My name is Nadia and I’m an actress. And I have been born without my right forearm. It’s a congenital thing. I graduated in July 2005 from LAMDA and the last 6 months has been me in the big wide world trying to get jobs. I knew form myself not really from what other people had said to me that it was going to be difficult because I have never been to the theatre and seen an actor onstage who has a disability but is playing a part that doesn’t call for it. So I found that quite upsetting and I knew that that was something I would have to face.
I had one audition for LAMDA. I did disclose that I had a congenital disability. I didn’t feel like they were looking at that at all. I respected that fact that the people on the panel were looking at the acting and I felt comfortable with that.
The parts of the course that I felt challenged by I think were the physical sides. The fighting I suppose was the only thing that when I first saw it, I did have a bit of a moment of thinking ‘how am I going to do this?’ because I wanted to do it, I wanted to be involved with everything that the school offers. But as soon as we started I found the support around it was, that we’ll find a way of making that move work. We’ll find a way of choreographing certain things.