My hometown kept me grounded amid early career rejection, says actor

Actor Kimberly Nixon has said growing up around Pontypridd kept her grounded as she dealt with challenges early in her acting career.

Speaking to Bronwen Lewis on BBC Radio Wales, she reflected on travelling from Ynysybwl, Rhondda Cynon Taf, to London for auditions in the early stages of her career.

Now starring in Sky drama Under Salt Marsh, the TV star said regularly returning to south Wales had helped her deal with industry rejection.

"I would get back on the train, come home to Ponty, and my life here had nothing to do with that," she said.

Nixon said in the early days she questioned how someone from a small Welsh village could break into acting.

She also described regularly getting the train to the capital for auditions, some of which "went really, really badly", before returning to the comfort of home.

"My value [in Pontypridd] wasn't placed on whether I got that job or not," she said.

Nixon said that separation helped her deal with rejection in an industry where uncertainty is common.

She also recalled filming the 2008 drama Easy Virtue alongside Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas, before returning home at weekends.

"I remember being in Ponty in the opticians and people were saying 'are you filming with that Colin Firth?' and I was like 'sort of yeah'," she told Lewis in January.

"But mainly, nobody cared," she said, adding: "I never get recognised in Ponty hardly ever."

Any conversation she does have about her work are matter-of-fact and brief, she said.

"I think what helped me stay who I am is that I have lived in Pontypridd the entire time."

In the Sky crime series, Nixon plays Shell Hill, the mother of a nine-year-old girl whose death shocks the fictional town of Morfa Halen.

It marks another major role for the Welsh performer, who has built a career across film and television, including in comedy Fresh Meat, about life at university, and the four-part drama The Guest.