Elaine Crowley: 'I'm not fazed by famous people, except for Seán Óg Ó hAilpín'
Elaine Crowley is from Co Cork.
In first and second year in secondary school, I was obsessed with Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's the best show that was ever made in my humble opinion.
It was such a feelgood, good moral compass show. It had this idea of going out into the unknown. It tried to take the best out of humankind, as we know it, and set it in unexpected storylines. Looking back at it, it touched on things that wouldn’t have been openly talked about at that time.
Instead of gay relationships, there was this one particular race who had one, single sex and if they went into gender roles, they were vilified and reprogrammed.
This is where things get weird now. One of my favourite characters in the series was Counsellor Deanna Troi. Maybe because I was struggling with my own mental health back then, but the idea of having a counsellor on a starship to help people’s minds and guide them was very ahead of its time.
Fast-forward 30 years later. Who is a great friend of mine now? Counsellor Troi. Marina Sirtis plays Counsellor Troi. A few years ago, she came on my show. I was completely fan-girly, but then we went out for dinner, and we clicked like nobody’s business.
She's amazing – a down-to-earth, giving, hilarious woman. We’d be ideologically matched with the same feelings about Brexit, Boris Johnson and Trump. We’re in touch every week.
She came over to see me again when I came out of hospital a couple of years ago. I was only onto her yesterday. Don't meet your heroes? Rubbish.
I'm not really fazed by famous people except for Seán Óg Ó hAilpín. I’m from Cork. I was star struck when I met him.
Before the show, he was wandering around the building and I couldn’t even go up to him. I was scarlet. I’ve interviewed Michael Caine. I’ve presented an award to Bob Geldof.
I’ve met all the great and the good, but Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, I mean, wow. He’s a legend.
I’ve a bit of a dark streak. I’m quite fond of serial killers.
I find the psychology behind them fascinating. I really loved Dexter. He’s a very likeable murderer. He has an urge to kill. He knows he can't stop himself.
He never will, but anyone he kills is a very bad person who should have been sent away for life.
Grace and Frankie is probably my favourite comedy series I've ever seen. It’s brilliant. It’s with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, two women in their late 70s, both married.
Their husbands are friends, business partners all their lives, both lawyers. Their husbands bring them out to dinner and announce they’ve been in love with each other for years and are leaving them.
So the two discarded women end up forging this bizarre, wonderful friendship. They eventually start up a business together, making vibrators for older ladies with arthritis in their hands.
One of them is stoned all the time. The other is uptight and ridiculous. I laughed out loud from start to finish watching it. It’s gas.
My favourite film is The Princess Bride. It’s so clever and intelligent.
It brings elements of everything I love into a movie. I love the story behind it. It's just one of those funny, witty films.
I'm very much into escapism. I like getting into a film and pretending I'm in a different world. Because I studied film in college, I couldn't enjoy anything too “real” afterwards.
When you have to study Battleship Potemkin and French new wave cinema, it kind of ruins your love for films.
You can’t watch a movie without dissecting the plot points. What scene are they in now? Blah de blah.
I went for pure escape from then on in.
Give me a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings any day of the week.
We’re a small, little ball in a big, huge galaxy and God knows how many more other “people” are out there.
There may well be unicorns and giants and spaceships whizzing around. Actually, I would find it stranger if there wasn't.
For me, what we know on this earth is a fraction of what really is going on in the entire universe.
It’s why I don't have a problem suspending disbelief [watching an escapist movie or reading fantasy]. We can never know what's out there. We need to be more open-minded.
Where would we have been being during lockdown if we didn’t have music or movies or books to dip into?
It’s why the arts is so important – more than ever.
I consume books at a rate of knots.
I inhale them. I can't do audio books. Audiobooks annoy me because they’re too slow. I want to race ahead to find out what’s happening next.
If I start reading a book, I can't put it down until it’s finished. I need to make sure of a block of time set aside because I hate waiting.
With a book, having someone else's voice on it changes the way you experience it.
Let’s say you have somebody as wonderful as Stephen Fry, you’ll bring your perception of him with you into the book, which leads you down a certain path automatically.
When I read a book, I want to have completely my own thoughts and focuses and imagination.
I loved reading the Game of Thrones books. I haven't seen the TV series. The books engage you straight away. They’re not an easy read.
I started reading it, but I wasn’t expecting too much to be honest. I liked the initial characters. They’re interesting and strong and completely messed up. It has the worst of humanity in it.
Very much the end justifies the means. Very Machiavellian.
Extreme’s song 'More Than Words' is one of my favourite songs. I adore it. I play guitar fairly badly. I used to like singing away in my bedroom as a teenager.
I taped it on both sides of a cassette tape – I think it was looping 12 times in total – so I could listen to it incessantly. Wrecked my family’s heads I’m sure.
They were lucky I didn’t like thrash metal or that’s what they would have been hearing blasted around the house.
