Teen thespian dreams of West End

ON HIS WAY: Luke Hempleman is working hard to save up to fulfil his acting dreams. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Luke Hempleman, who is arguably Masterton Countdown's most fabulous register attendant, has big hopes for his acting career.

The 16-year-old Chanel College student is working part-time at Countdown and is saving up all he can to pursue his dreams of performing in the West End in London.

"I enjoy musical theatre and acting in general and I love doing it here in Wairarapa," he said. "The inspiration has just always kind of been there.

"I did shows when I was in primary school and only recently I started doing theatre outside of school again and I just love it. It's something that I want to do for the rest of my life."

Luke hopes to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Nida) in Sydney, which will be the first step towards making his dreams come true.

"Doing a degree at Nida will take up to four years so I'd do that and then see what other opportunities are in Sydney," he said.

"I don't really know what the city is like but I'd like to get there between now and next year to scope it out and see.

"And working here at Countdown, I can do that."

Although Luke is used to acting the comic, he dreams of playing the role of Scar from Lion King among other dark characters.

"The reason I think I want to do that more is I've played the cheery characters so much," he said. "I'm always kind of the comic, you know.

"Which is fine and I love doing it because everybody likes the comic, but I really just want to do something different and really dark."

Luke said the support from his Countdown store and the wider community was "so cool".

"People at work always come and see the shows I'm in, like Encore 2 and Nunsense - which I wasn't in but I was doing the lighting for," he said.

"And if I hadn't worked the night before because of a show, I'll come in the next morning and they'll be like 'how was the show? How was the show?' and I'm like 'yeah it was good' and I'll tell them all about it.

"So yeah, work's really supportive and a lot of them are actually quite interested in it."

He admits there is a smaller amount of support in Wairarapa than in other communities but what support was there is "super strong".

"It's not quantity, it's all about quality," he said.

Luke aims to be in Sydney by 2017 and is intent on saving up his hard-earned money until then.