{"id":475268,"date":"2026-03-14T13:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T13:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475268\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T13:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T13:14:17","slug":"rebecca-lucy-taylor-aka-self-esteem-on-her-pivot-from-music-to-acting-i-felt-a-bit-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475268\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem on her pivot from music to acting: \u2018I felt a bit dead\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rebecca Lucy Taylor \u2013 aka the pop star Self Esteem<\/a> \u2013 recently woke up with two cold sores on her face. And that was just the start of it. \u201cI felt very disturbed emotionally on Thursday,\u201d she tells me, sipping a cup of tea. \u201cI\u2019m out of my depth and my comfort zone.\u201d To blame? The unlikeliest theatrical collaboration of the year: Taylor is starring in a West End revival of David Hare<\/a>\u2019s 1975 play Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s a septuagenarian statesman of British theatre, who once wrote a theatrical portrait of Neil Kinnock so savage that the former Labour leader called it \u201cthe most uncomfortable three hours of my life\u201d. She\u2019s been deemed the musical oracle for female millennials<\/a>; her gigs feature defiant choreography and women barking like dogs, and her official merch store sells a scarf emblazoned with the word \u201cHELP!!!!!!!!!!!\u201d. An unexpected pairing, you might say.<\/p>\n

For Taylor, though, the play feels very close to home. Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles, which opens at the Duke of York\u2019s Theatre this month, is about a disillusioned, spiralling rock star called Maggie Frisby, whose self-destructive behaviour threatens to tear her band apart. \u201cThe more I mine for the gold in it, it\u2019s crazy. Like, she feels ex-actly like I feel right now,\u201d Taylor tells me one morning at the Bethnal Green rehearsal rooms. \u201cI think this might really f*** me up if I\u2019m not careful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Maggie, first played by Helen Mirren in the original Royal Court production (where Keith Moon tried to gatecrash the show), seems nihilistic, as if she doesn\u2019t care about anything. But it\u2019s more complicated than that. \u201cHer frustration is: I\u2019ve done everything I can. I\u2019m f***ing good at what I do. I\u2019ve delivered, and it\u2019s just not happening for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Taylor plays spiralling singer Maggie Frisby in David Hare\u2019s \u2018Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles\u2019, a part first played by Helen Mirren in 1975 (Jono White)<\/p>\n

Taylor, of course, has been successful. She knows this. The problem, she thinks, is that \u201cthe system is broken\u201d. She\u2019s taking on the role of Maggie during a period of her own creative soul-searching, disorientated by both the long-sought breakthrough she had with her Mercury Prize shortlisted<\/a> second album, Prioritise Pleasure, and the pressure she felt to quickly write the highly anticipated follow-up, A Complicated Woman. She\u2019s been grappling with the uneasiness of having to commodify herself, and haunted by time-immemorial narratives about female obsolescence in pop music. She worked too hard, and became \u201cknackered\u201d and \u201cfed up\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen things went well for me finally, I just got distracted from the actual goal of what music is,\u201d she explains, clad in a sleek black tracksuit, her bright blonde hair centre-parted. Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles is helping her to rediscover the fundamental impulse that drove her music in the first place. \u201cI can\u2019t understand being alive. It\u2019s so mental to me. I want to understand it. I want to feel it.\u201d She summons a childhood memory of standing on top of the sofa \u201cand imagin[ing] it was like a f***ing mountain top\u201d. \u201cI just want that feeling again,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Talking to Taylor is a bit like getting a really good 10-minute voice note from your friend; she swears a lot, regularly laughs at herself. You feel she might tell you everything, and you\u2019d probably do it back. You\u2019ll talk about existentialism and Derren Brown, botox and whether to have a baby, all in the same conversation. She jokes that she\u2019s \u201ca pop star trying to have an acting pivot \u2013 it\u2019s very hairy territory\u201d. But it\u2019s obvious how much this matters to her.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I\u2019ve been rock-bottom depressed because of music. And I\u2019m like, it\u2019s just songs, though?<\/p>\n

The Rotherham-born singer left indie folk duo Slow Club in 2017 after more than a decade, feeling unfulfilled, and started again under the name Self Esteem, bringing a distinctly British flavour to pop bangers that were as infectious as they were questing. In 2022 she composed the soundtrack for Jodie Comer\u2019s award-winning play Prima Facie; a year later, she took over the role of Sally Bowles in Rebecca Frecknall\u2019s all-conquering production of Cabaret. <\/p>\n

Last year she launched her third album, A Complicated Woman, with a meticulously crafted stage show, and released a book with the same title, a mish-mash of Notes-app philosophising about life as a woman in the 2020s. Before all this, she wanted to act but didn\u2019t get into drama school, so a West End play seems an obvious move. But Taylor\u2019s motivation for doing Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles is blunter. \u201cI felt a bit, you know, dead, for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with reconnecting her with her creative motivations, Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles has Taylor circling around why she even does all this in the first place. A speech in the play basically asks: \u201cWhat the f*** are we doing when the world is burning?\u201d Recently she wrote a song called \u201cThey\u2019re Just Songs\u201d. She laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s about going, you know what? Like, it\u2019s ruined my life. Sometimes I\u2019ve been rock-bottom depressed because of music. And I\u2019m like, it\u2019s just songs, though? You\u2019ve got a f***ing roof over your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Taylor at the 2026 Brit Awards, where she was nominated for Artist of the Year (Getty)<\/p>\n

