Sophie Kennedy Clark: Mysterious Ways

Mysterious Ways

For Philomena actress Sophie Kennedy Clark, a teenage dream resulted in a fruitful career. 

by Liz Armstrong

“I don't believe in regret,” says Sophie Kennedy Clark, gazing out from a flat-paved rooftop at the sparkly Los Angeles skyline. Night is setting, and she’s delivering a rebel’s rally speech, dressed in a uniform ideal for a defiant attitude: tight black jeans and black ankle boots, having not even bothered pulling her long blonde mane out from under her indigo turtleneck. “I think it is an utter waste of time.”

Clark, who grew up in fairly rural Scotland, says she “slightly kind of ran away from home” when she was 17. When her parents asked what she was going to do with her life, she told them she had it all planned out: She was moving to New York, and would find somewhere to live through the internet. Her plan was to take some acting classes here and there, learn as much as she could in any way possible about the business of filmmaking, and in general just wing it until she made it to actual paid performance and stardom.
From a very young age, she says, her parents allowed Clark and her siblings—one brother, one sister, both older—to make their own decisions “as long as we committed to them fully and took responsibility.” So she earnestly followed her teenage dream, and it actually all turned out according to plan—except for a detour spent sleeping on a futon in an artists’ commune. Within two years, she was cast as a fiery single mom traumatized by the death of her stepmother in a four-part TV drama series for the BBC, and she has been busy ever since.

“The beauty of the arrogance of youth,” says the now 23-year-old, “is that you come up with things, and you think you've got the best idea at the time. And whether or not that idea was right for you, it shaped the way that you've gone on to live your life. So you might as well just go with it.”
This month moviegoers can see Clark in her most high profile performance yet, sharing the screen with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan in Philomena, a film about an Irish woman searching for the child she was forced to give up for adoption decades earlier. Clark plays the young Philomena and does a remarkable job conveying the pain and sadness that befalls her character. The next role she plays couldn't be more different: Clark will play a master seductress in Lars von Trier’s controversial and sexually explicit drama Nymphomaniac, to be released next year.

Though she’s taking on many emotionally treacherous parts, none of them feels especially dangerous to her. “I have the guise of a character, so I can separate myself,” she says. “I've watched some of the things that I've done and sometimes I almost feel like I can look at them objectively. A risky part would be something that was more like my own personality because it would almost be like watching myself on screen, and giving that to people.”

Clark likes to keep her personal life as concealed as possible, which is why she doesn’t even have WiFi in her flat back in London. Nor does she have a television, and she prefers to keep social media at bay, professing ownership of a Twitter account “only because I have to,” she says. “But I rarely use it and I think that leaves you in good stead with the people who would potentially be watching you [in a film] and believing what you're trying to put across.” In Clark’s opinion, the moviestars of yesteryear still resonate because “back then was a certain air of mystery around them that I think we lose today,” says Clark. “I like to tell people that the less someone knows about you, the more of a chameleon you are.”

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO FOR THE HOLIDAYS?

Spending time with my family, who I don’t get to see a hell of a lot anymore. Growing up in the Northeast of Scotland, we lived in a very old house. There’s a big old fireplace and I am in charge of the fire. So we sit around and watch old films. I think anytime that you actually get to spend just chilling out and running around in your pajamas for 24 hours is a good time to me.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE VISITING YOUR FAMILY?

I love to cook. My family are carnivores, and I’m vegetarian, so I’m in charge of the vegetables. I do the brussels sprouts and the parsnips and the potatoes.

WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER HOLIDAY TRADITIONS?

My mum and I decorate the tree, and we put on Barry Manilow’s Christmas album. We’re big fans. We buy that CD, like, every single year, ’cause we always lose it.

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