Meet our graduates: Keaton Guimarães-Tolley
Foundation Course in Acting
BA (Hons) in Acting, 2022
4 Years. 4 years of letting go, of learning and of being okay with the unknown (which I’m still getting the hang of). But 4 years is enough to call somewhere home.
Having come straight from school I was lucky enough to gain a place on the RADA Foundation Course at 18. This not only cemented my love of this place but also put me in my place; a place of understanding how much it was I didn’t know. The danger, however, was the curiosity I now had and the bug set in to learn more. Being around like-minded and different people in the cohort who wanted to make as well as explore, along with tutors who still now I owe so much to, helped me grow through that next year. And who without, I don’t think I would’ve learnt how to have fun, take myself a little less seriously and enjoy going out to all the drama school auditions in the year that followed. From this I gained a place on the 3-Year BA course at RADA.
Then it all started… again! We walked into the doors of the course normally, made our way through Covid hitting and the world changing, then out the doors on the other side. I’m a firm believer of it all happening for a reason and I wouldn’t have wanted the way our journey went to have transpired any differently. I think the main thing I took away from this time (and still am digesting at the moment) was this idea of moving closer to yourself to then be able to move away. Being fearless to do less or more and being brave enough to stand in yourself, honestly. The listening of others together, doing that which scares you and by the doing of it, slowly working through that stuff that gets in our way, stuff we all have in our own individual ways. But despite this, learning to pass through these doors or avenues in order to find that childish wonder - which is special, yours and was actually there all along.
It’s an adventure I’m so grateful to have been on and a foundation, in more ways than one, that I have as both an actor and a person now for me to move into the next chapter of this wild world (both professionally and personally).
