Had Emma Sidi not got the part of Kate, the lovably neurotic flatmate to walking calamity Jessie in the BBC’s hit rom-com Starstruck – this week back for season two – there would have been an extremely awkward conversation waiting for her back at home, with none other than her own flatmate: Starstruck creator Rose Matafeo, who also stars as Jessie.
Sidi, who has enjoyed a recent smattering of roles across King Gary, Stath Lets Flats, Industry, and Ghosts, first met Matafeo when they were both working the London comedy circuit in their mid-20s. New Zealand-born Matafeo was new to the city, and so she and Sidi organised to go on a “friendship date” on the Southbank. It went so well they started living together in Stoke Newington a short while later.
Which is how Matafeo got the idea for Starstruck’s “crazy, overly intense housemate Kate”, says 27-year-old Sidi, grimacing gamely over Zoom. “I hate to say it, but that is basically me. She was originally going to be called Emma, and Rose’s character was going to be called Rose. But then I said, you probably shouldn’t do that, in case I don’t get the part.”
Surreally, not only did Sidi have to audition for the part she inspired her own flatmate to write, she also had to audition in front of said flatmate. They even commuted to the audition together by tube. “I then sat in the waiting room while Rose went in,” recalls Sidi, slightly dazed by the absurdity of the memory. “I stumbled over my lines so much because I was so unnerved.”
Luckily, Sidi (who, far from neurotically intense, come across as friendly, thoughtful and sharp) got the part. And her comedic closeness with Matafeo is what made season one such a comforting, joyous watch when it aired during the winter lockdown as six, bitesize episodes about Jessie’s unexpected romance with famous actor Tom. Yet, despite the show’s title, Jessie and her friends are anything but starstruck: far too wrapped up in the everyday charms and tribulations of their daily lives, which prove much more interesting and meaningful than the sheen of Tom’s celebrity. In fact, it is Tom who chases after Jessie and her humdrum life as a cinema usher, desperate to get away from his catty agent, vacuous parties and skin-deep Hollywood romances.
