Lucy Davenport-Broder (English, 1991)
After studying English at Hertford, the stage beckoned and Lucy is now an actress and voice-over artist based in Los Angeles.
I almost didn’t apply to Oxford at all. My fiercely Mancunian school experience made me fear that such places were for posh people only – a terrible reverse snobbery. But I came down on a field trip and fell in love with the place: there was a feeling of it being somewhere where ideas and life were happening. I was not at all sure of which college to apply to but eventually lighted on Hertford as one that was traditionally northern in its intake, and I loved that it was one of the first colleges to admit women.
I will be forever grateful to my years at Hertford for pushing me to my limit – academically, physically (all those night sessions!) and even providing me with an informal career training. I did over twenty plays whilst at Hertford, this included long summers doing open air Shakespeare. This proved an invaluable preparation for the rigors of the life of an itinerant player. I shall never forget lying on the stage at the Oxford Playhouse as the seemingly dead Juliet and being heckled by school parties, or ‘sleeping’ in the rain in Exeter Gardens as Titania.
After Hertford, I went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (having survived my last Hertford Final and my final audition for RADA, scheduled on the same day). Two weighty and stubborn institutions faced off – who would budge? Well, in the end, I went into sequestration with the Junior Dean of Hertford, who accompanied me to my audition in London and then returned to sleep over and write my paper at Julia Brigg’s house the next day. It was quite the transitional moment.
Hertford gave me the scaffolding on which to build a career, and it had stretched and challenged me in every way possible because I’d been taught to work hard, to always strive to be better and to embrace risk. After meeting and marrying my husband in London, we set out in 2006 for an adventure in Los Angeles. A decade later, we seem to be here still. I have two American children (Ella and Louis) and a diversified career in both on-screen acting and voice-over work. I have been lucky enough to work with some people on my bucket list – Martin Scorsese, Jay Roach – and I’ve done a lot of ditch digging in-between (I’m very good at dying in several different accents). I have just finished editing and performing in the world premiere of my husband’s play, Our American Hamlet, at the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company in Boston. I know I wouldn’t have been on that stage but for the hours spent in the Rad Cam, in Julia’s armchairs and cycling madly down the Cowley Rd clutching the latest Anglo-Saxon translation of ‘The Fucking Seafarer’ (as it was affectionately known). My greatest hope is that one day my son and daughter will have the opportunity to have a similar experience.