Rhianne Barreto:My nine siblings think I’m a loser despite success

Rising acting star Rhianne Barreto has said her nine brothers and sisters help to keep her grounded amid her growing success.

The 21-year-old, from west London, is appearing in Amazon Prime’s series Hanna, and won the special jury award at the Sundance Film Festival this year for her lead role in indie film Share. She started out with the National Youth Theatre and graduated from the Brit School in Croydon three years ago. 

In January, Barreto was named as one of Variety magazine’s “10 Brits to Watch for 2019”. Those on the list in previous years include Star Wars actor John Boyega. However, she told A List: “I’m still at home with my parents and chilling with my family, and they are still screaming at me to do vacuuming, so in a way my life just continues as normal. 

“My siblings think I’m a loser, they don’t even care. My friends think it’s so cool [being on screen], but they just want their straightener back, or whatever. It’s quite grounding.”

In the Amazon show, fellow Brit Esme Creed-Miles plays all-fighting Hanna, a young woman rescued as a child from a mystery government programme, and Barreto is the teenager, Sophie, whom Hanna befriends. She said she “was lucky enough to have the ability to improvise a lot”. 

The series was filmed “in Berlin, Budapest, Morocco, Spain, Slovakia and Watford” over six months. “Watford was the most exotic location, obviously,” Barreto joked. 

The show is the first time her friends have realised her success, she said. Nevertheless, she still finds photoshoots and red carpets “uncomfortable”, although she is not afraid of filming as “you can be ugly or beautiful in front of the camera”. 

In the future, Barreto is aiming “to work with the best directors and scripts”, either on stage or screen. “I just want to chameleon around and go under the radar,” she said. 

“I still feel like I’ve tricked everyone and they’re all going to realise.”