Amy Jackson on her love affair with Cannes, Bollywood and Chopard

Story by Jessica Bumpus, Photography by Hannah Cosgrove, Styling (fashion) by Alicia Ellis, Styling (jewellery) by Felix Bischof

In a former life, Amy Jackson, the impressive Scouse actress who has made a name for herself across Indian cinema, recalls popping into the accessories high street favourite Mikey ahead of Friday nights out in Liverpool.

“We’d have a lovely gorgeous new dress and we’d want some matching jewellery to go with it,” she says. “They had all the bling and all the drama… and I mean the bigger the better. Typically, she would have two chandeliers hanging from her ears. “I’ve always loved a bit of drama when it comes to jewellery,” she says. “And I’m so fortunate now to wear the real deal. That novelty never wears off.”

Jackson has been working with the luxury jewellery maison Chopard for the past three years, and by now is well versed on red carpet life (her Instagram, which boasts 12.9m followers, shows some particularly sparkly moments).

Today, on our shoot (which has a high fashion 1990s feel to it), she has enjoyed learning about the different jewels and gems she’s been wearing, including Chopard as well as Bulgari, Graff and Louis Vuitton, among them. “Being able to wear these incredible jewels, a dream,” she says.

In her own words, the actress – whose work you may or may not yet be familiar with; she was also on the American superhero television series Supergirl – confesses her career has been “so random and so beautiful at the same time”, and points out it’s not something she could ever have planned. And when you hear its trajectory, you’ll understand why.

Jackson never set out to be an actress. But one day when she was about 14 or 15, she was scouted by a model agent at Manchester Piccadilly station as she got off the train with her sister. This in turn, circa 2008, led to her being spotted by a film director: she was cast as the Governor’s daughter in the 2010 film Madrasapattinam.

“And that gave me a whole career over in India then which was a crazy whirlwind. I’d never experienced anything like it, especially at that age,” she says. “I think I had never travelled further than Spain on a holiday and then I was blown into the water with Bollywood and India and a whole different culture and it just led me to a whole new way of life.”

She had every intention of going back to school and treading the traditional path of university life. But, instead, she would end up living in Mumbai for five years; learning Hindi and Tamil with the help of a tutor and learning on the job – where she discovered her passion and indeed a new and very fruitful career path.

“Do you know what my mum said? Because obviously, I hadn’t done films before and not really much drama in school – I enjoyed it but I didn’t see it as a career path. And I remember being on the plane and my mum was like – I was 15 at the time – and she said, ‘Amy, I really hope you can act’. I was like ‘So do I!’”.

Read the full cover story in our summer 2023 issue, available here.

Hair by Shukeel Murtaza, Make up by Barrie Griffith, Jewellery assistant Joshua Hendren, Styling assistant Imy Moore

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