Tom Cross
An actor studying at Derby Grammar School has won an award for his leading role in a short horror film.
Just last month, Tom Cross delighted audiences at the school’s pantomime of Dick Whittington with his portrayal of King Rat.
What they may not have realised is that the 13-year-old has been named Best Young Actor award at the Independent Shorts Awards LA for his leading role as Patrick in the short Horror film Unbidden, directed by Andres Rothschild.
The film has also been awarded the Winner of the Dark Hour Award Horrors4You and the Multi Dimension Independent Film Festival Best Horror Film.
Shooting the film, which follows a family forced to deal with their grief and fears when they find a mysterious boy in the woods, brought its own practical challenges for Tom.
“It was shot on the outskirts of London during the summer and mainly in the evenings as they needed to film in the forest in darkness for the horror film,” he said.
But because of Tom’s age, he is required to have a child performance license granted for each role so they have limited hours to shoot each day, meaning he was filming mainly at night.
The film had to use different camera angles to show a monster, but only from the viewpoint of Tom’s character Patrick who was the only one who could see it. That meant filming each scene several times from different angles.
“There was one scene where I was shouting at the person playing my dad because I could see the monster and he had to lose his temper and shout back at me. We had to do that scene so many times for different takes, it was very challenging”, explained Tom, who always has his mum on set as a chaperone.
As well as film, Tom has also had roles on the stage, playing Benji in Priscilla Queen of the Desert in front of more than 1,400 people at Nottingham Theatre Royal.
Tom’s first experience of auditioning was very positive.
“I think it helped that I got the first role I auditioned for, it gave me great experience and confidence playing the boy in the Derby Theatre production of Two by Jim Cartwright in 2018,” he said.
Tom said he is often able to go for parts playing boys younger than he is, perhaps 10 or 11 years old, he has auditioned for several West End productions as well as adverts and films. He enjoys singing and learning different accents, American being his favourite.
He said his mum, herself a former professional dancer who competed on two series of Come Dancing, is a huge inspiration and support to him.
The support also helps when he doesn’t get roles.
“When I do an audition, I then forget about it as you often have no feedback unless you are recalled,” said Tom.
His mum and dad also help him prepare for his roles, practising lines with him and giving him feedback. He has also attended various theatre groups and schools over the past few years from Derby Theatre Group, PQA and now the Ripley Academy of Drama. Tom also has an acting coach Julian LeBlanc in Canada who gives tuition via Zoom.
Tom’s mum, Becky, said: “Tom has always loved being on stage performing to an audience. He enjoys his acting lessons and is very matter of fact about the exciting projects he has already filmed or performed in, it personally fascinates me when I’m chaperoning Tom to watch him in action and how hard he works with the director to follow what he is being asked to do.
“We are very proud of Toms achievements so far and look forward to the next project.”
Tom is enjoying learning acting skills and wants to experiment with roles and auditions himself. He said appearing in his school play was exciting and fun.
Hayley Simpson directed Dick Whittington at Derby Grammar School and is the LAMDA teacher at the school. She said: “Tom bowled me over in the audition with his powerful voice and characterisation. We just had to choose him for our villain! He was a passionate and determined member of the Dick Whittington team and during both performances. Tom gave everything he had for this challenging role. He learnt in excess of 300 lines – all rhyming, and all dastardly. A memorable performance that I am sure will not be forgotten for a long time.”
