She stars in RTÉ’s biggest drama for years and picked up an acting award this week for her efforts, but Yasmin Seky is still holding down her day job in a bank and is only planning to start acting full-time ‘in the next year’.
Yasmin scooped the Best Newcomer award at the Royal Television Society Awards on Tuesday for her portrayal of Nikita Murphy, girlfriend of Eric ‘Viking’ Kinsella, in RTÉ’s smash crime drama Kin, also broadcast in the USA by AMC+.
But despite her growing fame, the talented actor’s feet remain firmly planted on the ground.
In an interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday, Yasmin says she was ‘surprised’ to receive the award, ‘especially with Kin being my first TV thing. To have some sort of recognition for that, for my first big role, was really surprising. But it was great to know that I did a good job and that people felt that I did a good job’.
The 23-year-old could be forgiven for some insecurity in that regard – she hadn’t acted in ten years when she got the call to audition for Kin. And when she got the part she had to take time out from her sales job in a bank to shoot the show.
In spite of the runaway success of Kin, Yasmin returned to her nine to five after filming ended and is still there now.
It seems obvious to me – why would I quit my job if I have bills to pay?’ the down-to-earth actor laughs.
‘I love acting and I’m passionate about it, so it is something that I have to follow. But I have other responsibilities as well, so I just have to wait and see how things pan out. I think it’s the same with anybody that wants to follow their dreams – they just have to be realistic sometimes as well.
‘But definitely going full-time is something I’m looking into. Hopefully in the next year that will happen.’
The Dublin native, whose father is Ghanaian, puts her grounded outlook down to ‘just how I was raised. You just never count your chickens before they hatch’.
She could be asking for more time off from the day job, with season two of Kin set to begin shooting in June.
Yasmin says the whole cast was ‘really excited’ when the new series got the green light.
She added: ‘We’re all really interested in the story and the script, so to find out we were going to do it again – and film it in the summer with no restrictions – was great.’
Yasmin says she finds it ‘weird’ to see herself on screen, and was anxious before each episode of Kin aired.
She was nervous too in the early days of shooting the first season – a rookie among a stellar cast that includes Ciaran Hinds, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Charlie Cox and Aidan Gillen.
‘I think one of my first scenes I shot was with Aiden,’ she says. ‘It’s so weird to say because now when I think of Aidan Gillen he’s sound, he’s just a normal person. He’s gas. But I was so nervous with him walking into the room.
Yasmin says the whole cast was ‘really excited’ when the new series got the green light.
She added: ‘We’re all really interested in the story and the script, so to find out we were going to do it again – and film it in the summer with no restrictions – was great.’
Yasmin says she finds it ‘weird’ to see herself on screen, and was anxious before each episode of Kin aired.
She was nervous too in the early days of shooting the first season – a rookie among a stellar cast that includes Ciaran Hinds, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Charlie Cox and Aidan Gillen.
‘I think one of my first scenes I shot was with Aiden,’ she says. ‘It’s so weird to say because now when I think of Aidan Gillen he’s sound, he’s just a normal person. He’s gas. But I was so nervous with him walking into the room.
