#29: Amy Bailey - Beauty Is Eternal

Vikings Star Amy Bailey: A Comprehensive Conversation with the Acrobatic Actress

“I understand more and I hear more if I’m allowing myself not to be offended by things.” Amy Bailey is an American and British actress who played Queen Kwenthrith on the History Channel’s drama Vikings for three seasons. She was a ballerina and acrobatic performer before becoming a stage actress and then working in film and TV.

Amy studied at the Houston Ballet and trained with Cirque du Soleil, and performed with the Joffrey Ballet in New York and the London Ballet Theatre in England as a professional ballerina. It was there that she met her husband Anthony Gordon, with whom she has three children. She gave birth to all of them at home naturally.

She performed around the world as an acrobat and aerialist for years. She first transitioned from performer into actress in plays, where she has starred in The Producers, and has been nominated for Best Actress in the Off West End Awards twice, for her roles in Guys & dolls and Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam.

She has also been in Tim Burton’s movie Alice in Wonderland and the film adaptation of the musical Nine. In addition to starring on Vikings, she has played Clementine in SyFy’s Dominion and the Russian character Karina Volsky in Major Crimes, plus she plays Kayla in Blood & Truth, Sony’s biggest VR game to date which has an upcoming sequel. Amy splits her time between LA and London and participates in improv comedy in both cities. She trained at Groundlings Theater and has worked as a writer on various projects including the upcoming fashion drama DNA.

In her spare time, she collaborates with fashion labels and starred in an award-winning short film for Italian Vogue as part of Marios Schwab’s “Chiara Skura” collection. Amy is going to talk to us about her evolution from dancer to actress and to mother and everything in between. Be sure to follow her on Instagram: instagram.com/officialamybailey.

Topics we cover during the interview include how she met her husband, how she gave birth to twins naturally at home, why she left Vikings, what Queen Kwenthrith taught her, why sex scenes are not really that sexy, what she thinks of method acting and why she learned the hard way not to use it. Plus lots of Vikings gossip such as why there was a sex scene between her and Ragnar cut out, for fans like me. Between King Ragnar, King Egbert and King Aethelwulf, which king would she kill, marry and sleep with?

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