Former ‘Hollyoaks’ star Rachel Shenton is hoping to turn her Oscar-winning short film ‘The Silent Child’ into a feature-length drama, following its success at the Academy Awards.
The actress/writer and her film-maker boyfriend, Chris Overton, triumphed at Sunday (4 March) night’s ceremony in the Best Live Action Short Film category, for their drama about a four-year-old deaf girl learning to communicate.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘This Morning’, the pair are now hoping it will lead to bigger things and continue to teach people about deafness.
“Hopefully it will open doors, but mainly for the message of the film and what it’s done for deaf awareness,” Chris said.
Rachel who is probably best-known for playing Mitzeee Minniver in ‘Hollyoaks’ from 2010 to 2013, continued: “We’d love to extend this story, either a feature film or longer drama. Hopefully it will help for that. It’s a pretty decent proof of concept.”
Chatting to hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield live from LA, Rachel and Chris revealed they celebrated their unexpected win with a burger, most of which ended up over their Oscar.
“We did go to a party, we did a few interviews, we went in, got an In-N-Out burger and then went back to the flat where all of our crew were, had a cup of tea, had a bit of a celebration with them,” Rachel said.
Chris admitted: “There’s still a bit of tomato on one of the Oscars…”.
Rachel also said she was “terrified” as she took to the stage and signed her acceptance speech, having learned sign language at the age of 12, when her father went deaf after a course of chemotherapy.
Admitting the win still hadn’t sunk in, she added: “We were being serious when we were saying we’re so honoured to be nominated, we really, really meant it.
“We’ve said all along, if this is where it ends, at the nomination, we’re so happy with that and then they read out ‘The Silent Child’. We still can’t believe it now.
“I don’t how we’re going to top this!” she laughed.
‘This Morning’ airs weekdays at 10.30am on ITV.