Self Esteem has landed her first major film role in the 1980s-set Welsh coming-of-age drama Mountain.
The artist – real name Rebecca Lucy Taylor – has been increasingly pivoting from music to acting in recent years, after stints in the West End in Cabaret in 2023 and David Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles earlier this year.
Now, it has been confirmed by BBC Wales that she will appear alongside Peter Mullan, Iwan Rheon and Seth Isaac Thomas in Mountain, which will be directed by Welsh actor and filmmaker Celyn Jones. Bill Ryder-Jones has also composed the film’s original soundtrack.
The film will follow Thomas’ young boy who is growing up in North Wales in the ’80s and looking for friendship and a sense of community. His life changes when he meets Mullan’s character, a man living alone on a mountain, and the pair form a lasting connection.
Filming began in Anglesey in June and has now wrapped, with Jones calling the shoot in his hometown of Holyhead an “emotional and spiritual homecoming”.
Taylor appeared in the Sky series I Hate Suzie and Smothered before taking the role of Sally Bowles in the stage production of Cabaret in London in 2023, and she was the lead of the 50th anniversary revival of Hare’s Teeth ‘n’ Smiles at the Duke Of York Theatre at the start of this year.
She explained the pivot to acting in March, saying that she felt “knackered” and “fed up” after the intense experience of releasing and touring her third album ‘A Complicated Woman‘ last year.
She said Teeth ‘n’ Smiles had made her realise that she “felt a bit, you know, dead, for a while”, before reflecting: “It’s about going, you know what? Like, it’s ruined my life. Sometimes I’ve been rock-bottom depressed because of music. And I’m like, it’s just songs, though? You’ve got a fucking roof over your head!”
Taylor also spoke to NME at the Ivor Novello Awards in May, saying she plans to “take a few months off to have a think” after the summer as she is in “need of a bit of a breather”.
“I’ve got an idea about what my next record is [going to be like],” she said. “But if you’re not careful, it’s you giving more and more in an industry that will take more and more if you let it. So I’m making myself stop so I can have a think and I can make some better art for it.”
Self Esteem will open for Florence + The Machine for a show in Edinburgh on August 24, following by a show supporting Pulp at Manchester’s Wythenshawe Park on August 28,