Stars of Tomorrow 2023: Natey Jones (actor)

When Natey Jones was sent the script for Dionne Edwards’ Pretty Red Dress in 2021, he had a sense he would get the part. “I felt like I had all the elements to make this character truthful,” he says regarding the protagonist of Edwards’ debut feature, which follows the effect a red dress has on a south London family. “I thought to myself, ‘I would get this if I go for it.’”

Growing up in Edgware, north-west London, one of Jones’ earliest memories of acting was running around his great-uncle’s garden in a cowboy hat with his cousins. “I remember distinctly that I was an actual cowboy. I became a cowboy,” he recalls. “There was no pretending for me.”

By the end of school, Jones hit a crossroads when he had to choose between law or acting — plumping for the former because he “needed something to fall back on”. After a few years at a law firm, the urge to act became “too irresistible” for Jones who enlisted in classes at south London institution Identity School of Acting. “It was amazing. I felt like I found my tribe. I could just explore things and not worry about failing,” he remembers.

Jones secured an agent in 2015 and did the usual stints in BBC staples Doctors and Casualty as well as a slew of theatre work — his “first love” — before Pretty Red Dress came along.

Produced by Teng Teng Films, with financing from the BFI and BBC Film, the feature stars Jones as a “typically masculine” ex-con who puts on his partner’s dress in private. “The dress was never a complication,” he says of preparing for the role. “It was trying to understand why someone would feel the need to do that. It was about that understanding from a human perspective.”

Since filming Pretty Red Dress, which released in UK cinemas in June following a festival run, Jones has been back-to-back with theatre projects, including a starring role in an off-Broadway run of Suzan‑Lori Parks’ The Harder They Come. “Every job I try and learn something new, or it has to be difficult. I have to be intimidated or scared in some way,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s not challenging enough for me.”

Contact: Lara Beach, Curtis Brown