“You often don’t realise you’re moving forward while it’s happening. Then one day you look back and realise that all those tiny decisions were actually the things that got you somewhere.”
A few years ago, Indigo Kamal-Poole was another Leeds student with a camera, a crowdfunding page, and a short film (Green Jumper) that he’d written, directed and willed into existence. Now he’s turning up in living rooms across the UK three nights a week, playing Xander Frost, the new face stirring up trouble in Hollyoaks.
We sat down with Indigo to talk about the leap from student filmmaker to soap newcomer, what he took from his time in Leeds, and what advice he’d give to anyone chasing the same dream.
From Leeds classroom to set
Indigo didn’t arrive in Leeds with a fixed plan, but he knew broadly where he was headed.
“I came to university with the intention of entering the creative industry in some shape or form,” he says.
It was three years of watching films with his housemates, he explains, that sealed the deal:
“it really confirmed my love for the industry and consolidated my ideation of either working behind or in front of the camera.”
The degree itself gave him the final push. He credits his course, Acting for Screen (Met Film school), with giving him “the confidence and extra training I needed to make a break” after graduating last summer.
The Hollyoaks break
That break arrived in the form of Xander, a character Indigo clearly feels a kinship with.
“He is a character who I feel I relate to a lot,” he says.
“He is incredibly family orientated and constantly seeking out injustice, something I feel passionate about.“
Playing him has also stretched him as a performer: Xander’s sensitivity, he says, has
“allowed me to explore a range of emotions on set that I haven’t been able to before.”
So far, the audience seems to agree.
“The general reaction online seems to be super positive, which I’m eternally grateful for,”
he says, before adding with the awareness of anyone who knows how soaps work…
“especially considering the future of your character depends on audience popularity!”
Leeds is a city built for collaboration
We asked Indigo what made Leeds the right place to start:
“Leeds has an amazing reputation across the country as being a creative city, with loads of opportunity for young filmmakers or actors trying to break into the industry.”
He pointed us to grassroots initiatives like Unit Bradford, which runs bi-monthly short film competitions judged and supported by northern-based talent, as “a fantastic way to get your creative juices flowing and get your name out there.”
Indigo highlighted that it was also the density of creative people around him. With students from Leeds Conservatoire, Leeds Arts University, Met Film School and Leeds University’s own creative courses all overlapping in the same city, he found that “building connections was super easy.”
By his final term, he’d worked with someone from every one of those institutions.
“If that’s not an indication of what Leeds can provide creatively, I don’t know what is,” he says.
“It’s really hard not to get creative when everyone surrounding you is also creatively driven.”
Writer, director, actor, and why he won’t pick a lane
What sets Indigo apart from a lot of newcomers is that he isn’t just acting, he’s also writing and directing, and we asked him if he thought the three feed each other.
Directing, he says, taught him things no acting class could.
“Directing has given me a much better understanding of what a director actually needs from a performer on set. Being adaptable, taking direction quickly, and understanding that you’re only one part of a much bigger picture.”
The influence runs the other way too. When he’s writing, he’s thinking like a performer:
“I’m constantly thinking about how an actor would actually approach the scene, whether the dialogue feels natural to say, and what might be happening underneath the words rather than just what’s written on the page.”
It’s also given him a hard-won empathy for every role on a film set, not just his own.
“Once you’ve been the person worrying about a script, a shot list, a performance and whether you’re actually going to succeed, you become a much more understanding person to have on someone else’s set.”
These days, he doesn’t really separate the three disciplines at all:
“I don’t really see acting, writing and directing as separate things anymore. They all constantly feed into each other.”
Indigo’s advice
From a self-funded short film to a recurring role on one of the UK’s biggest soaps, Indigo’s route in should be the success story that creative students in Leeds should know! At the end of the interview, we asked him what advice he’d give to anyone pursuing the same dream.
We leave you with that:
“Acting is a cruel and unforgiving world, you will hear a hundred no’s before your first yes, and this was no different for me. To survive this sort of environment you have to be able to shrug off the rejections and move forward. Having hobbies that don’t co-exist with that world is super important, for me that was through watching Lincoln City play football, a team I’ve supported my whole life and also playing it myself.
I try to think of every rejection as a 1 more no closer to that first yes. It’s very easy to start losing sight of yourself as an actor and question your legitimacy, which is still something I battle myself today.
I think the biggest thing I wish someone told me is that there probably isn’t going to be a big moment where you suddenly feel like you’ve “made it”. For a long time I thought getting an agent, booking a big role or seeing myself on television would be the point where all the doubt I had disappeared. But I don’t think it really operates like that. So practically, I’d say make yourself useful and keep creating. Learn how sets work, write something, help on someone else’s short film, meet people outside of your own course and don’t wait for an agent or casting director to validate whether you’re allowed to call yourself an actor or filmmaker.
The strange thing is that you often don’t realise you’re moving forward while it’s happening. Then one day you look back and realise that all those tiny decisions, the projects you made for no money, the people you met and the times you carried on after a rejection were actually the things that got you somewhere. I think I would have enjoyed those early years a lot more if I’d known that they counted too.”
Find Indigo on Instagram: indi_poole
