Theo Angel: “To finally be my whole self meant a lot”
The actor on meeting themself for the first time, being specific about their identity and a changing landscape for performers
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week’s guest is actor Theo Angel, who is of mixed-Gujarati and Irish heritage. I first saw Theo on screen in Netflix’s racy thriller Obsession before catching their run in The Secret Garden at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. The play explored mixed-race identity through the new cast, and I knew I needed to find out more about their own experiences. Read their story below.
Tell me a bit about your family background.
My dad’s Kenyan Gujarati, born in Uganda and raised in Kenya – there's so many layers. I always say I’m half-Irish, because, to me, it's really important that I'm not half-English. It means that my two sides have a lot of similarities. I used to be vague, but now I really want to be specific, I have the Irish and Indian flags in my Instagram bio.
What terminology do you use to describe yourself?
I used to say mixed-race, but that caused so much confusion. When I started acting, I literally couldn't put mixed-race on my Spotlight because it meant half-Black. I’d turn up to castings and they’d be like “oh no.” Now, they know that mixed-race can mean anything.
What kind of culture did you grow up around?
I grew up in South India. I was born in Scotland, but I barely remember it. When I was two or three, we moved to Kerala to this tiny little ashram village out on the backwaters. My mum had hepatitis and while my parents were doctors, they were very spiritual as well. She was very invested in traditional healing.
I’m terrible at Gujarati because everyone around me was speaking Malayalam. My dad spoke Gujarati, but my mum spoke English, and English was the only through line that everyone could speak. I moved back to Derbyshire for primary school, then did secondary school in Essex. I also did a year of school in Belfast, and went to Cornwall for university.
Growing up across so many different places, how did that affect your sense of identity?
I felt like I was two different people, like I had to split the sides of myself. Having grown up in India and having had most of my formative childhood there, I knew all these stories about Rama and Sita and gods that I wanted to talk about – they’d talk about Jesus. I quickly learned to box that away.
How do you feel today? Do you still feel split?
I think I finally feel more confident in merging the parts of me. That happened at university, when everyone was meeting themselves for the first time and getting to be who you were and be accepted for that. University was where I finally started praying over food very obviously instead of trying to hide it. I finally felt like I could actually have a little bit of both sides of me come through.
I'm still always struggling to find that balance. I do feel like I'm starting to lose India – since I became disabled, I haven't been back. I'm a little bit afraid to go back. I grew up around a fair few disabled people and I know that they can have a good life over there, but it's so challenging. Culturally, there’s so much stigma around disability. Sometimes I’d prefer if it was more obvious for me, because Indian people will be straightforward with you and say it to your face.
When I tried to come out to my friends over there, they were so confused, but they just asked their questions, versus my Irish side of the family who were like “we are going to pretend we did not hear that.”
Izzy Manuel spoke about how being mixed set her free of the caste system and expectations in marriage – do you share that feeling about how you’re able to live your life?
I definitely agree with that. My parents had already both been the black sheep of their families, so that meant that there wasn't any expectation on me. People would joke about it being my turn to get married one day, but even then, I knew that if I had wanted to get married, I would be free to pick whoever because I was already mixed and ‘polluted’ the bloodline.
Have you ever spoken about your mixed identity with your family?
When we’d visit my white grandmother who had Alzheimers, she would consistently forget that she had already told this funny, funny joke and tell me and my dad that we needed to wash our hands again because we were “still dirty.” Everyone in the room’s response was to kind of shrug, “oh she won’t remember if we correct her,” but I’d remember. I’d remember that anyone stood up for me.
How we're perceived as people really fluctuates. When I’m around white people, I’m asked “there’s something about you, where are you really from?” When I’m around Indian people, they’ll say I’m white.
Do you feel confident enough to correct them, claiming your own identity?
It still hurts. Even after The Secret Garden, a Bangladeshi person came up to me and said “so you’re not mixed, right?” I’d just spent all this time developing this character that is so real for me, and you come up and wipe that away. What’s interesting is that they’d say the same to Hannah [Khalique-Brown] who, to me, looks so Pakistani. I was slightly jealous of how I felt that she really looked mixed-race. But when people questioned her, I thought “oh, it’s not just about me.”
What was it like to be in a show like The Secret Garden, a specifically mixed role?
I noticed from Obsession onwards that people were finally casting me as half-Indian. Up until that point, I had either auditioned for fully Indian or fully white roles, they always wanted one aspect of me cut away. I feel like I had a lot of self-hatred about my mixed-race identity during those years – I’d try to tone down my features as much as possible, bleaching my facial hair, trying to look less Brown and always hiding what I was. To finally be my whole self meant a lot.
On Obsession, a show which was very uninterested in our race, myself, Indira Varma and the show’s director Lisa Barros D'Sa all had an Indian dad and white mum. My friends with brown mums tend to get so much more culture, because the women traditionally carry and pass on the heritage. For me, Lisa and Indira, all of our dads were really cagey and hated talking about their history and childhoods, distancing themselves from their own Indianness. I want to learn about my heritage, but my dad is so ashamed of it that he won't share.
Are there any stereotypes around mixed identity that you want to see move on?
I don't love that so much of the mixed-race conversation tends to revolve around being entrenched in white culture, then finding out that you’re brown or Black. There are so many people who are mixed-Chinese and Indian, mixed-Middle Eastern and Black, Ghanaian and Filipino…
I’d love to decenter whiteness. I would love more mixed-race stories that are about being immersed in your non-white culture and trying to find a connection to your whiteness. I’d always been so interested in the pantheon gods, and in Ireland we have the Sidhe and pagan folk tales. There’s so many interesting connections that can be made.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
Being cross-cultural and getting to belong to the world rather than just one place. I'm limitless, we can go anywhere.
Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word?
Cross-pollination.
Next week, I’ll be speaking to author Kaliane Bradley. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday. Shop Mixed Messages tote bags and bookmarks on Etsy now!
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.