French-British actress Emma Mackey is best known for playing Maeve Wiley in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education. The series was her breakthrough role, earning her a British Academy Television Award nomination.
Mackey was born on January 4, 1996, to a French father and an English mother. Her father is a school principal. She grew up in Sablé-sur-Sarthe and graduated with High Honors from l’académie de Nantes in 2013.
She later relocated to England to study English language and literature at the University of Leeds, where she graduated in 2016. After completing her education, Mackey began modeling for major brands such as AIDA Shoreditch.
Is Emma Mackey a smoker in real life?
Mackey’s character of Maeve Wiley in Netflix’s Sex Education is quite the smoker and drinker. And while it’s quite normal for celebs to drink, smoking became the question as fans started to wonder if Mackey smokes in real life.
One Reddit user inquired, “We see her smoking in the show, but does she smoke in real life as well?” Following the question, many of Mackey’s followers began to share their thoughts.
Emma Mackey portrayed the role of Maeve Wiley in Sex Education. (Source: Instagram)
One person commented, “I know that she used to smoke in her school days, maybe she just tried then how was it, And in the show? We dont know it could be fake or real, We can’t know this, But IRL r8 now, she doesn’t smoke, no way.”
Many of Mackey’s fans believe she smoked fake cigars on the show, which were made of herbal and did not smoke in real life, but others argue otherwise. People even assumed that because the actress is half French, she does or at least used to smoke.
One Redditor commented that actors do smoke real cigarettes on sets, writing, “Sometimes actors do smoke real cigarettes in media. For example, in Stranger Things, the actor who played Billy said he smoked real cigarettes because it was a better, more realistic look.”
“Now that I think of it, all of the actors on ST might have smoked real cigarettes rather than herbal cigarettes. I don’t know whether or not Emma smokes nor do I know if she smokes fake cigarettes on the show, but I know that sometimes they do smoke real ones,” they added.
With all these contradicting fan comments, it’s still unsure if the actress smokes in real life. But few people hope that Mackey does not smoke in real life. According to one person, Mackey is far too attractive ever to have smoked in her life.
That being said, Mackey once told Cosmopolitan that she went to a school of chain smokers while talking about her Catholic school education in a rural idyll in northwest France. So, she might have smoked a few cigarettes, but it cannot be said with absolute certainty.
Emma Mackey explained her role as Maeve Wiley
Mackey and the character she needed to portray in the Sex Education series were very different.
Moreover, the hit series handles sexual intimacy with grace, and the cast revealed that Netflix hired an intimacy coach to help the young actors feel at ease while filming.
Mackey told the Cosmopolitan, “We participated in a workshop and worked with an intimacy coordinator. There was a lot of self-love in the show, some full nudity and some half nudity, so we were good.”
