In The Wildflower Fields With Mickey Sumner
In our efforts to keep ROSE & IVY original, I am delighted that an array of talented women with upcoming projects are helping us maintain our integrity by photographing themselves home or wherever they happen to be in the world.
Actress Mickey Sumner shares how she is spending her days in British Columbia—it involves a lot of gardening, a girl after my own heart—how she came into acting, the importance of raising her voice and what she hopes viewers will take away by watching her show, Snowpiercer, airing on TNT.
Mickey was photographed on location in British Columbia by Christopher Kantrowitz. Hair by Tracy Lovell
Interview by Alison Engstrom
Mickey is wearing a white dress by XIENA
I want to acknowledge you for something awesome that you did. I was reading that you recently helped raise about $45k for multiple sclerosis. I have MS, So I really appreciate this. thank you!
Oh, it was my pleasure. The story is amazing and it was really because of Elizabeth Santiago and her dad. We were getting so much attention from the story and I was like, maybe we can put these likes and emojis into action and make some money for MS warriors and families, so we did. We are trying to get up to $50,000 so I am pushing for that. (you can donate here)
How are you navigating this unprecedented time period?
Personally, we feel very lucky to be in nature, healthy and in sort of an isolated place. I have a three-year-old and we feel, we are in a good place. We are trying to stay engaged as we can with what is going on in America and we are trying to do as much activism as we can from our computers and phones. I also have a TV show, so I am trying to balance this exciting publicity and people’s reactions to the show, it’s a really bizarre time.
Mickey is wearing a striped shirt by XIRENA
Are you doing anything interesting to help pass the time? Have you cultivated or resurrected any hobbies or passions?
I am cooking, there are no restaurants on the island, although some might have opened up for the summer. There is a lot of cooking and a lot of cleaning. My son has some developmental delays and we have been doing a lot of therapies online. I have been gardening; we decided we should have food security, so we built a vegetable garden and we have been growing our own, which is a whole new thing for me.
I’d love to talk about your background since you grew up in a household of performers and were raised by your dad (Sting) and your mom (Trudie Styler) who are incredible performers. would you say that you were destined to the field?
I grew up as a very shy child, I sort of liked to sink into the background, but I think secretly, I had this desire to be a bit more shiny and to perform. I loved watching my mom and my dad on stage, who did a couple of plays, take on these new roles and wear different costumes, I was also obsessed with costume changes. I secretly wanted that but didn’t really believe in myself. It took me a long time to get to that place where I was confident enough. I moved to New York City for art school and that is where I started to try out this new thing and then I became addicted. I realized that I could still be a shy person and a great performer because I could take on these other characters. I went to Parsons and I was studying fine art, painting, sculpting and I was starting to do video performance. I had a lot of friends at NYU, Boston Conservatory and Bard and they were all doing short films. I started to offer myself by saying, if you ever need an actress, I am interested. I started acting classes at night and by the time I graduated I decided that I didn't want to make that type of art, I just wanted to act. I think my parents wanted me to be a doctor or something but I wasn’t good at biology. (laughs)
Do you ever tap back into the artist side of you?
I doodle but I think I will go back to it eventually, maybe in my 70s or 80s, I’ll go back to art (laughs).
Where were you primarily raised?
I was mainly raised in England but I was also on the road on tour. I did first grade in New York; I was a very nomadic child.
Mickey is wearing a striped shirt by XIRENA; pants by Labo Art; jacket by Prada; boots by Rachel Comey
Do you have any great memories growing up and being on tour with your dad?
It was sort of just my norm which obviously wasn’t everyone else's norm. When my dad was on tour in America, my mom amazingly took us twice to do our own tour, she hired a tour bus and took all of the kids across America one summer and we visited every state. She was like, we are doing this and it will be an education.
have your parents offered you any advice on how to navigate the entertainment industry?
It’s a journey and very much in the beginning I had a passionate need to do this alone and not get help from my family. I wanted to prove myself, and probably at times, I shot myself in the foot out of stubbornness. I have an amazing manager, who is my rock and has kept me going for the past ten years. I have been really lucky with the projects that I have done. I always feel like I have been around people who are better than me and who have always raised me up. I didn't’ go to drama school and I learned everything on the job. I think surrounding yourself with people who are talented is really smart because they are going to teach you a lot.
Let’s talk ‘Snowpiercer’, what an incredible show from the plot to the cinematography. How did the role come to you?
I had just had my baby, he was four months old and I wasn’t auditioning for anything; I thought maybe this was it, maybe my career was done for the moment. Then Wittney Horton, who was the casting for Snowpiercer reached out to my agents and manager and said, I think she is really great for the role. I was like, I am breastfeeding, exhausted and look like shit (laughs) but I was like, you know what, I am going to try. I have literally nothing to loose. I didn’t get a real script, I just got the breakdown. I liked the role but I didn’t know that it was Snowpiercer because they kept that secret. I auditioned four times for the part and each time I was like I have a kid, a brand new baby, and if I don’t get it that’s fine. I auditioned first on tape in New York and then I came back to LA and went in twice; then again and auditioned with Daveed Diggs to see if we had good chemistry. Then I got it, I think that whole year, just having a baby and having milk brain, was all a blur.
So you shot the pilot three years ago?
Yeah, we shot the pilot three years ago. There was a year between the pilot and the first season and then there was almost another year between season one and two. It takes two weeks to film one episode.
The show has an unexpected and relevant tie-in to the current situation we are in. What do you hope that viewers take away from it?
I think that it couldn’t be more right for this moment in our society. We have this train with the themes of climate change, social justice, diminishing resources and you have the 1% living the status quo and not wanting to change anything. Farther down the train, you see how people are being exploited and suffering. I think the best thing this show can be doing is making people question themselves, our policies and our politicians. Question what it means to be part of a community, what is right and what is just. I don’t think being on that train is sustainable just like the way we have been living and the way that people have been oppressed and marginalized—some people just have so much. I am really proud to be part of the show right now.
You’re raising your voice and advocating for racial equality and climate change. Do you also feel like we are on the cusp of a major shift?
I think what has happened is that white people have finally said and realized oh shit, we have to fix this. We have been perpetuating white supremacy for millions of years. We have to fix that within ourselves. There is an awakening happening. Now is the time to listen to black activists and black educators—listen, learn and take direction. That’s what we have been doing during quarantine.
Since you are a first-time mom, how did your mom help shape your view of the world?
My mom has been a human rights activist, in her own right, for as long as I can remember. She signed me up for Amnesty International for my 11th birthday. I wrote letters every week to governments to release conscientious objectives. I feel like she raised us to always question what is right. I am just very grateful she installed that in us. Yes, there was a huge amount of privilege that I was raised in and I am still learning and still being hit with the blind spots and say, blind spot, blind spot, but at the same time, she really instilled this fire in us to help people, if we have the power and privilege to help, and that was pretty cool parenting.
I’d love to know, if you weren’t an actor, what would you be doing?
I can only speak to right now and the way we are living in uncertain times, because I’ve been asking myself, if I can never act again and Hollywood is over and I can never ben on a film set again, I think it would be fine being a gardener. I would be content, creatively satisfied and physically satisfied. It’s been really amazing to learn this new gardening skill and then you get to eat your own produce. The seeds are so small and then they become this amazing life-giving thing.