LATIN LONDONER #57 - Samantha Manzur, Actor, Theatre-maker

Chilean-Palestinian actor Samantha leads the Interdicta Collective, an interdisciplinary group creating immersive theatre and museum experiences. Samantha also starred in 'Mad Women' (2024), El Círculo (2019) and La Soga (2016) and in several short films including Anton Blaubach’s 'LATE'. Samantha’s various innovative theatrical endeavours have led to the development of her one-woman show '236 Cavendish Mansions,' based on her experiences in her Victorian tenement flat in London.

by Amaranta Wright. Interview by Hannah Davis

Having studied in Chile and in London, Samantha's work began reconciling the differences between these worlds, or in her words, “reconnecting the version of myself in Chile with the version of myself in the UK.”

Her theatre-making in Chile was intrinsically linked to “political enquiry and political desire" in the aftermath of the Pinochet era "when bodies were literally disappearing. Performing and creating became a way for me to understand my generational role after the dictatorship in Chile.”

She created a theatre company in Chile which used collective and collaborative direction to help "find routes that would allow people to remember what happened and consider how we are living in this new era and where we are going.” By contrast, she laments, theatre-making in England feels much more mechanised and faceless because “fringe theatre has been so destroyed.

Like many of the other women profiled, Samantha is frustrated by the lack of roles offered to actors with foreign accents. “I’ve never received a call for Chekhov, for example. This is easier to understand in movies which try to create an impression of reality, but in theatre you can suspend disbelief.”

Samantha also believes that the only way to navigate an industry that is often hostile is to take charge of their own destinies as much as possible. “Worrying about auditions is something I do, but it feels futile,” she explains. “So I’m not just waiting. I am doing my own things. Putting things out is a way to offer something else beyond the mainstream.”

“I don’t want to sound pessimistic, though,” she laughs. “The industry is changing a lot.” Going forward, Samantha is finding comfort and joy in the creative people around her, and describes how "it’s very important for me to have a family - whatever that looks like, your family can be your friends.”

Most importantly, Samantha believes that nobody should not have to sacrifice too much to be a part of a world that you love: “we should never have to stop living.”