Catherine Joy White Talks Driftwood, Inheritance and Belonging

Catherine Joy White is an actor, filmmaker, author and advocate whose work explores the intersections of identity, history and social change.

Known for her acclaimed book This Thread of Gold and a career which spans storytelling across page, stage and screen, White brings a unique perspective to every project she undertakes.

Now starring as Ruby in Martina Laird’s debut play Driftwood at the Kiln Theatre, she steps into the shoes of a woman determined to shape her own future while navigating questions of ownership, love and survival.

White reflects on Ruby’s ambition and vulnerability, the complex relationships at the heart of the play, and why Driftwood’s exploration of inheritance, migration and belonging continues to resonate today.

Please introduce yourself…
Catherine Joy White, Taurus, British, Jamaican-British, South East London.

Describe your life right now in one word or sentence…
Riding the wave; learning to float.

Why are we here?
The philosophical answer is that we’re here to leave things better than we found them. To love people well, speak out against injustice and contribute something meaningful before we go.
As for Driftwood, it’s set in 1956 but 2026 is not looking all that different … Questions of identity, belonging, migration, power and inheritance feel incredibly urgent. Driftwood is a story worth telling because it approaches these ideas through people. It’s about how history lives inside us and how the decisions made before we’re born shape the lives we inherit. And how despite all of that, people continue to dream, love, survive and imagine different futures.

How would you describe your character ‘Ruby‘ when the audience first meet her?
When we first meet Ruby, she’s dazzling. She knows exactly how to command a room and she’s performing a version of herself that is glamorous, witty, seductive and completely irresistible. She sees herself as a Trinidadian Rita Hayworth and has spent her whole life imagining a bigger future than the one she’s inherited. But beneath all the sparkle there is urgency and the audience will quickly realise how desperately she is fighting to survive. 

What was your entry point into Ruby’s mindset, and what helped you understand her?
My way into Ruby was through her ambition. She is constantly imagining another life for herself and that felt very familiar to me. She’s somebody who refuses to accept the limits of her circumstances.

Did your view of Ruby change over time or did she evolve during rehearsals?
Absolutley. During rehearsals I became much more aware of her vulnerability. Initially I saw the glamour and the confidence. Over time I became increasingly interested in the fear underneath it and how she does the unthinkable and opens herself up to love of self and others, even against her better judgement. Once I understood that, I stopped seeing her confidence as armour and started seeing it as a heartbreaking kind of courage. She isn’t fearless. She acts despite being afraid.

Ruby grew up inside the ALMA bar but it belongs to someone else, which is a relatable feeling of belonging yet not completely safe …
Ruby knows every corner of ALMA. She grew up there, worked there, shaped it, dreamed about it, she was quite literally born on the floor there. It feels more hers than anybody else’s. And yet legally and structurally it isn’t. That tension became really important to me. She belongs everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which creates a real urgency. Ruby doesn’t move like someone who feels secure in her place. She moves like someone who is always slightly aware the ground could shift at any second. I think a lot of people understand that feeling. Whether it’s because of race, class, migration, gender or history, many of us have experienced being deeply invested in something while still feeling that it will never truly be ours and the instability that creates.

Ruby’s relationships with Pearl (Ellen Thomas) and Diamond (Martins Imhangbe)constantly flip-flop between loyalty, tension and self-interest tell us about how you worked together on building your characters’ interactions…
Because the relationships are so layered, there was a huge amount to explore. One moment you’re in conflict and the next you’re in tenderness. That’s what makes them feel so alive. Ellen brings such authority and emotional truth to the work. Building the mother daughter relationship between Pearl and Ruby was fascinating because they’re two women with very different ideas about survival. Both crying out to be loved, but unable to find a language for it. Which is heartbreaking.
And working with Martins has been full of discoveries. One of the things I love about Ruby and Diamond is that they both carry a longing for something beyond the lives they’ve inherited and are brave enough to recognise that perhaps they could save each other.

