People: Ian Serra – Actor, Director, Producer and Star

“From the age of about 13/14, my dream was to become an actor. I was always involved in local productions and drama groups in school. My goal was to travel to England and enrol in a drama school”.

Back then, the Gibraltar Government would have been – and evidently were – reluctant to fund any form of drama studies abroad. And so, at 17 years of age Ian auditioned for three drama schools: the Redroofs School of Speech and Drama, Gilford’s School of Speech and Drama, and Central School of Speech and Drama. He was offered a place in all three.

PRODUCTIONS

Ian finally chose to go to Redroofs as they were the only school with an agency. “During my time there, I participated in many theatre and musical productions. However, whilst it was a three-year course, I left after my second year as the course was too theatre orientated and I aimed to work in the film industry”. In retrospect, Ian believes that he might have been wrong. Frustrated with ballet classes and the likes, he could not understand how these particular sets of skills would benefit his acting career. Yet, when “cast in my first film, I realized that much of what I had been taught, did not reflect the true nature of the film industry”.

Whilst in drama school, Ian managed to land two feature films. The “first being The House on Garibaldi Street, directed by Peter Collinson (Director of The Italian Job). The film focused on the capture of Eichmann by the Israeli Mossad in Argentina. I starred alongside Topol, Janet Suzman, Nick Mancuso, and Martin Balsam, amongst others. I played a young Argentinian boy that helped the Mossad gather information on Eichmann’s whereabouts. My second role came in the TV series The Boy Merlin, where I played a young King Arthur”.

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10-07-2020 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR