Speech Day 2025: Suzi Battersby

Hi everyone, and thank you very much to the Master for inviting me to speak with you today. I find it hard to believe, but it’s been literally 20 years since I was here for my last speech day at the age of 18 and it’s really special to be back. Plus the weather’s been kind to us, so that’s a bonus!

So, a little bit about me. I’m from Sheffield originally but I have lived in London for the last 20
years and I work in the film and tv industry as a Prosthetics Designer. For those of you who
don’t know what that is – and I don’t blame you, my own parents had to repeatedly ask me what
I do for a living so they could explain it to their friends – my job involves designing and creating special effects makeup for actors on screen. So, we’re talking zombies, aliens, horrific injuries and generally transforming people into someone they’re not. It’s an incredible job to have, I absolutely love it. It’s so creative and I get to work with my hands and my head on a daily basis, and every job is different. And yes, I do get to work with some pretty remarkable actors. Let’s do a cheeky name drop… I’ve worked with Chris Evans (aka Captain America), Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, Timothy Spall, Gillian Anderson… I’ve also worked with musicians too, applying prosthetics to Sam Smith and Stormzy, who is an absolute giant of a man. At 5ft 3”, I genuinely had to bring some little steps with me so I could reach him!

I also run my own company, called Red Girl, which I set up in 2017 where we make prosthetics in a workshop and in fact, Red Girl was the first prosthetics company in the UK run solely by a woman, something I am hugely proud of. See, it’s quite a male-dominated space so I felt inspired to make a change in the industry and run a company myself to try and level the playing field. We’ve grown steadily over the years and have recently been nominated and awarded for our work. My first nomination was in 2022 at the Royal Television Craft Awards. It was for a show called ‘Litvinenko’ on ITV where we made David Tennant look bald and sick as ‘Aleksandr Litvinenko’, the ex-Russian spy who sadly died from polonium poisoning in 2006. And by the way, I can assure you, David Tennant is just as lovely in person as he is on screen. All the Doctor Who fans can breathe a sigh of relief! I was filming with him earlier this week in fact, and still one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. Such a gent.

So, I was lucky enough to actually win an RTS Award the following year for our work on a
Neanderthal documentary for Netflix. Winning an award is something I never saw happening, certainly not at this point in my life. A far greater shock, however, was my Oscar nomination in 2023 for a film called ‘Golda’ where Helen Mirren played Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. My team and I were tasked with transforming her using prosthetics, and I still can’t quite believe the recognition we received for it. Not only was the nomination an amazing achievement, but I got to go to LA for the ceremony itself and see Ryan Gosling sing ‘I’m Just Ken’ LIVE! I’ll never forget it, it was so cool.

Okay, we’ve got that out of the way….I realise this is starting to sound a bit braggy but I wanted to share the success I’ve had with my work for a reason. It’s easy to assume that I always wanted to work in prosthetics, dreamed about it as a kid, mucked around with makeup at every Halloween and set my goals on it and never looked back. That’s the case with a lot of film makeup artists. But that’s not true for me at all. Sure, I always dreamed of being Oscar-nominated one day… but actually as an actor, not a makeup artist! I had a totally different plan for my life in mind, until it didn’t work out for me.

So, I came to Haileybury in the year 2000 at the age of 13 with the acting bug. It was partly why I was so excited to come down South to study – that much closer to London and the West End! It didn’t take long for me to cement my place in our year group as one of the annoying drama kids, I was in most of the school plays and musicals and always volunteered to help paint the sets and whatever else needed doing at The Ayckbourn Theatre. Drama has always been so good at Haileybury and I used every opportunity we were given. I went on every available theatre trip to London and remember so clearly one time standing outside the National Theatre in the Southbank during an interval, looking out across the Thames and thinking, ‘I’ll be here one day, I just need to give it everything I have’. So cheesy but its true. I did LAMDA exams in addition to Drama class at school, I got myself an agent at the age of 15, and I read every book we had in the library about Stanislavski and Shakespeare. When I stood on stage at the Ayckbourn during a performance of Peter Shaffer’s ‘The Royal Hunt of the Sun’ when I was, I think 14 or 15, I
could see that some of the audience had tears in their eyes while I was saying my closing
speech, and that feeling was so powerful, I really felt like I was born to do it. In fact, I was so obsessed that I used to read play scripts instead of novels. It’s pretty bad to admit this in front of all of you and especially the Staff here, but I actually used to sit at the back of Physics class and have play scripts open on my lap and just read them during the classes instead of paying full attention to formulae. No offence to the Physics teachers! I’m so sorry! I somehow managed to do well in my exam but obviously I don’t recommend you do that!

