Kaya Scodelario criticises lack of safeguarding for her and Skins co-stars

Former star of hit E4 show reminisced on her experiences as a teen actor in the racy show

Kaya Scodelario has reflected on her time as a young actor in the Skins cast, hinting that she and her castmates did not receive as much safeguarding as they needed.

The actor played rebellious teen Effy Stonem in the late 2000s E4 cult hit, which followed the lives of students during their two years at a Bristol sixth form.

The series, created by father-and-son TV writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, launched the careers of several British actors including Daniel Kaluuya, Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel, and Scodelario,

With storylines that featured sex, drug abuse, depression and suicide, Skins was often considered a controversial and extreme portrayal of teen life.

Scodelario, 32, was featured on the most recent episode (10 April) of the Dish podcast, hosted by Nick Grimshaw.

Having first met in the late 2000s when the actor was in Skins, the pair reminisced on some of their earlier interactions before Scodelario thanked the presenter for showing kindness to her teen self, compared to other press interactions.

“You really encapsulate that time for me and it’s such a pleasure to see you still thriving and still doing well. It’s true, I really adore that,” she said.

“You were like a safe place for us,” Scodelario continued. “Back then there wasn’t the same amount of safeguarding with young actors, there wasn’t anyone checking if we were OK.

“But whenever we worked with you, you were always kind and gentle and lovely.”

Kaya Scodelario (Getty Images)

Scodelario, who recently starred in the Netflix series, The Gentlemen, has previously commented on her experiences playing Effy, whose major plot lines included a psychotic depression episode and a suicide attempt.

In a TikTok posted in 2022, the star looked back on her work in light of seeing the similarily controversial HBO teen drama Euphoria.

“Watching Euphoria for the first time thinking this is crazy for 17-year-olds then remembering what I was doing on TV at 14,” her caption reads.

The short clip features her face moving from a shocked expression to one more neutral as she “recalls” her own work. In the caption, Scodelario wrote: “Will always be grateful. But yeah safeguarding really wasn’t a thing back then…”

In 2021, April Pearson (who portrayed Michelle Richardson) and Laya Lewis, who played Liv Malone, also spoke out against the way they were allegedly treated on set.

Dev Patel, who played Anwar in the series, has also shared some insight into his experiences on the show.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Monkey Man star and director noted that he attended parties where “just a bunch of kids, our age and older, would come and half of them were drugged off their faces, and [the crew] are like, ‘Just… have fun.’ It was insane. It was really, really insane.”

Skins is available to stream on Channel 4.