When Bermudian actor Jason Eddy was chosen for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Othello, it felt like his life coming full circle.

The first play he was in after graduating from drama school in London in 2005 was Shakespeare’s Othello.

“It was in a tiny theatre called The Rosemary Branch above a pub,” Mr Eddy remembered. “I played Roderigo and made lifelong friends in the cast.”

Before that, a Shakespeare production inspired him to become an actor.

“When I was 11, my parents took me to see Macbeth at the Bermuda Festival,” he said. “I don’t remember who the production company was, but the play was set in Africa. The weird sisters were these priestesses wearing beautiful kente cloth.”

He was so fascinated by the Shakespearean tragedy, he begged his parents to take him back to see it again.

“The producer heard that there was an 11-year-old come to see Macbeth twice, and she took me backstage, where I met the actors,” he said. “I was hooked, and decided that I wanted to be an actor too.”

Mr Eddy is now exactly that, splitting his time between New York and London.

When he got the audition for Othello, he turned to an old friend for help preparing for it — Bryony Thompson, assistant director in the Othello production he was in18 years ago.

“She was always really good at looking at the verse and helping me understand what it was saying,” he said.

As part of his RSC audition, he recited a speech from Othello given by the villain Iago.

“Iago is the one that plants the seed in Othello’s ear that his wife is being unfaithful to him,” Mr Eddy said. “He is absolutely diabolical, and has some really good speeches in the play.”

Mr Eddy had auditioned for a few RSC productions in the past, but had not got in, so he was excited to get a call back for a second audition.

This time, director Tim Carroll put him through his paces with his audition speech.

“He got to know me a bit,” Mr Eddy said. “Then I went home and waited again. When I heard I was in the company, I was thrilled, because I have dreamt of working for the RSC since drama school.”

The first day of rehearsal involved a lot of getting to know each other.

Although London has a population of almost nine million people, the acting community is relatively small. Mr Eddy has often found that when he joins a cast, he knows someone there, or knows someone who knows someone he knows.

“One of the guys in the cast went to drama school with me,” he said. “He was a couple of years above me, so it was really nice to see a familiar face.”

He said the relationship between cast members is important, because often acting takes you to a dark place.

“Plays are rarely about people having a great time, and everything is fun,” he said. “Theatre is often about the hard parts of life, or the things that are challenging or difficult. Even comedies usually have things going wrong, before things works out in the end.”

He is in the ensemble playing several smaller characters.

“I do have lines,” he said. “Shakespeare often has plays with huge main characters like Othello, Iago and Desdemona. Often, there are also a lot of other kinds of characters such as senators, messengers and sailors. These people will come in with a very crucial bit of information.”

With this version of Othello, there is also a lot of choral singing.

“So they wanted to have an ensemble of strong voices to be able to provide the musical soundtrack for the show,” he said.

Rejection is a big part of an acting career, and Mr Eddy has learnt to take it in stride.

“You can do all the right things in an audition and still not get the part,” he said. “It is because there are so many other great, talented people. Sometimes it is something as simple as you are not tall enough for the part. Now, I approach auditions as an opportunity to show what I can do, or how I would approach the character, and then hope they like what I did.”

He felt privileged to be working for the RSC.

“There are certain theatre companies that are just known for the standard of the work that they produce,” he said. “I knew going in that if I got to be part of the company, then I would learn a lot.”

As a Shakespeare-lover, Mr Eddy was excited to work with people such as Mr Carroll, musical director James Oxley and movement director Alexis Milligan.

“They are all phenomenally talented people,” he said. “Every day feels like I am learning something new.”

Earlier this year he also did a play in London called F**king Men, based on the 1897 play La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler.

“It caused a scandal when it first came out because it followed the sexual encounters of various characters,” Mr Eddy said.

F**king Men was first produced in London in 2009 by Tony-award winning American playwright Joe DiPietro.

“He updated it by making it about queer men,” Mr Eddy said. “That was a very different play from any I have ever done. It was staged at the Waterloo East Theatre in London, and was pretty much sold out for the entire run. It was the first time I had been in a queer play, and it was a fun experience.”

• The RSC’s Othello will be held at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England from October 11 to November 23. For more information, see www.rsc.org.uk/othello