Anyway, back to acting. The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think many people my age were as dedicated to acting as I was – it was honestly all I could think about. It’s what made me choose UCL as my first choice of university! For those that don’t know, UCL’s campus is on the same road as RADA, one of the UK’s best known drama schools, so my choice in going to study there was no coincidence. My plan was pretty clear at the time, go and study History of Art at UCL, get into RADA and then dedicate myself 100% to pursuing a career as an actor.

It so nearly went to plan… while at UCL I was heavily involved with the Drama Society, I acted, directed and designed plays, I was Vice-President for goodness sake… I even landed a role in Channel 4 show The Inbetweeners which was amazing, so when I went to audition for RADA after graduating at 21 I thought, this is it. The next part of my plan is about to be set in motion. There are 4 rounds of auditions you have to get through at RADA, and I made it to the second round before being told I hadn’t made it. I was disappointed but no problem, I thought, this is just part of the process; a lot of actors talk about rejections before they make it so I was all set to just reapply the following year. Next year came along, and this time I auditioned through all 4 gruelling rounds and after the final round where 50 are whittled down to 25, I just felt in my bones that I’d get in. I’d worked so hard and my final monologue was the best I could have done. 2 days later, a letter arrives at my grubby student house and, my hands shaking, I opened
it. For it to arrive this quickly was either great or terrible news. And yes, it was bad news. Not even a place on the waiting list. I was so devastated, I cried solidly for days and felt so lost. I just went back to my day job folding T-shirts at American Apparel without any hope of things changing.

Now, really, I should have just thought, ‘let’s try again next year’ and I did for a while. But when the applications opened the following year, my heart just wasn’t in it. Something had changed. I had started to realise that in spite of doing everything just right and having given all my energy to this for almost 10 years by this point, there was no guarantee it was going to work out for me and my dream of becoming a professional actor would come true. I honestly felt like I was failing, and I kind of had to be honest. It didn’t feel good, for once I wasn’t in control and I felt like the rug had been pulled from under me. I just decided before one of my drama school auditions that I wasn’t going to go, and that was it. Dream over. So, what was I going to do? I never had a Plan B. I had never contemplated being happy doing anything else, but after a good heart to heart with some of my best friends from university, I started to look into theatre design
and crafts instead. And that led me into the world of Prosthetic Makeup. All those times I had helped make the sets or props for plays, it wasn’t just because I was obsessed with Drama, it was because I love to make things and I love to help tell stories with my creative skills. I was so blind to that side of myself at school and university and I realise now that putting myself in such a narrow box was doing myself not only a disservice, but also was not the right way to approach my next steps in life.

None of us can know the future, what’s going to happen or who we are going to meet. So, for those of you who are leaving school today and have university places, or gap years planned or even if you have no solid plans yet, just know that there is nothing wrong with things not working out the way you think they should. Especially when you’ve worked so hard and set yourself on a certain path to reach your goals. I remember, school and exams are a real grind, and whatever you hope to achieve after you leave I wish you all every success. But if I can give you any advice at all, it’s to be okay with the fact that the universe might just get in your way. Keep your eyes and ears open to what and who is around you, you just never know where you might end up. And there’s a big chance it won’t be what you think it is now. It might be even better. It’s not just me, my best friends from school have all ended up in fields totally different to what they
studied! Lisa studied History and is now a freelance Graphic Designer and Tasha studied
Zoology and is now living in Sweden and is an Interior Designer for cruise ships!

There’s no easy way to finish this without being exceptionally corny so I will try and avoid that… I genuinely remember how momentous a day it felt on my last day when I left in 2005. There were hugs and tears back at Allenby with all of the girls there on a beautiful sunny day. My best friends and I from there are still all in touch on our own WhatsApp group and no doubt that will be the same for all of you in 20 years time. Or maybe on some kind of VR version or something. I wish all of you leaving today, the very best in your next chapter and those of you coming back next year, don’t worry too much about making the perfect choices now. Trust yourself, trust your teachers and your parents and ultimately do what brings you joy and makes you feel invigorated. There’s nothing better than learning, so enjoy this time and where it might take you. And like I did, you always have the ability to take charge of your life and reroute if you hit a dead end which could happen next year, it could be in your 30s and 40s and beyond! Look, if someone had told me at my speech day that 16 years later I’d be sipping martinis in a makeup trailer with Dame Helen Mirren I’d never have believed them.

Thanks for listening and have a wonderful Summer!