Watch Laura Marling star in the short film ‘Woman Driver – The Musical’
Since the late 2000s, Laura Marling has become one of Britain’s most accomplished modern folk artists. After joining her sisters in London following the completion of her GCSE exams, Marling performed in various bands, becoming part of what the press called the ‘nu-folk’ scene.
As the daughter of a musician and a recording studio owner, Marling was interested in music from an early age, with her father introducing her to folk. She described her musical upbringing as “a bit of a blessing and a bit of a curse. … [because] I couldn’t slot myself into the age-appropriate genre.” Nevertheless, Marling found a community of folk lovers in London and joined the original line-up of Noah and the Whale, providing backing vocals for their debut album, Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down.
However, she left the band before the album’s official release, focusing her attention towards solo music. Following live shows such as Wireless Festival and a string of Jamie T support slots, her debut album, Alas, I Cannot Swim, was released in 2008, and received a Mercury Prize nomination.
Since the release of her debut, Marling has shared six more solo albums and two records with LUMP, a collaborative project with Mike Lindsay. Not only has Marling received four Mercury Prize nominations and two Grammy nods, but she also won the ‘Best British Female Solo Artist’ at the 2011 Brit Awards.
Despite Marling’s success, she has expressed doubts about the industry over the years, keeping her life relatively private. In an interview with the Telegraph in 2013, Marling shared: “When I play, I am very much in the space where I was when I wrote the music. You could slay me quite easily, I’m at my most vulnerable. I am very private, in all aspects of my life, to everybody, so why is it that I get up on stage every night and open myself in front of strangers? I’m not sure if I’ve got the bottle for it, anymore.”
During the same year that Marling gave the interview, she starred in a short film called Woman Driver – The Musical, directed by Chris Perkel. The film allows Marling to perform her music in a much more low-key setting, singing three tracks with her acoustic guitar in the back of a van on the road in Texas. Perkel made the film over a weekend as part of the National Film Challenge, which requires contestants to make a film within 72 hours.
Marling stars as a singing hitchhiker who Casey Thomas Brown’s Jared picks up. The film lasts just seven minutes but remains a must-see clip for fans of the musician. Woman Driver – The Musical won three awards at the festival: Best Genre, Best Actress, and Best Soundtrack.
Watch the film below.
