Looking back, I was naive and probably spoiled, as I had no real understanding of the sacrifice my parents made to provide that life for me.
From the outside, I think I carried myself with confidence, but on the inside, I had never felt more out of place, insecure, or disconnected. I struggled to find acceptance from my tutors and within the system that was in place. The first time I felt truly insecure was in reading aloud. We had dialect classes where our accents were dissected, and I quickly realised that mine wasn’t considered the kind that would lead to success as an actor. My “th” sounds were pronounced as “f”s, and my “s”s had a slight lisp—both of which were openly discussed and scrutinised.
When you’re faced with small but significant judgements like this, you either shrink or become defiant, embracing your difference as a superpower.
I shrank.
Those were the most miserable and frustrating years of my life. It was then that I discovered drink and drugs as an escape and a form of rebellion. For the first time, I actively went against the system, developing a real disdain for power structures and authority. In short, I became a problem.
That defiance followed me into adulthood—purposefully obstructive, often angry, and frequently misunderstood. I desperately wanted to fit in, yet I always found myself on the outside, with no way of letting myself back in. That feeling lingered through my years in Chiswick, where no amount of effort seemed to earn me a place at the table. Even in my third year, when securing an agent should have changed things, it didn’t.
I remember my agent telling me that the biggest challenge I’d face was that I looked “too ethnic” but not “ethnic enough” to get roles outside of waiters or traditional British characters. Looking back, that should have lit a fire in my belly. Instead, it did the opposite—it was just another form of rejection. Even though I had an agent, I still didn’t belong.
A year out of drama school, I spiralled. The quiet after three years of constant structure was brutal. Not “making it” reinforced a belief I had carried deep inside—that I would never escape the fate of my working-class background. I didn’t have the fight or the conviction to believe in myself enough to make my dreams a reality.
And that’s where my inner conflict began—knowing I had every right to be who I wanted to be, yet watching others, seemingly born with a different perspective, have the inner resources to succeed.
That feeling still follows me to this day. Even now, when I have to pinch myself at the success of my business and the positive impact of my work, the boy inside me still feels like an outsider, an imposter who shouldn’t be here.
Unpicking these deep-rooted beliefs is hard work, but I believe it is my life’s mission to face them. I know who I am now and where I’m going, but when things go quiet or my dopamine isn’t fuelled by the busyness of projects, my self-saboteur emerges, bringing old feelings of abandonment with it.
Last week, I celebrated my 43rd birthday, surrounded by more love from friends and family than I could ever have hoped for. I have deep gratitude for all I have built and accomplished. But these moments also reveal where we are and where we want to be. There is so much I still want to achieve, so much I still want to create—and sometimes, the gap between the present and the future can feel like a void of uncertainty.
That little working-class boy is still inside me, searching for a place to belong, for a seat at a table where he feels truly seen. This is reflected in my work, my values, and, perhaps, in why world events affect me so deeply at the moment.
Sharing these parts of myself helps me integrate the pieces that have never felt fully accepted. I hope that, through my writing, I can reach others who feel like outsiders too—because that difference is our superpower, and we are the ones who will shape a better future for working-class kids like me.
