During an appearance on the Origins with Cush Jumbo podcast, the British actress spoke about her teenage years training for the decathlon event in the Olympics.
Rosheuvel played multiple sports when she was younger. At secondary school, she was captain of the hockey, netball, athletics, and swimming teams and won medals for all these disciplines at the county level.
“I loved it. I loved, loved, loved. I love sports. I thrived in it,” Rosheuvel told Jumbo, even describing herself as a “jock.”
She also explained that her love of sports had more to do with the meditative aspect of competing rather than winning.
“It was something that I could jump and just fly and not even think about the actual fall to the ground. It’s quite a meditative state to be in when you’re focused on something down the track to the end.
“It’s less to do with winning and more to do with just that kind of the energy that you have to tap into.”
Thanks to her impressive track record at the county level, Rosheuvel says she began training for the Olympics in her early teens.
“I was starting to train. That was like a discussion that was being made. I was like 14, 15. Younger maybe. But like, when the discussion was being made, you know, you start at that young age.”
Though sadly it was not to be as Rosheuvel told Jumbo she had to take time off due to an ankle injury.
“I have an ankle injury and I have to take some time off. And remember that alongside all of this, I’m in the drama group and I’m playing Bugsy Malone in Bugsy Malone. So I have the injury and I have to take time off. So I’m then doing the drama doing the singing and doing, you know, music, all of that kind of stuff. And it takes off, for some reason it just takes off.”
Asked about the moment when she realized her sporting ambitions wouldn’t come true, Rosheuvel told Jumbo it was “okay” as she then had her drama to focus on.
“By then, the other thing [drama] that I was passionate about had taken over [from the sports] and I was in it.”
“I remember going to those career days. All of us—me, my mum and my dad—rocked up and there was a room and everybody’s sitting behind a desk and my mum was like ‘So, what do you want to do?’ And I remember looking over and there was a guy sitting all on his own and there was a sign that said ‘DRAMA,’ and I said ‘Yeah, I want to do that.’ And that was it. I then got into drama school.”
Asked about “sliding doors moments” by Jumbo, Rosheuval recalls the 2012 London Olympics, which came at a time when she was out of work.
“I was out of work, sitting on my couch watching the Olympics going, ‘Oh gosh, that could have been me’ and really went into a slight depression about it and had to really check myself and go ‘We’re all right, you’re all right. It’s fine, you’re doing what you love.’
“But there was a moment when I was like ‘that could have been me and why am I not doing that and should I be doing that.'”
Her Olympic dreams may not have come to fruition, but Rosheuvel says she has incorporated the focus she learned in her sporting career into her acting.
“It’s a real amazing focus that I carry into my acting today. Doing all the sports stuff is the same discipline and focus that I tap into when I’m learning a role or on the set or on stage.”
Newsweek has emailed Golda Rosheuvel’s representatives for comment.
