Sex Education Star Aimee Lou Wood on the Power of Female Pleasure, Her Love for RuPaul's Drag Race , and the Iconic "My Ham!" Line

Aimee Gibbs. She’s a Scabby Queen who loves ham. She doesn’t really know where anything is because she just sort of arrives places. Most importantly, by the end of Sex Education, she’s a young woman who knows what she wants. And Aimee Lou Wood, the young actor who portrays the hilarious, gregarious teen on the breakout Netflix series, is just so pleased to have brought the character to life.

Raised in the Northwest of England, Wood was a self-described “strange child” while growing up. While she’s been in a number of stage productions, Sex Education was her first on-screen role. Her character, Aimee, starts the series off with a bang, quite literally, which helps set the tone for the extremely realistic yet uproarious dramedy. In fact, Aimee is the one to credit for the genesis of the entire Moordale sex clinic — if it weren't for her wondering “where’s the spunk, Adam,” BFF Maeve would never have concocted the genius plan to turn Otis’s “sex wizard” knowledge into a business.

Wood recently spoke with Teen Vogue about the Netflix series that has everyone talking (and laughing, and perhaps some cringing). She opened up about improvising a few of her most meme'd lines, becoming a symbol for female self-pleasure, getting tagged on Instagram by her favorite drag queens, and more.

Teen Vogue: So many people have been sharing how much they love Sex Education. What’s been your reaction to the reception?

Aimee Lou Wood: It's been incredible. The social media stuff, I’ve gone from a thousand followers to 90,000, all that stuff is a bit crazy and overwhelming. I believed in the show so much and I thought it deserved all of that love, but sometimes it doesn't work out like that and things slip under the radar or whatever, but obviously it hasn't. I'm so glad it hasn't because I just love the show so much. So it's been amazing.

TV: How did you get into acting?

ALW: Well, I think I was a very strange child who wrote loads of plays and made my sister perform them. But I was quite shy, so I'd always do the writing side, and then when I went to secondary school, I didn't have any friends, 'cause I was weird. The only way that I could make friends was by making people laugh and being funny, so it kind of grew from that. I started getting into drama club, and then my studies kind of went out the window. I was actually really studious and well-behaved but then became the class clown. But it's kind of all happened for a reason because then I ended up going to RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]. So, yeah, basically just trying to get friends is how I got into acting.

TV: How did the audition for Aimee go and what were your first reactions to the script?

ALW: Well, I first got called in for Lily. So I'd gone in for Lily three times, and I loved her, and I thought the script was so funny. Then after that third time going in they were like, "OK, great, but can you come in for Aimee tomorrow?" When I went in for Aimee, it kind of fit straight away. It was amazing. 'Cause I loved Lily, but something was always a little bit off. As soon as I was doing Aimee it was just like, hallelujah. I loved the description that Laurie [Nunn] put at the start, which was "a bit shallow, but with a heart of gold." That sums her up. She has got such a heart of gold.

TV: You definitely see Aimee’s heart throughout the first season, but she struggles with the fact that she wants to fit in with the popular kids while still being friends with Maeve. How their friendship grows is really beautiful. Why is it so important to see a friendship like Maeve and Aimee’s on television?

ALW: It’s been so great because I've even [gotten] messages from girls being like, "Thank you for this storyline because I've been hanging out with the wrong people this whole time and I've got my Maeve." Someone actually said, "I've got my Maeve and I'm gonna go and be with my Maeve now."

I think it's so important because a lot of the time in teen films and shows, all the girls are kind of in competition with each other, over boys or to be the top dog, basically. It’s so great to see a friendship where there isn't any competition. I think it is so scary at school, because you want to fit in. I think that's what Aimee's trying to do, she's just trying to blend in. And she thinks the best way to do that is by hanging out with the popular group. That's where she fits the most 'cause she's got a big house, stupid reasons.

I'm so glad that she realizes that Maeve is the sh*t. [It’s so special] seeing friendships that are actually deep with young people connecting. You know, in that first scene together and she’s talking so openly about her problems, she would never do that with the Untouchables, ever. She would never show any vulnerability. They're both really vulnerable when they're together and you see a completely different side of both of them when it's only those two alone.

TV: Were there any scenes that you improvised or helped steer the direction of Aimee?

ALW: The writing is amazing enough you don’t need to ad lib, but some of the things Ben and I came up with when messing around were put in the show. Yeah, "my ham!" that wasn't scripted. I just said that. Me and Emma in real life always do northern accents with each other. So that was added in. [There were] things that I didn't think would make it into the show because it was me messing about, but then they ended up in there. When I watched it, I was like, "Oh my god, I can't believe 'my ham' is actually in it!" And everyone really likes “my ham!” I've been tagged in photos of ham on Instagram.

