Bethany Antonia Is Finding Her Own Way
- Vingt Sept
- 8 minutes ago
- 5 min read
There is something quietly human in my conversation with Bethany Antonia when she describes sitting beside her mother, searching the internet for answers.
"Me and her sat together Googling how to be an actor."
It's not the kind of origin story audiences might expect from someone who now finds herself balancing a leading role in the world's biggest television franchise and a West End debut in one of theatre's most celebrated productions.
Yet that honesty is what makes Bethany so compelling.
The Birmingham-born actor is entering a remarkable chapter of her career. While audiences around the world know her as Baela Targaryen in HBO's House of the Dragon, she is simultaneously returning to where her love of performance first began, starring as Eurydice in Hadestown. For Antonia, it feels less like a new beginning and more like a homecoming.
Throughout our conversation, she speaks less about fame and more about craft. Less about celebrity and more about the people who helped get her here. There's a quiet confidence to her, one that feels remarkably similar to the character she has spent the last five years inhabiting. It's a quiet confidence built not on certainty, but on consistency.
As House of the Dragon continues its global ascent and Hadestown cements its place on the West End stage, Bethany Antonia remains focused on the work itself and the journey that brought her here.
We sat down to discuss family, theatre, finding confidence in an unconventional path and why success rarely follows a blueprint.
You’re currently balancing your West End debut in Hadestown with one of the biggest television franchises in the world. How are you experiencing this chapter of your career personally?
It feels amazing. It just feels like it’s been everything I’ve been working towards.
I started in theatre, so that’s what it feels like: a homecoming to me, to be doing Hadestown. To be playing a role of this magnitude and making my West End debut now feels like I am finally doing what I’ve been working towards my whole life. I feel really thrilled that working in television for a few years hasn’t taken away my theatre opportunities. I feel really lucky that I didn’t get pigeonholed into one type of storytelling.
Looking back at your younger self growing up in Birmingham, what do you think would surprise her most about where you are today?
I think she would just be surprised to know that it happened.
When I was younger, everyone told me there was no money in acting. There was no way to make a living from theatre. So I think younger me would just be surprised to know that it all worked out and that I get to do it.
The funny thing is, my family didn't really have that attitude. They were very much so: “You can do whatever you want to do.”
It was mainly people from the outside world saying, “Actors don’t make money,” or, “It’s not a proper job.”
I think younger me would look at where I am now and go, “Wow, you actually did it.”
Your mother played a huge role in supporting your ambitions. What do you remember most about those early years?
My mum was the most incredible. She sort of had this blind faith in me that it would all work out. We had no idea. We had no connections or contacts. We had no one in our family who had ever done anything like this before.
Me and her sat together Googling how to be an actor...That’s genuinely how it started.
She just had the most incredible tunnel-vision support of me from the beginning and never really doubted that I could do it.
Success often comes with a lot of external expectations. What keeps you grounded when life starts moving very quickly?
Home. I’m really lucky that I live between London and Birmingham, where my family are. I always make sure that if I’m in between jobs, I can go back and be with them.
I spend a lot of time with my friends as well. It’s important to me that we have a life outside of the fun that comes with doing this job. I think when a lot of your friends work in creative industries, it can become very easy to only see each other at events or premieres or parties.
Then suddenly you realise you’ve not actually sat down and had a coffee together for months.
I try really hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.
What have you learned about yourself over the last few years that you didn’t know before?
That I’m actually a lot more introverted than I thought.
When I first started doing this job, I was around so many people, and everything was very outward-facing. I thought that I was really extroverted until that moment.
Then over the last few years, I realised that I actually quite like my peace and my space, and that I have to protect that at all costs in this industry.
That’s probably been one of the biggest things I’ve learned about myself.
Returning to musical theatre through Hadestown feels like a full-circle moment. What has that experience given you as an artist?
It’s given me so much. I feel more fulfilled creatively than I’ve ever felt in my career. That’s a big statement, but it’s true.
I think it’s given me an opportunity to see my craft develop in real time. It’s so different to filming because you’re doing the same thing every night, eight shows a week, for months.
By month two or three, you’re hearing things come out of your body that you never would have dreamed of doing in the rehearsal room. Things that you wouldn’t even have had the confidence to try because you simply hadn’t practised that skill enough yet.
It’s been a really beautiful reminder of the power of practice.
Moments that felt impossible in rehearsals now feel easy. It’s also been a reminder that as adults we can still learn new things and develop new skills. The capabilities of our brains are endless if we put the time in.
Eurydice and Baela are such different characters. What have they each taught you?
Baela as a character has been a really beautiful lesson as I’ve now played her for five years.
I’ve had the chance to decide where all of her feelings come from, and I've lived with her for long enough; I can now read the dialogue and immediately understand where it’s coming from emotionally.
Eurydice has been refreshing because she’s so different from the characters I'm usually cast as.
It reminded me that my creative abilities are much bigger than I sometimes think they are.
It’s been really interesting comparing what it’s like to play somebody for five years versus building a character from scratch and only having six months with them.
Do you lead with instinct as a performer, or does preparation and research play a bigger role in your process?
Both.
I’m a big prepper. I like to do a lot of research and prep work, especially if there’s existing material out there that I can read.
For House of the Dragon, there was a source book. An entire history had already been written. So I read Fire & Blood and did as much research as I could.
Once that’s done, though, I become very instinct-led. I don’t really plan performances. I trust that I’ve done the work; I’ve got the backstory in my head, I know who the character is, and then I let instinct take over.
House of The Dragon Season 3 is out now on HBO & Sky Atlantic
Photographer Radhika Muthanna
Stylist Khurram Rana
Styling Assistant Temi Oyewusi
MUA Shivika Tiwari
Hair by Sheree Jourdan
Production studiomodem
Words by Philipp Raheem
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