London Fresh Face Victoria Hamilton-Barritt Dances Like She's Never Danced Before in Flashdance

Age: 28. “It’s hard to believe I’ve been working professionally for nine and a half years.”

Hometown: Cricklewood, northwest London, not far from Kilburn, the section of London where she currently lives. “I’m in my comfort zone.”

Currently: Taking the lead in the West End premiere of Flashdance – The Musical, as Alex, the welder by day who works up a choreographic sweat by night at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

Bend and Snap: A West End veteran of Mamma Mia!, Grease (as Rizzo), Fame and Desperately Seeking Susan, Hamilton-Barritt is finally getting her chance at the spotlight. “This is the most demanding thing I’ve ever done,” she says Flashdance, a show she first headlined two years ago on a 40-week tour across the UK. “This job has kept me straight and working my little butt off. I’ve got these crazy, crazy quick changes: Some of them are 30 seconds!” For a while, there was some question as to where to place her two mic packs: putting them under her wig didn’t work, given the extensive head rolls Alex has to perform. “So now,” she reports, “I wear them in my bra; my breasts may look a little bit bigger than they should, but I’m not complaining about that.”

Movie Movie: Having a celluloid source for a stage production can be a mixed blessing, especially so iconic a piece of 1980s populism remembered for its array of leotards and scissored sweatshirts. “I went just so far with the film,” Hamilton-Barritt says of a movie she watched twice, “once when I was a kid, and once before I did the tour. I didn’t want to copy Jennifer Beals so I could find something for myself to bring to the stage show.” A physical resemblance is there, nonetheless: “We both have olive skin and big curly hair.” What matters, the actress emphasizes, is that “this is not the film on stage the way some other shows are [Dirty Dancing, for one]. We’ve got 11 new songs as well as others that are in the film, like ‘Maniac’ and ‘Manhunt.’” In this version of the story, Hamilton-Barritt gets to help belt out “Gloria,” the Laura Branigan hit reconceived as a comedy number for Alex and her girlfriends. “Otherwise,” she says, “I sing the new stuff, not the old classics.”

Art vs. Life: “I think in many ways I’m quite similar to Alex,” muses Hamilton-Barritt, who grew up the only child of a mother who works as a legal assistant and a father, now retired, who was a prop designer for the BBC. “In rehearsals, I thought about all the insecurities I had as a person and the insecurities Alex had as a young girl growing up in Pittsburgh.” The inbuilt appeal of a story of an “independent lady hero” helped make Adrian Lyne's 1983 movie a success—and, with luck, will do the same for the show. “Alex has got balls, she’s not afraid of any guys, and she’s totally out there with her personality,” Hamilton-Barritt points out. “I think women can relate to that. I want to reach out to all the ladies out there with this kind of girl.” Where, then, are the insecurities? “They’re there, but so is confidence; you’ve got to be strong.”

What’s In a Name? For fans of British theater, let’s make one thing clear: The Flashdance star has no relationship with her near-namesake, Olivier Award winner Victoria Hamilton. “A lot of people seem to think I’m related to her, though I don’t understand that,” she says. “Why would I be?” In fact, the young actress’ father comes from Italian stock, with “Barritt” an Anglicization of an Italian name that has long died out. (Not everyone in her family is so polysyllabically enriched: Her mother’s maiden name is Jones.) Hamilton-Barritt may face a name change herself in the spring if she makes good on hopes to marry her longtime fiancé, who works for Transport for London as a product designer. They’ve been engaged for nearly three years, which sounds like something out of Guys and Dolls. “We are trying to get married,” she says with a laugh. “I think we’re going to go for my birthday in May.”

Critical Consensus: With just one London preview behind her at the time of this interview and several weeks to go before the show’s October 14 opening night, Hamilton-Barritt is focusing on her work rather than on what the critics might say. “We just have to live and see what happens,” she says of London reviewers. “At the end of the day, this has been a great thing that has happened to me, whether we get good reviews or we don’t. I can’t change things if we get bad reviews; it is what it is. I’m grateful to have had this chance to play this part, and I just want to keep it at that.”