Sonya Cassidy joins the cast of Humans Season 2 on AMC as synth Hester — but who is she and what’s she been in before?
Cassidy is a British actress who grew up near Bristol in southwest England. While growing up, she said she wasn’t one of those children “constantly demanding attention and dancing and singing in the living room” like many other young actors.
Instead, she was always doing impressions of her friends, family and teachers. She loved to read aloud and change the voices of the characters.
This naturally led to her joining a youth theatre program and falling in love with the world of acting. After she graduated high school, she applied and auditioned for multiple schools for dramatic arts.
She remembers working the bread-shift at her local part time job on the Sunday when the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts (RADA) called to inform her that she had passed all four rounds of the audition process.
When Cassidy graduated from RADA in 2008, she won the leading role in the Old Vic theatre’s play Inherit the Wind alongside Kevin Spacey the following year.
When asked if she would choose acting on screen or acting on the stage, the British actress said that she couldn’t decide between them. But she admitted: “The buzz you get before you go out into that auditorium each night is just incredible and you just don’t get that on set.”
The role models she looks up to include legends Judi Dench, Michael Sheen, plus Anna-Marie Duff and her husband James McAvoy.
As well as Humans, Cassidy played Clara in BBC period drama The Paradise, Celine Ashworth in ITV’s Vera, and Oracle in Olympus on Syfy. She also played the role of Helen in 2015 movie Survivor.
In her free time, Cassidy is an Ambassador for Springboard opportunity group. Springboard started in 1989, and is a charity that works with children and families with special educational needs in order to make sure they receive the care they need.
Cassidy also runs an Instagram account called ms_filmmaker citing its purpose as “pulling the focus behind the scenes, celebrating Women in television & film.”