Molly Geddes on whirlwind start to her career on stage and screen

There is a sense of the surreal from Molly Geddes when she talks about her career since graduating from drama school just two years ago.

The Lanarkshire actor will soon be seen in her first major TV role, appearing in the BBC/Netflix series about the Lockerbie disaster – The Bombing of Pan Am 103 – where she was taken under the wing of acting heavyweights Peter Mullan and Phyllis Logan.

Next up is her professional stage debut, being directed by the award-winning Sally Reid of Scot Squad fame, in a new play beginning this week in Pitlochry.

And, perhaps most impressive of all, and certainly most important, is the short film she wrote and starred in about escaping an abusive relationship, which she has been taking into schools around the country.

Perhaps, at times, she can’t quite believe what she’s achieved so quickly.

Molly with Phyllis Logan in Lockerbie drama The Bombing of Pan Am 103.

“There have been lots of pinch-me moments,” Molly admits, referring specifically to her role in The Bombing of Pan Am 103, but which stands true for her time in the industry so far.

“Doing the Lockerbie series was class. I worked closely with Peter Mullan, he was one of the first people I met. I was so nervous and didn’t know anyone and wondered how I’d found myself there. Peter was so real, so there, and willing to just talk out what we should do.

“When I went to the first read-through in London, I was so unbelievably nervous. I didn’t even know where to sit. I was standing in the corner when Phyllis Logan took me under her wing. I was able to ask questions of these people I’ve been watching on telly since I was a wee lassie.

“I play Lauren Aitken, one of the police officers who deals with the evidence handling. I got to meet the person my character is based on, which was a great moment. Lockerbie is something I learned about in primary seven, so for one of my first jobs from drama school to be in a big drama about it is crazy.”

The acting bug bit early for Molly when she was growing up in Blantyre. “No one else in my family is performance inclined, but acting has always been inside me,” she explains, talking before another day of rehearsals at Pitlochry Festival Theatre for new play Water Colour, which opens at the venue on Friday.

“I remember when I was young, my gran was in hospital and I’d go into the ward and sing and dance. These wee women in the ward might not have wanted it, but there I was! It’s not something that was taught; it was just in me.

“From there, my mum made an effort to get me into youth theatres and different drama groups. She would drive for hours to get me to places, spending an arm and a leg. I knew this is what I wanted to do but I didn’t know the stepping stones to get there. Creative pathways weren’t talked about at my high school, so I took on the research myself. I was about 14 when I heard about the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) for the first time and I decided that’s where I was going.”

Molly Geddes outside Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Molly attended the Junior Conservatoire at the campus in Glasgow, and when she finished high school at 18, the RCS was the only college or university she applied for.

“People told me you don’t get in first time, but I’d decided and that was that!” she laughs. “I was probably more inexperienced and naive than others, a bit doe-eyed. I didn’t think about what the course entailed; I just wanted to be there so badly. It was during Covid, so half the auditions were in person, half were online, and somehow I got in.

“I was newly 18, just a wee lassie and the youngest in my year. I had impostor syndrome – a working-class person in that drama school environment is a lot – but that quickly washed away. I met some of my best pals there.”

While Molly loved learning to be an actor, she was dealing with issues in her personal life at the time. For the first two years of her course, she was in a relationship which she came to realise was abusive. It was only when she got out of it that she began to understand what she had been through.

“I started looking for types of media that could explain what this was and what abuse looks like,” she says. “Part of your brain tells you that’s not what it was, or that it wasn’t bad enough, but nothing I looked at resonated with me.”

Molly reached out to the Glasgow Girls’ Club, an activist group she’d joined when she was 14 but had dropped away from during her degree course.

“I said we should make a film that would help other young women. All we had was an idea and a dream. Two years after that conversation, the Carter Centre in America brought their Inform Women, Transform Lives initiative to Glasgow and we partnered with them. We wrote a short film, Where We Stop, which focuses on emotional abuse. People don’t always recognise it to be abuse, but it is and can do just as much damage as physical abuse.”

Molly had to first deal with her own trauma before embarking on the project, but she says sharing the issues explored in the film continues to help her, as well as others.

“You have to do a lot of healing before making art about what you’ve experienced,” she says. “I did work beforehand to heal and grow. There was a time when I was scared to share my story but seeing the impact it has on other girls shows it was the right thing. I go into schools and talk about domestic violence, plus we have our mass social media presence, and we have other initiatives coming that we’re currently working on.”

It’s an important subject that is still not talked about enough, and the same can be said about the themes in Molly’s stage debut, Water Colour, which tackles mental health, loneliness and suicidal thoughts. Written by Milly Sweeney, winner of the St Andrews Playwriting Award, the play is a two-hander also starring Ryan J Mackay.

Molly plays Esme, a student who finds herself at an all-time low and is standing on a bridge railing overlooking the Clyde when she has a chance encounter with a boy, Harris, that changes her life forever.

“Milly’s play is beautiful. Her writing is so poetic and gorgeous, but also Glaswegian,” Molly says. “I remember reading the script for the first time and it being so different to anything else I’d read recently. Glasgow and the Clyde almost become characters in the play.

“Milly’s in the rehearsal room with us and it’s great to have her there if we have any questions. It’s lovely and exciting to be working with her on my first professional theatre gig. She’s class. Everyone involved is so welcoming and warm. We’ve created a lovely room, which is important when we’re tackling a subject like mental health. It’s a challenge as an actor, but a fun one.”

‘We don’t talk about feelings’

Molly in Water Colour with Ryan J Mackay.

While conversations around mental health have become more open and honest in recent years, Molly believes there is a long way to go in Scotland before we are able to bare our feelings as comfortably as some nationalities.

The actor plays a troubled young student struggling with a number of issues in new play Water Colour, which opens this week in Pitlochry.

“I think there’s a west coast, or maybe even a Scottish, culture of not wanting to talk about how you feel, even though it’s a discussion we’re having more often now,” she says.

“I feel like there’s a ‘red neck’ culture here, where there’s an embarrassment felt when speaking about it.

“I remember when I was 18 and at drama school, my American classmates would unashamedly talk about how they felt, and I recall thinking that I wished I had that ability to say what I was feeling and how I thought it could be made better.

“I’ve had to learn how to do that, whereas it seems to be instilled in others.

“In this play, my character, Esme, isn’t afraid at points to talk about how she feels. I love that about the character and I hope to bring a little of that into me.”

Water Colour, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Friday until May 17; Byre Theatre, St Andrews, May 28-29