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YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Celebrity It s a really good test of a relationship – being together every second of every day Singer Samantha Barks on getting engaged and back on a West End stage By You Magazine - December 12, 2021 When Samantha Barks steps on stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in a long, blonde wig as Queen Elsa in the musical of the beloved Disney film Frozen, the biggest show to open in the West End this year, and the orchestra starts playing the opening bars of its anthem ‘Let It Go’, you can feel the audience’s excitement. With its sweeping melody and empowering lyrics – including the unforgettable payoff, ‘The cold never bothered me anyway’ (‘actually, the cold bothers me a lot,’ Samantha laughs) few musical numbers are as beloved. Samantha Barks and Stephanie McKeon in Frozen. Photography by Trevor Leighton ‘You see the audience lean back in their seats, because it’s like an assault on the senses,’ says Samantha, 31. ‘I can’t tell you how exhilarating it is to be performing it to an audience, after all this time. On the first night I walked off stage and just cried happy tears with this feeling of relief.’ After all, as with all theatre recently, Frozen’s had a very bumpy ride. Samantha was cast in the West-End production (the original Broadway version closed when the pandemic hit) in September 2019, expecting the launch in October last year. But Covid saw opening night postponed three times. ‘There’d been so many times when we were all ready to start and suddenly it was off again,’ Samantha says. ‘Performers are like athletes – you have to get your body and your voice to the right place, so you work and work… and then it happens again. I was so frustrated.’ The role’s just another high for Samantha, who’s best known for playing lovestruck Éponine in the Oscar-nominated 2012 film of Les Misérables. It’s a career no one could have predicted: born and raised in the Isle of Man, the daughter of Richard, a builder and motorbike fanatic, and Ann, a nursery nurse, Samantha couldn’t have come from a less showbizzy background. ‘But as long as I remember, I just loved performing,’ she says. ‘I was singing in choirs, dancing in ballets playing the drums. But I never imagined I could do it as a job – that was a ridiculous thing to think.’ Yet her drama teachers told her the thought wasn’t ridiculous at all. Aged just 16 Samantha persuaded her parents to let her leave their close-knit community for stage school in London. Wasn’t she terrified moving alone to the big smoke? ‘In hindsight I’m terrified for my 16-year-old self, it was a scary thing to do. But at the time – no. I was a leap-now-worry-later person and I wanted it so much. To me it was much more frightening not to do it and then regret that I hadn’t tried.’ Fear was completely unnecessary. Within weeks of arriving in the capital, Samantha was picked as one of 12 contestants in the hit BBC show I’ll Do Anything, judged by West-End supremos Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, singing to be cast in the role of Nancy in a production of Oliver! Samantha’s super-proud family travelled to the London studios every week, while the Isle of Man temporarily greeted arrivals to its airport and sea terminals by telling them they were in the ‘Isle of Sam.’ The show was the starting place for a number of stars. Sam ended up third, behind Jessie Buckley, who’s gone on to be a film and television star with parts in the likes of Chernobyl, War and Peace and Wild Rose, and the winner Jodie Prenger. ‘I’m so glad I did it when I was only 17 because everything was an adventure, I had nothing to lose. I learned so much. Your performance could be torn apart in front of the nation, which definitely gave me a thick skin. You learn that you can’t take things personally.’ Photography: Dave Benett/Getty Images From there, Samantha went on to star in various TV and stage shows including the West-End production of Les Misérables. After that show ended its record-breaking 34-year run in 2019 she went to Manchester to play Nancy in Oliver! and while taking a curtain call, Sir Cameron unexpectedly appeared on stage beside her to tell the audience he’d cast her as Éponine in the Les Misérables film, which he was producing – choosing her over Taylor Swift and Scarlett Johansson. ‘It was the biggest surprise of my life – a dream come true. It was scary because I’d never been in a film before, but I remember saying that to Eddie Redmayne [her co-star, who played her love interest Marius], who just said, ‘Yeah, but you’ve done Les Mis and I’ve never really sung in front of anyone before.’ In fact, Samantha, then only 21, realised her A-list co-stars – who included Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Helena Bonham Carter – were all terrified. ‘It was a real leveller because everyone had fear even though we’d all had such different levels of success.’ The bonding must have worked as Sam is still in touch with them all. For her role – as a starving Parisian urchin – Samantha had to lose a stone-and-a-half in two months, though she stresses it was done with a personal trainer and ‘in a very healthy way’. Her big number ‘On My Own’ was filmed in freezing rain, with Samantha barefoot and wearing a corset to make her waist appear even tinier. ‘I started shaking uncontrollably. People were asking, “What’s that sound?” and I realised it was my teeth chattering.’ She went from that ‘pinch-me moment’ to another, spending a year on New York’s famous Broadway playing the role Julia Roberts made famous in the brand-new Pretty Woman musical, co-written by Bryan Adams. It was there she met her American fiancé Alex Stoll, who was in the cast and understudying the Richard-Gere role (Sam has previously dated model David Gandy). They became a couple near the end of the show’s run and initially had a long-distance relationship, before the pandemic struck and Alex moved in with Samantha in London. ‘That’s a really good test of a relationship – being together every second of every day!’ Obviously, Alex passed the test as in January they got engaged. ‘We were in the middle of a forest, on a bridge completely covered in snow and suddenly he was on one knee. It was a really romantic moment.’ They hope to marry next year. ‘We will get round to the wedding planning, but organisation isn’t my strong point,’ she laughs. In the meantime, she has plenty on her plate with eight performances a week (‘You just have to be quite boring and rest a lot’), plus a new album out Into The Unknown (that song’s a showstopper from Frozen 2) packed full of her versions of musical favourites such as ‘Never Enough’ from The Greatest Showman and ‘Heart of Stone’ from Six. ‘We recorded it in the middle of that last winter’s horrible lockdown when it was really hard to picture ever being back in the theatre, and I really wanted it to be a love letter to the place that is now coming alive again.’ Meanwhile, her Elsa has been winning rave reviews – one critic gushed, ‘she combines the regal elegance of Grace Kelly with the full-blooded sexiness of Marilyn Monroe.’ She does that, while at the same time enchanting the hordes of little girls in blue Elsa costumes, who pack the theatre at every performance. ‘They’re so invested, and it’s heartbreakingly sweet. There’s a bit when my sister Anna’s in trouble and I go to her crying and I heard a kid say, “Oh no! What are we going to do now?” ‘Frozen’s the story of a community that’s been “frozen” for so long and now the gates have been finally opened,’ Samantha continues. ‘It’s exactly what we’ve all lived through recently and that gives the show so much meaning.’ To book for the London production of Frozen, visit frozenthemusical.co.uk By Julia Llewellyn Smith RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR 50 of the best celebrity Halloween costumes of all time Shirley Ballas ‘ Strictly gave me back my hope’ Davina McCall discusses how men can help women going through the menopause Popular in Celebrity TV chef Gino D Acampo on Sardinia Sophia Loren and scary salads May 25, 2017 The Evergreen Goddess Exercise guru Diana Moran on looking fit and July 10, 2017 More more Julianne Moore November 13, 2017 Author Jill Mansell on designer notebooks commissioning art and the family January 16, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES Kelly Hoppen on vodka vintage finds and being a April 4, 2018 ‘ I have no regrets’ Millie Mackintosh on divorce debt and reuniting May 20, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES TV presenter and tennis player Annabel Croft shares her July 1, 2018 Stella Parton ‘ Dolly and I have always been close’ August 12, 2018 Anna Friel on getting jeered in the street shared parenting with September 23, 2018 Queen of primetime Charlotte Riley on juggling rising stardom with pregnancy October 21, 2018 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. 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