An intimate five Q&A on creativity and working life
Wearing our new Pink Cosmos Necklace, award-winning actor, writer and director Florence Keith-Roach joins Sandra to reflect on creativity, collaboration and the rhythms of her working life.
In this intimate five Q&A, she shares what fuels her imagination and why experimentation, play and risk are central to her work.
If your Cosmos pieces could talk, what would they say about your creative life right now? I'm currently in a writers' room for a new TV show I've been working on for many years. It's incredibly invigorating, stimulating and collaborative. That sort of intense collaborative work takes a lot out of me, so when I'm not there, I'm in a deep hermit phase, needing to replenish by watching, reading, knitting, making... The last couple of years have involved a lot of under-the-radar hard work: honing craft, developing projects, endless rewrites, applications, auditions. My work often follows this rhythm - long periods in the background, then bursts of external energy when shows air, plays go up, or projects begin. Balancing these different energies is something I both enjoy and struggle with. This year is the year of the fire horse, and I feel full of fire. I'm writing new projects, finally bringing long standing ones to life, and starting initiatives to platform other artists.
When you're building worlds on page or stage, what's the one thing you have to have with you? I need all my senses stimulated - I think it's a neurodivergent thing. I hum and talk out everything as I write it, need a constant supply of hot and cold drinks and snacks when I act and surround myself with colour and different textures to fiddle with as I concentrate. I love wearing soft clothes or strange textures. Basically, I need to be in the sensory equivalent of soft play at all times when I work.
If you could steal one thing from any of your characters or stories to keep with you while creating, what would it be? I'm currently writing a TV series set in the world of professional BDSM. I'm in awe of the consent, care, communication and respect that this community embodies, and I learn from them every day.
Which part of creating makes you feel most alive: writing, directing, performing, or something else entirely? I do all three roles because I'm ADHD and love being totally submerged, challenged and stimulated - that's when I'm in peak flow state. If I only do one role, my brain gets a bit frustrated. After writing non-stop for weeks, I need to perform - whether acting, singing, dancing, or playing music (badly). I have to be in my body. Directing is a whole other challenge: thinking strategically, bringing a team together, constantly listening and learning from others. Jumping between all three is where I'm happiest, no time to think, just flow. But aside from work, dancing is where I feel most alive. I'll be clubbing until I'm 100, if my body will let me.
If your day-to-day creative life had a soundtrack, what song or sound would be playing right now? I can never write to music, I feel it too deeply and it affects the rhythm and tone of my work. Instead, I listen to alpha brain waves when I write: a weird monotone sound that helps me dive into the flow zone for long stretches. I do listen to music when acting though, it helps me access different emotional moments between takes. And on writing breaks, I'll blast music to throw my body around to. Im an obsessive music listener, I listen to songs over over again and then on move on to the next. My music taste a weird hybrid of a 21-year-old and a 71-year-old, on any given day I could be sashaying to trap or a show tune. I like to keep the people guessing.
