Sheridan Smith’s Funny Girl Understudy Tells How She Uses Painful Past In The Role

Sheridan Smith’s understudy has opened up about taking on her role in Funny Girl after the actress quit citing “stress and exhaustion”.

Natasha Barnes, 26, was drafted in to play the main role for which she had been preparing when Smith dropped out of the West End musical after three nights of no-shows in a row.

Barnes, below, refused to discuss the nature of Smith’s problems in an interview with today’s Daily Telegraph, but she revealed: “I miss her and worry about her and I hope that she’s all right.

“We’re actually very alike. Neither of us had formal training and we’re both people-people. But most importantly, we have the same heart and the same soul.”

The two have been exchanging text messages since Smith took a leave of absence, and Barnes added: “Sheridan’s been so supportive of me. She told me, ‘You give this a go and it will do good things for you. But be brave and make the part your own’.”

Barnes is now aware of the pressures Smith was under.

She said: “It’s physically and emotionally exhausting. Every time I reach the end of a performance, I wonder whether I can do it again the next day.

And when asked if she were struggling with pressures like those of Smith, below – whose father has been diagnosed with cancer – Barnes replied she draws on painful emotions to improve performances.

She added: “I have used private grief in the past. When I stood in at the Menier Chocolate Factory it was just after my granddad passed away, and there’s a scene where Fanny says goodbye to a certain character that would always make me emotional, because things are said that were similar to my last conversation with him.

“Then when it came to the funeral a week later, it was the strangest thing: I didn’t cry. I couldn’t because I’d done it eight times already, and I realised that it could be a dangerous trap to fall into.

“Once you get into the habit of using your own heart for work, you can quickly forget how to act without it, and then you exhaust yourself.”

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