What does pursuing your dream actually look like when you're dealing with rejection, motherhood, industry politics and everything else happening in real life?

This week, actress Ashley Bannerman joins Clytie Tammy to talk about her journey into acting, from studying psychology to deciding that acting was the career she really wanted to pursue.

Ashley talks openly about rejection, resilience and some of the realities of trying to build a sustainable career as an actress. She and Clytie get into the politics of the industry, how opportunities and roles for women have changed, and what it means to keep going when success rarely happens in a straight line.

They also talk about balancing motherhood with ambition, the realities of filming intimate scenes, the roles Ashley would love to play next and her ambitions to take her career beyond the UK.

It's a conversation about what audiences see on screen, but also everything that goes on behind it — the decisions, disappointments, compromises and sheer persistence involved in continuing to chase something you genuinely want.

You know when you've seen someone on screen so many times that you somehow feel like you know them?

That's how it can feel with Dani Moseley. Except, of course, you don't actually know her.

Dani is an actress whose work spans television, film and theatre, including Dreaming Whilst Black and Jaja's African Hair Braiding, with her new short film You and Me Makes Three also on the way.

The conversation gets into Dani's journey as an actress, the reality of building and sustaining a career in the industry, accents and dialects, choosing roles, knowing when something is right for you and how both life and work have shaped the woman she is today.

Dani and Clytie also talk about Black representation, supporting Black businesses and some of the realities that sit behind a career that, from the outside, can look very different from what it's actually like to live it.

It's less of an interview and more of two women getting to know each other — which might be why it's one of the best kinds of conversations to listen to.

Follow Dani on IG - @danimoseley

Zimbabwean author Sue Nyathi wrote The Polygamist after observing the complicated relationships happening around her in Harare; married men, mistresses, "small houses" and women whose lives were unknowingly intertwined.

After struggling to find a traditional publisher, Sue eventually decided to publish the book herself.

More than a decade later, that same story has been adapted for the screen and introduced Sue's work to a whole new audience on Netflix.

In this episode, Sue joins me to talk about the real-life observations that inspired The Polygamist, what it feels like to hand characters you've lived with for years over to somebody else for a screen adaptation, and seeing her work find new life so many years after she first wrote it.

We also talk about her other novels, including The GoldDiggers and A Family Affair, the Zimbabwean experience of migration to South Africa, writing complicated and imperfect characters, and what it means to tell distinctly Zimbabwean stories while living away from home.

And, of course, we get into publishing - including the rejection that came before The Polygamist, choosing to back herself and self-publish, and what her journey says about getting your story out into the world even when the first answer is no.

This is a conversation about writing, representation, persistence and what can happen when you decide a story deserves to be told.

Website: Sue Nyathi

IG/Twitter: @suenyathi

Follow the podcast: @whomovedmybirkin

Follow the host: @thatgirltammy_