Irish actress Ruth Kearney's breakthrough is a simple twist of Flaked
THE humour comes dripping slow in new Netflix comedy Flaked. The languid 10-part series stars Arrested Developmentâs Will Arnett as a mid-life layabout in bohemian Los Angeles. Chip is selfish, insincere and self- obsessed and the jokes mostly spring from the gulf between the characterâs flaws and his idea of himself as an upstanding example to others. Youâll laugh when you feel you should be crying.
âIt isnât really a comedy,â says Dublin actress Ruth Kearney, who plays Chipâs potential love interest London . âThere are good little comic moments. Overall, the sensibility is darker. It felt grounded in reality. It wasnât a difficult tone to get right. It was more a case of worrying âIs it going to be hard for people if they are expecting one thing and get something else?ââ
Life as a jobbing actress can be tough , says the 27-year-old . So when the opportunity arises to star in a Netflix comedy you grab it and hold on tight. In the pantheon of prestige television, the streaming goliath is right up there.
âIt felt like we were shooting a small indie movie in some ways,â she says. âThe whole thing was shot in Venice Beach in Los Angeles. We were all in it together. There wasnât a big separation between the producers, the directors or the actors. Nobody was going off to their own trailer or anything.
âWhen you do something for Netflix, it is definitely of interest to people. Friends will ask, âWhat are you up to? You mention Netflix and their level of engagement definitely moves up.â
CAREER BOOST
Kearneyâs career will surely receive a boost with Flaked. Arnett is a major comedy figure and has already had a hand in one Netflix hit, the dark animated series BoJack Horseman (he voices the eponymous lead character).
Flaked and BoJack swim in the same gene pool. In both, Arnett excels as a wayward 40-something adrift in contemporary Los Angeles. But Flaked is, were it possible, even bleaker than the crepuscular BoJack. As noted above, though nominally a comedy, the new show isnât funny in the conventional, laugh out loud sense. Rather it belongs to the increasingly popular genre of âdramedies,â where the humour is pickled in sourness, the chuckles delivered with a distinctly bittersweet flavour.
Arnett sees the series as an investigation of our ideas of ourselves â how the mask we present to the world can be very different from the face we wear in private. âWe wanted to investigate the idea of authenticity and how we project who we are,â he told Elle magazine. âWe always talk about the idea of the face that you show the world versus the face that you look at in the mirror when you go home. If the divide is too great, youâre in trouble. Itâs very rare that people are exactly who they appear to be.â
Kearney is perhaps best known for the ITV dinosaur romp Primeval. She has also starred alongside Kevin Bacon in The Following (as a serial killer) as well as in the SyFy Channel B-movie Jet Stream.
âIn this business you have to try to be optimistic,â she says. âOf course nobody can be optimistic all of the time. You have your highs and lows. You arenât always busy.â
âWhen you get a show like this it does make it feel worthwhile â it really does,â she continues.
âItâs a tough industry to crack, and a really tough industry to stay in. You have to have a lot of patience and determination and the conviction that something will come along. When you land a gig such as Flaked there is a sense of, âYeah, Iâm being rewarded for hanging in there. I feel very luckyâ.â
AT HOME IN LA
Kearney is not officially based in Los Angeles but spends much of her time there. She generally resides in London where she lives with her boyfriend, Divergent star Theo James. The actress was actually born in the UK, moving back to Dublin aged five. She studied drama at Trinity, then enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2009.
Sheâs had her ups and downs. But with Flaked there is a sense that her career is cranking up a gear. In early reviews, Kearney has drawn praise for her portrayal of London, a quirky Gen Y-er.
âYou have to make sure you arenât reliant on your career to define who you are. Itâs important that success in the professional realm isnât the only thing that makes you happy. You need to have perspective and not be defined in your own mind by what you do for a living.â
London is a complex character, not at all the generic rom-com creation she is initially presented as. Playing a hayseed with a dark secret was a challenge Kearney enjoyed getting stuck into. âWith any character, they start off written down on the page. When the actor is cast inevitably they are going to bring something to the role.With London, itâs not me. We are very different. But obviously I tried to ground her in reality.
âI worked hard to get into her headspace. In a way, thereâs not a huge amount to relate to if you know the full story, with her having gone through what sheâs going through and all that. I havenât had to deal with the things sheâs had to deal with. But sheâs not a fantasy character, where I find it hard to imagine going through those things. You have to find things to root in reality. An actor is inevitably going to put a bit of themselves into a character, simply because theyâre the one playing the part.â
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