Charly Clive has no doubt about who deserves the credit for her burgeoning career. “If it hadn’t been for Miss Watt, ” she says, “my life would be really, really different.” Her high-school homeroom teacher and the head of the drama department, Miss Watt took Clive under her wing when she was a struggling 14-year-old student. “She knew that I loved theater, and that I didn’t like academia,” adds Clive, who was raised with her older brother by a British father and Mexican-American mother in a small village outside of Oxfordshire, England. The teacher and pupil struck a deal: Clive could audition for the school play if she finished all of her homework. She did, and got a part in Oliver! “It remains the best performance of my career,” Clive says.
Two decades on, Clive has landed her biggest break yet. At 33, the actress is starring alongside Steve Carell in Rooster, a new series premiering tomorrow about a novelist’s complicated relationship with his daughter.
