Rowling In It - Laura Kay Bailey Interview

When Laura Kay Bailey was cast as J.K. Rowling for an Edinburgh Fringe production, she expected a career milestone. Instead, she found herself at the epicenter of a media whirlwind, famously described by The Telegraph as a show that "had Edinburgh running scared."

What began as a performance quickly spiraled into a trial by fire, culminating in a viral, high-pressure interview on Sky News. That experience became the catalyst for her new solo show, ROWLING IN IT.

Credit Katie Gabriel Allen Design

Written and performed by Laura Kay Bailey, ROWLING IN IT explores the complicated reality of portraying real people whose public views cause harm and the personal fallout when a role collides with your own values. Directed by Dominic Shaw (The Devil Wears Prada, Pretty Woman: The Musical), this 60-minute sizzling comedy is not to be missed.

We sat down with Laura to learn more about the piece.

When the role of the world’s most famous children’s author came across your desk, what was that initial internal tug-of-war like between the "actor's dream" of a lead role and the "public's nightmare" of the controversy attached to it?
Let’s be honest — if you add “satirical theatre” and “lead role” for an actress over forty, most of us will sprint to the audition room. But yes, of course the controversy gave me pause. There were safety concerns, and I didn’t fully understand what I was saying “yes” to at the time. I knew if I failed, I would fail spectacularly, in front of the global media, so I was shaking in my cowboy boots. At the time of casting, my most pressing concern was doing a British accent in a room full of 350 British theatre people. I had no idea the media storm that lay ahead of me. 

That said, a role that’s complex, high-profile, and creatively challenging is catnip for actors. There’s always a fine line between bravery and stupidity. I’m a risk-taker, so I suppose bravery won out — in the end. 

Rowling In It is described as a "scathing satire." How do you approach playing a character who is often reduced to a headline or a trope, while still keeping the performance grounded and "lovingly skewed"?
The only way satire works is if it’s grounded in truth. If you play a caricature, it becomes far less interesting. In 2024, I approached JK as I would any character — trying to understand her backstory, her mannerisms, how she formed her convictions. It was certainly a challenge – a lot of her lines were quite offensive, to put it mildly. It’s difficult to find a way to play a role like that and not give a “one note” performance. 

That said, Rowling In It isn’t really about J.K. Rowling herself. I’m multi-rolling all the characters in the cast and crew. It’s a satirical comedy about a Texan actress saying yes to playing a public figure who is, in the UK, incredibly charged. I do a pretty horrific Scottish accent in Rowling In It, so apologies in advance to any Scots that come to see the show – I promise I did try!

The play explores what happens when performance and identity collide. Did you find yourself "performing" a certain neutrality in real life during the Edinburgh run to protect yourself from the crossfire?
Absolutely. I didn’t feel equipped to comment on a topic I knew very little about. I even told The Sunday Times I was “woefully uninformed,” which was entirely accurate at the time.

There’s a strong instinct to stay neutral when things feel volatile, and I definitely used my own ignorance as a kind of shield. But the experience taught me that neutrality can be its own kind of performance — and not always an honest one. Writing Rowling In It forced me to form my own opinions and examine my assumptions and blind spots. One of the central tenants of the play is that empathy takes work and that it can be as simple as saying, “I don’t know anything about this topic, but I would like to learn.” 

The play interrogates the "fear of losing your place in the room." As an award-winning actress, have you felt that the industry has become more of a minefield lately, and does this show feel like a way of reclaiming your voice?
As trite as it may sound, it actually took The New York Times interviewing me to remind me that my opinion matters — that I have a voice.

I can’t speak for everyone, but personally I felt more confident in my twenties. Over time, that brazen confidence was worn down — by life, by the industry, by motherhood, by sheer exhaustion. Writing this piece was absolutely a way of reclaiming my voice and reconnecting with who I am at my core. Or who I’d like to be. 

More broadly, yes — the industry and today’s culture in general does feel more heightened and reactive, particularly online. There’s less tolerance for ambiguity or discomfort. This show feels like a way of reclaiming something quieter but more solid: the ability to think, question, and speak without pre-editing myself into something more palatable.
 
Rowling In It was born out of a production "eclipsed by the media." Can you describe a moment during that Fringe run where the reality outside the theatre felt more theatrical than what was happening on stage?
There were so many. The whole experience was surreal — headlines appearing overnight, people forming strong opinions about a show they hadn’t seen, journalists drawing conclusions without reading the script.

We were interviewed by Sky News immediately after one of our first performances, with almost no preparation. The Associated Press filmed our first rehearsal, so the cast were meeting each other for the first time…on camera. 

I remember thinking: this is more absurd than anything we could stage. It felt like the narrative was being written by the media in real time, and we were just trying to keep up.
 
The blurb mentions the show skewers "ageing." How does the perspective of an actress "finding her footing" contrast with the immense power and legacy of the woman you are portraying?
Although women over a certain age are having a long-overdue renaissance, there’s still a lack of representation of realistic roles across film, television, and theatre. That’s why you see actresses like Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman producing their own work — they’re not satisfied with the roles on offer.