TV: So when I was interviewing Ncuti, he actually mentioned that you’re a big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

ALW: Huge! Yeah I can’t believe it because Katya has me on her Instagram. She's my favorite drag queen of all time. And she's put the clip of me saying "I've been wanking all night" on her Instagram, and then I messaged her, and she messaged me back. Today. So it's been one of the happiest days of my life. 'Cause Katya and Alyssa Edwards, they both acknowledged my existence.

All my friends had sent me: Get on Katya's Instagram right now. And I thought she just had obviously put up something great. And it was me. I was screaming. I couldn't believe it. 'Cause I am genuinely obsessed, and people keep joking on Instagram, "I can't wait until you're a guest judge." And I really seriously want that to happen. I would just, I think I'd just turn into dust. I'd just evaporate 'cause it'd be too much.

TV: Who are you hoping wins All Stars?

ALW: I love Trinity. I love her so much. I always have, ever since Season 9. She started off very strong, but she's had a few struggles recently. But I'm still backing her. I'm still backing Trinity.

TV: You mentioned earlier the explosion on social media. Could you expound on that?

ALW: It's weird how people think you're the character, especially because I've got the same name as my character. It’s quite overwhelming because you get so many messages and you want to reply 'cause you get so many incredible, really heartfelt, beautiful messages from young girls, and young boys, where they bare their souls. It’s amazing, but it’s frustrating because you want to reply to everyone, but you simply can’t . So many people are reaching out to you, and you feel like you can't be there for everyone. Then I have to remember that if I did try to [answer] every single message, I would be consumed by my phone.

TV: There’s been a lot of discussion about how Aimee takes ownership of her sexuality, especially as a teenage girl. What do you hope young women can learn from your character about their own bodies and sexuality?

ALW: I feel really honored that I got to do that because the response has been amazing. We've all been through that phase when we were younger, and some women never come out of it, which is the mindset of, "This is for the guy, sex is for the man." And at school, guys are seeking pleasure and girls are seeking validation a lot of the time. Like, "I'll have sex with this person because it will validate me," rather than, "I want to have sex with that person because I'm going enjoy it and it's going to be great."

And the female orgasm is basically a myth while you're at school, it's all about the boy. I think that someone like Aimee is so interesting because she's got probably the most sex scenes out of anyone, and so you think, "Oh, she's this really sexually liberated girl who's so confident. She gets her clothes off and ba-ba-ba-ba." But she's actually not, she's having sex for the completely wrong reasons, and she's people-pleasing, and it's out of codependency. And I love that bit with Otis when she's, "No one's ever asked me that before," about Steve asking her about what she wants. I get that because I remember being that age, and if someone had asked me that, I would have been so embarrassed because I would have had no idea what to say.

It’s just so weird because you would hear boys talking about, "Oh, I watched this video last night. I had the best wank, da-da-da-da-da." They'd be shameless about it at school, and it was all the girls being like, "I don't know what that is. We don't masturbate." It was a complete taboo. I think debunking some of those myths about if a boy plugs away, a girl's going to have a great time, but no, girls need to be like, "No, this is what I want." So I'm really happy that that's in the show.

TV: Did you know that Aimee and Adam's sex scene would be the very first scene in the series?

ALW: Yeah, we got the first four episodes before the read-through. At the read-through, Connor [Swindells] [and I] sat next to each other and we had never met, none of us had ever met. And we just sat there completely still, looking at a piece of paper, going, "uh, uh," it was bizarre. So it was actually less awkward doing the proper thing than it was at the read-through. But I do love it as a beginning to the program. I think it really grabs your attention.

TV: What was it like working with Laurie Nunn, the creator?

ALW: She's so amazing, I’m in awe of her. I can't believe she's created these characters, I love them so much. I was watching the past three episodes, I'd never seen them, and I was watching them and I forgot I was in it. I genuinely was so engrossed in everyone else's story.

There have been things like The Inbetweeners and Skins, where either the sex stuff is made really silly and funny, about the boys, and whatever, or it's glamorized and made like, "Oh my god, teenagers having sex, it's so hot." You know? Whereas Laurie's gone, "No, this is actually the reality." Because that's what I love about Sex Education. It's not crude. It's just real. The reason why it's awkward is because it's so real. It makes you squirm, but it's so brave. I think we were all encouraged to be brave because we saw her bravery in writing it.

TV: What do you hope to see in a second season of Sex Education?

ALW: I feel like it would go deep. I can't wait to have more moments with Maeve, 'cause I'm free of the Untouchables now. I would love to see Maeve and Aimee together and how more real they can get with themselves and with each other.

By the eighth episode of the first season, you're really getting to know the characters in a very multifaceted way. There is so far that you can go with all of those characters. That’s because all of their kind of personas that they present at school that they use to protect themselves with, like the jock or the mean girl or whatever, all of that is starting to crumble. I think that's great because I feel like the second season is going to go deep.

Related: This Episode of Netflix's Sex Education Shows What Abortion Is Really Like

Get the Teen Vogue Take. Sign up for the Teen Vogue weekly email.