The young cast of It’s a Sin – Channel 4’s incredible new drama - aren’t household names, but we’ve seen some of them before. Olly Alexander has found fame through music in his band Years & Years. Lydia West was in BBC hit Years and Years (so many years!). And we’ve all seen supporting cast members like Keeley Hawes and Neil Patrick Harris in various films and shows. But it’s very unlikely that you’ve seen Callum Scott Howells before. His performance as Colin, a young Welsh man forging a career in the big city, has made him an overnight internet star, but he has never acted on the screen before. Not even an episode of Doctors. He did, however, pop up in 2017 as an entrant in Let It Shine, Gary Barlow's search for stars for his Take That musical. Take a look...
You may have had the pleasure of seeing him in the flesh if you happen to have seen his stage performances in Matthew Bourne’s Lord Of The Flies or Cameron Mackintosh’s Oliver! He also signed up to play Romeo in a new play Romeo and Julie (not Juliet!), but that’s on the backburner thanks to COVID. Colin's Welsh accent is real, by the way: Callum is from the Rhondda. He's on Twitter here.
It’s a Sin, then, is the beginning of his journey to inevitable stardom, and he told PinkNews all about how he found out he’d won the part of Colin. ‘I was at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff,’ he recalled. ‘My agent called me and told me about it. The terms throughout my training were that I wouldn’t go up for something unless it was life-changing, something that would be really, really career starting, all that kind of stuff.
‘So they sent it to me, I read the first three episodes and I just fell in love with the whole show. It was something that was vitally important. I taped for it because I was doing a play so I couldn’t go and meet for it, then I got recalled and then I got the offer the next day when I was back visiting my old comprehensive school. So it felt really sort of beautiful to find out in that room. It was mad because it was my old head of sixth form’s office. She was so good to me and my school – she gave me head boy! So it was really, really special. It was like it was meant to be, I guess.’
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READ MORE: It's A Sin's Olly Alexander: What You Need To Know
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