Through force of will, Taylor created Self Esteem, carving out a space for herself in the music industry where she could make feminist music that was hard to categorise, mixing spoken word, belting choruses, and goosebump-inducing choral back-ups. \u201cI just forced my life into what I needed it to be,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

The songs she writes are the kind that would crown your night out and have you chanting the words in your best friends\u2019 faces, like \u201cSex on Fire\u201d or \u201cMr Brightside\u201d but for women in their thirties who have already gone to bed. There\u2019s \u201cThe Deep Blue Okay\u201d, in which she yowls her way to self-compassion; \u201cYou Forever\u201d, an incantation challenging us to be braver; and, of course, the anthemic, Baz Luhrmann-esque \u201cI Do This All the Time\u201d. <\/p>\n

In that song, she told us to not \u201cbe intimidated by all the babies that they have\u201d, that \u201cgetting married isn\u2019t the biggest day of your life \u2013 all the days you get to have are big\u201d, lyrics embraced as instant classics. I wonder if she really meant them at the time? It was \u201cthe germination of my feelings about comparison and timelines and stuff like that\u201d, she says. Everyone around her was doing those things, and no one reassured her that it was fine that she wasn\u2019t. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of spite in some of my lyrics that I now see was just from jealousy and panic,\u201d she admits. <\/p>\n

Although that wasn\u2019t one of them. She was saying not to worry, that whatever happens is valid. \u201cNow I\u2019ve got a 25-year-old friend who\u2019s like, \u2018What\u2019s going to happen to me?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my f***ing God, nothing! Don\u2019t f***ing think about anything for 10 years at least!\u2019\u201d But this year, Taylor will turn 40, and does find herself indisputably in what she calls \u201cbaby or not\u201d territory. In her book, she documented the process of freezing her eggs. She has no regrets about where she finds herself at this age, but is frustrated by the limit women face with their fertility. <\/p>\n

Does she want to be a mum? \u201cPolitically, no…\u201d She is in a happy relationship, though, and her boyfriend would like to have children. \u201cI think the answer is yes, but I want five more years. And that\u2019s not really possible.\u201d Her therapist thinks that actually she wants to be a dad. \u201cI\u2019ve watched dad after dad in music have the joy of parenthood, and nothing happens in their careers at all. And I know for a fact it will massively affect mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Taylor with \u2018Prima Facie\u2019 star Jodie Comer (left) at the 2023 Olivier Awards (Getty)<\/p>\n

Her existence as a thirtysomething pop star who mainly writes about relationships from the perspective of building a healthy one with yourself feels like a balm, particularly for those of us who grew up idolising female stars who we now know were traumatised by the intense scrutiny of early fame. But it\u2019s a lot for Taylor to handle personally. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople go, \u2018That\u2019s why you\u2019ve got to exist!\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018But it\u2019s exhausting,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cWhy do I have to be the one who pushes through millennia of internalised misogyny, that I also have about myself on a stage, dancing and wiggling my arse? I\u2019ll get back that drive to document it, interrogate it and push through. But last year I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if she has mixed feelings about her most recent album, A Complicated Woman, it did earn her an Artist of the Year nomination at the Brits last month (the prize went to Olivia Dean). \u201cDefinitely 20 per cent of that album, I love, but I would do differently with the brain space I\u2019m in now,\u201d she says. She wrote it knowing it needed \u201ca song for Radio 1, a song for Radio 2, a song for 6 Music\u201d, but \u201cI sort of love that it\u2019s unpleasant and complicated, because that\u2019s what the album is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Taylor<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Taylor performing at Glastonbury last year following the release of her third album, \u2018A Complicated Woman\u2019 (PA)<\/p>\n

Next, she has an idea for a novel, and would like to continue acting, her taste more Sally Wainwright than Marvel (she did in fact audition unsuccessfully for Wainwright\u2019s BBC drama Riot Women). She\u2019ll approach that career very differently from music, though. \u201cIf this goes well and people want me to do more things, it\u2019s really important to not get obsessed with the growth of it or the exposure of it. I can\u2019t do to this what I\u2019ve done to music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that she\u2019s turning 40 this year is something she finds \u201cf***ing funny\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t feel it,\u201d she says. \u201cI said to my therapist, literally, I cannot believe I am 39; there is nothing that suggests that I am.\u201d To celebrate, her friends are going to put on a talent competition for her where she gets to be the judge. \u201cI don\u2019t have to perform at all. Because they get guest lists all over the shop, it\u2019s my time to be entertained!\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to keep destroying my soul in the hope of a feeling that maybe I\u2019ll never fully have. And also, I want to watch the telly with my nice boyfriend and dog<\/p>\n

Taylor has already done so much, and although she says she\u2019s going to take some overdue time off, it\u2019s clear that she\u2019s compelled by a restless creativity that never really lets go. I wonder what she wants, ultimately. \u201cEr, are you my boyfriend?\u201d she jokes. The answer, though, is all of it. \u201cI want to be artistically stimulated, and I want to keep destroying my soul in the hope of a feeling that maybe I\u2019ll never fully have. And also, I want to watch the telly with my nice boyfriend and dog, and have my mum and dad round for dinner.\u201d <\/p>\n

She laughs, shrugs. \u201cI\u2019m going to be the first woman to have it all.\u201d Why not? It seems perfectly reasonable.<\/p>\n

\u2018Teeth \u2019n\u2019 Smiles\u2019 is at the Duke of York\u2019s Theatre until 6 June<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-475268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}