Martina Laird has said Driftwood is about ownership of land, identity and people how is that realised?
Everyone in the play is negotiating systems that existed before they arrived, both colonial and familial. Ruby is constantly pushing against those limitations. I think it unlocked for me the question, ‘what do we carry knowingly and what do we inherit without being told?‘ And then, ‘what happens if we choose to break that?‘

You are not just an actor; you are also an author, filmmaker, and UN advisor driving real-world change. How do you balance the political weight of your global advocacy work with the emotional, character-driven storytelling you bring to the stage, and how does this multi-hyphenate perspective shape the specific creative challenges or character archetypes you are manifesting next?
It’s so interesting, I’ve never really separated storytelling from advocacy. For me both are rooted in a love of humanity and a desire to make the world a little bit better. I operate always from a place of hope. Whether I’m acting, working with the UN, writing a book or directing a film, I’m interested in helping people see the world, and each other, a little differently.
Acting keeps me honest because it constantly asks me to sit inside another person’s perspective. Advocacy reminds me why stories matter beyond entertainment. As a writer, I’m interested in legacy and, always through a lens of hope, the possibility of change.
Increasingly I’m drawn to complex women like Ruby who resist easy categorisation. She is ambitious and vulnerable, strong and flawed, hopeful and contradictory all at once. Those are the stories I’m most excited to keep telling.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

If not this, then what? I used to say I would be Prime Minister one day and fix up this country (someone has to.)

What’s made you sad, mad, & glad this week?  Sad, my sister who lived 5 minutes walk away from me moved back North this weekend. But, she has done so because she is having a baby so that makes me glad. Mad, the riots in Belfast.

What are you watching? A mix. I  have arrived very late to Euphoria and am also watching more documentaries more than anything scripted right now.

What are you reading? I am currently judging a prestigious literary award so I’m reading some outstanding non-fiction at the moment. I’ve just finished Black in Blues by Imani Perry, which is a beautifully composed and intellectually luminous meditation on colour, memory and Black cultural life.

The last film you watched? Just watched a wonderful documentary called The Oldest Munro Bagger, a wonderful documentary about an 80-year-old man climbing all of Scotland’s Munros after his wife’s dementia diagnosis.

The last play you saw? The stunning Deep Azure.

The last live music event? Raye.

What’s currently on your playlist? At the moment it’s almost entirely Trinidadian music because of Driftwood. I built a huge playlist for Ruby and have been listening to everything from calypso to jazz as well as all our Soca faves.  Also, Raye’s Joy, Full Blown’s Good Spirits or Ayra Starr’s Commas.

Which podcast are you listening to? An interview with Wendy Fitzwilliam, the Trinidadian lawyer, philanthropist and beauty queen, on the Corie Sheppard podcast.

What’s on your bucket list? I have a plan to run a marathon on every continent.

Where’s your happy place?  Anywhere by the water.

Celebrate someone else … I’m going to big up my stage mother Ellen Thomas. She is a fierce and powerful woman with an extraordinary career. I love stepping on stage with her every night and putting the world to rights in our dressing room afterwards.

Celebrate yourself … I have almost finished writing my next book which will be my debut novel. It is a story that has been in me for years, and after two non-fiction books feels like a huge milestone for me.

What’s next?  There’s some exciting news around my documentary Swim Sistas, executive produced by Afua Hirsch and Amanda Crichlow and narrated by Naomie Harris. I’m also directing my debut feature, Black Samphire, a folk horror starring Cathy Tyson and Stephen Fry, and producing Gro(Ceries), written by Sex Education’s Chinenye Sterling. On screen, I’ll also be appearing in The Librarians: The Next Chapter, which releases in August.

Where can we find you? @catherinejoywhite 

Where can we watch you at work? I’m playing Ruby in Driftwood at the Kiln Theatre until 4 July. Later this summer I’ll be in The Librarians: The Next Chapter. Swim Sistas also screens (for free) on 16 June at 7pm at Canary Wharf’s open air cinema and my books This Thread of Gold and On the Future of Food are available from all bookstores.