As for comparing myself to J.K. Rowling — she’s a billionaire, so there’s no real comparison there. But there is something electric about stepping into the Manolos of someone with that level of power. Making yourself stand up taller. Speak louder. Speak with absolute conviction, even if you’re wrong. 
As an actor, I’m still constantly proving myself. Then suddenly I’m playing someone whose voice carries enormous weight and permanence. It throws questions of power, visibility, and legacy into sharp relief.

Laura Kay Bailey. Photo by Yellowbelly.

Dominic Shaw has a background in large-scale spectacle. How did that influence the rhythm and bite of this more intimate satirical piece?
Dom has a real instinct for rhythm — he understands how to balance spectacle with precision. Even in an intimate piece, that sense of timing, build, and release is very present.

He pushed me to sharpen the beats, trust the silences, and not hide behind the language. He’s excellent at maintaining pace so the audience stays engaged.

He also often works with twenty-three-year-old dancers in peak physical condition, which is different I imagine than working with a (slightly) older, (often) tired mum. Luckily, he's brilliant at adapting his directing style to whoever he's working with...which, in my case, occasionally involves me lying on the floor questioning my life choices. 
 
Working with Jordan S. Daniel, how much of your own real-life journal entries from the Edinburgh run made it into the final script?
Quite a lot. The early drafts were essentially journal entries — messy, unfiltered, sometimes contradictory. The process was about shaping that into something theatrical while keeping the honesty intact.

So the DNA of the piece is very much drawn from lived experience. Jordan is a brilliant performer and writer, and a real collaborator. They also understand the emotional toll of writing and performing something semi-autobiographical, so they’ve been both a creative partner and a source of support.
 

You mention finding "unexpected clarity" on the other side of this "epic failure." If you could go back to the first day of rehearsals, what advice would you give yourself?
At the time, I was completely stoned on cortisol — trying to anticipate how the media would respond, how to position myself, how to stay safe both physically and online.

There was so much to manage: 498 lines, a British accent to refine, constant external pressure. I was a ball of nerves.

I’d love to go back with the perspective I have now — to handle some of those early interviews differently, and to actually enjoy more of the experience. That said, we did have a bomb threat that evacuated the theatre, so it wasn’t exactly a relaxed environment.

One upside was that the cast became incredibly close. We really bonded. We had a lot of late nights, as you do at the Fringe, so I feel like I had a brief change to act twenty-seven again. 
 

What was the first piece of theatre that had a big impact on you?
When I was fifteen, I took a theatre trip from Albuquerque to New York and saw one show a day. It was my first time in the city. I remember stepping off the bus, looking up at the skyscrapers, and thinking, this is where I’m going to live. NYC is the center of the universe. NYC will always have my heart, I suppose. 

Over the years, I’ve been lucky to see extraordinary performances — Alan Cumming in Cabaret, Sally Field in The Glass Menagerie, Brian Dennehy in Death of a Salesman —  I could go on and on. Those rare performances where it feels like the actor was put on earth to play that role — the performance stays with you for life. My dream is to do Tennessee Williams on Broadway or the West End someday. As a Texan, I understand his female characters so well – they versions of the women I grew up with – my aunts, grandmothers, mother.  
 
What keeps you inspired?
I have ADHD, so I tend to dive deeply into subjects, then move on once I feel I understand them. I’ve also lived internationally since I was a teenager, so my background is a bit unconventional.
I went to high school in both Albuquerque and Moscow, Russia, for example, which is probably not a sentence most people can type. I worked with a non-profit in Bangkok’s red light district, traded equities in New York during the financial crisis, and have acted professionally on and off since I was sixteen. 

I’m drawn to complexity — situations where there isn’t a clean answer. That’s where the most interesting work tends to be.

Writing is new for me. In fact, at Stanford, there was a course called “Actors who write and writers who act” and I purposefully opted out, thinking, I’ll never be a writer. I’ve written several film scripts, which are basically sitting in a drawer somewhere. I spent nearly two years completing a film script based on my father’s experience in the Vietnam War — it’s a comedy, obviously. I’m the type of writer that once inspired, I write very quickly. I’m much less disciplined with rewrites – that can be tedious. 
 
You’re now bringing the show to the King’s Head Theatre. What do you hope audiences take away?
If people leave thinking more critically about voice, responsibility, and how we listen to one another, that feels worthwhile. Or, perhaps people learn nothing but find parts of the show hilarious – either way, it’s a win. 

One of my biggest takeaways from writing this — across 889 drafts — is that empathy takes work.
I hope audiences who feel as uninformed as I did at the start come away with a deeper understanding — particularly of trans experiences, and more broadly of women’s experiences, including survivors of domestic abuse.

It’s a tall order to tackle heavy themes through comedy, but I’ve done my best. For better or worse, I inherited my dad’s slightly twisted, dry sense of humor.

Rowling In It runs at the King's Head Theatre from 6th to 18th April 2026. Tickets are available from https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/rowling-in-it-zwy4