Luke O'Downie

My love of acting and performing arts started in primary school when I was given the role of the Jester in "Robin Hood. It really inspired me to start acting. Later that year we made a short film on Bullying which confirmed that I already knew acting was the career for me.
After that I started secondary school and went to the theatre for the first time to see a play called “The Twits”. It was so funny and this started me thinking about being a comic actor doing comedy films and TV.

I really wanted to do drama GCSE at school but when I was in school I didn’t concentrate that much and it affected my grades and therefore was not allowed to do GCSE drama. I then spoke to my teacher seeing if I could show them I can do it and he would not give me a chance to do drama in school.

I then decided to prove them wrong and I achieved the best grades in my class enabling me to get into college to do acting. I started on the First Diploma in Performing Arts and, from there I achieved the grades to get onto the 2-year National Diploma course. On this course I really enjoyed acting and working on performance work every week getting so much experience and doing some very good plays and performance work. I then completed that course with the grade triple distinction. I then moved onto to the foundation degree at Leicester College and De Montfort University and after finishing that course on a Merit profile. I am now I’m currently just about to begin my top up year to finish my BA Honours Degree in performing arts TV, Film and Theatre at New Bucks University.

During my training years at college and university I have done many plays, but the one that I really enjoyed was playing as the character of Piggy from Lord of the flies from this play I learnt so much about myself as an actor, and now I feel that I don’t just want to work in TV and film but theatre as well. I loved the feeling you get when an audience claps and cheers you after the show and you get out of the characters the feeling is amazing you get on stage. I got so many good compliments about how great and good I was on stage and how my character was so believable, I would love to do this every day if I could.
Outside of college I am involved with a local theatre company working on and performing a James Bond spoof which has proved hugely popular with local audiences. I have been doing that for three years now and am currently in process of performing a play that I have co-written with my friend through this work I have been able to develop some stage fighting skills.

In my spare time I like playing football and making short films, learning monologues and learning more about the acting world as it’s what I really want to do as a profession.
I am a loyal friend and a good communicator and enjoy the support and encouragement of my friends. I am honest, reliable and a hard worker and I think I have the potential to be a good actor.