Yinan Xia: Can you tell us about your background and how you first got interested in acting?

Jayden Elijah: I've been into acting since I was very young - I went to a Saturday school where you spend the day training acting, singing, and dancing every week when I was 6. Since then, I've worked in the UK industry on TV shows, film, and theatre. I've always been interested in the mystery of people and why they do what they do. I don't even know why I do what I do, so to attempt to figure out why others do anything and inhabit their mind is an endless pursuit I’m obsessed with.

YX: You’ve had roles in both film and television. What are some of the key differences between the two mediums, and how do you approach each differently as an actor?

JE: In film, you know your character's arc - beginning to end - so you can prepare for it; I like to work backward from the end to contextualize the beginning and middle as I think often we subconsciously decide the fate of our story. But on TV, you might not even know your character's full story. For Edwin, I had the novel by Alexis Shaitkin it was based on, so I knew the direction we were going, but the scripts did change things about Edwin's story - so beyond the very rough outline I got while speaking to the writers soon after coming on board the project, I had to chase down anyone involved in the writer's room for any very early draft scripts or anything they could tell me. That was certainly a strangely exhilarating and terrifying experience, where each time I opened a script, I didn't know what would happen to my character!

YX: What has been your favorite role to date, and why?

JE: A few of my roles I love for different reasons. In Edwin for Saint X, I feel so lucky to play such a complicated anti-hero with a downward spiral trajectory; I learned so much from him. In another project I did, The Last Tree, I played a character called Tayo, where I learned so much about what creating a film could be ideally - telling a story you really believe in with people at the top of their game. What could be better?

YX: Can you walk us through your process for preparing for a role, from reading the script to getting into character? 

JE: I make sure the first time I read the script, I center myself, sit down and take the time to read it. A drama teacher I had when I was younger shared with me that the only time you'll experience a story, anything like the audience will, is on that first read of the script - so you'd better give it the respect it deserves. Then I re-read it, and again and again, making notes of the clues about my character in the script - until I feel compelled to start developing this specific person. Sometimes I'll start with their posture, backstory, or even a song I think they listen to. It'll all be based on the clues I find about them in the script. From there, I do some script technique analysis I've picked up over the years and then see where it takes me. Each character is unique, so my process should be too! Getting into character is a strange thing for me - I don't really know what happens; it just does. Something I do pretty consistently is make a playlist that has the character's energy. I find it helpful to have 'keys' into a character like this - a playlist, an element of their physicality, their clothes, a thought that they can stop thinking - but ultimately, I try to trust that feeling in the moment where I know the key that'll get me into a character - and then I just try to keep that close.