WHAT CAN you assume about musical theatre stars?

They all have skin thicker than an aged actor’s greasepaint?

That you can’t put them down, because no matter how many rejections they get they will bounce right back up again?

That’s not always the case. Take Rebekah Lowings. Right now she’s set to play the starring role of Molly in Ghost.

This is a performer who has starred as Mary Magdeline in Jesus Christ Superstar and in Joseph, and has a terrific West End pedigree.

But the 25 year-old admits she used to suffer crippling anxiety.

Showbiz, she acknowledges, is a business in which performers are judged sometimes on a daily basis – and told they’re not what’s required.

When Kent-born Rebekah left drama school she admits the going got tough.

“I would be lying if I said I’d never thought about walking away from it all.

“But thankfully this feeling never took hold.”

Rebekah had always want to be a performer.

“I was around four when I made the announcement,” she says, smiling.

“I can remember being with my mother watching films on TV such as Sister Act and Joseph, and I said to my mum ‘I want to do this!’ and she said, ‘Yeh, yeh, you’ll grow out of it. ‘But I never did.”

But wanting a performance career isn’t the same as being able to cope with the demands. At times she was wracked with self-doubt.

“I’ve worked really hard but during training you are always asking yourself ‘Is it going to happen? Am I actually going to get there?’

“It’s incredibly difficult. It takes a certain person to be able to keep going when you get rejection.”

She adds; “The industry produces anxiety, depression, all of those things.

“But at least now we are really open and honest about it. It feels hard but you have to talk to someone.”

“And the good thing about the industry is that we’re all very much a family. We are all there for each other and the people you surround yourself with 24-7 will pick you up when you are down.”

Rebekah also turned to yoga, to meditation, to help turn her life around.

“Yes, and when you do land a job, the highs, when they do emerge, totally outweigh the downs, one hundred per cent.

“You will get a 1000 nos before you get a yes. You can work for six months and then nothing.”

She adds; “But then, it’s what you do in your everyday life as well. Maybe a banker will graduate and then have nothing until they get their foot on the ladder.”

But once a banker takes the steps they generally move upwards?

“Yes, but we do as well. I began with the ensemble, and worked my way up. And over the time you get a name with producers and directors who come to trust you. They know what you can do.”

Rebekah maintains part of the trick is to be yourself. Not to try and emulate someone else’s career.

“You have to learn that people will want you for your own personality.

“I was so lucky to work with Glenn Carter in Jesus Christ Superstar. He has been around for ever and he knows everything. He was amazing.”

The actress can’t quite believe her luck to have landed the role of Molly in Ghost, the woman whose partner is killed, whom she then reconnects with.

“I thought you would have to be a very famous actress to land this role. And I didn’t know if I’d have the emotional range to play her.

“She’s so deep. She cries all the time.

But when I went into the audition room I was dying to play her.”

She adds, smiling; “I’d watched the film (starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze) a 1,000 times. It has elements of so many genres - rom com, psychological thriller and a horror.”

There was no plan to copy the Demi Moore performance.

“It’s great to work with directors who inspire you to be more of yourself. My director said to me at one point; ‘What would you do in a situation like this? Well then, why would you NOT do it?’”

Everybody has an unshakable memory of loss in their head. Did Rebekah call upon this for her performance?

“Yes, and it sounds incredible but at the end of the final scene every night I’m blubbering up there on stage.

“In fact, all three of us, me Jacqui Dubois (who plays the Whoopi Goldberg role) and Niall Sheehy (who plays Sam) look at each other and say ‘Why are we still crying?’

“I know I’m so lucky to be playing such an incredible part.

But the fact Rebekah carries so much emotional vulnerability – and feared she wouldn’t get the role – made her exactly the right person for it?

“Yes, the audience does have to have the sympathy for her. And when I realised this in rehearsals the floodgates were open.”

The company last year toured the likes of Dubai and Istanbul.

Did this mean the performances had to be reformed?

“We had to PG 13 it up a little bit for Dubai.”

She adds, smiling; “It’s so different to theatres in the UK, where we even get a few whoops and hollers at the intimate moments.

“ But the great thing about theatre overall is that you never quite know what you’re going to get.”

Has playing Molly brought about thoughts of life after death and this ‘wonderful place’ where our loved ones go to?

“That’s a question and a half,” she sighs. “ “I believe there is something, but I don’t know what. But hopefully we’ll all meet up again.”

Ghost The Musical, the King’s Theatre, March 25-30