Orla Brady: 'I thought I'd work backstage at the Olympia'

From TV hit Mistresses to the cast of the latest Star Trek, Orla Brady has carved out quite the Hollywood career. Her part in critically acclaimed new movie Rose Plays Julie will make her star shine even brighter, writes Esther McCarthy

Sat, 18 Sep, 2021 - 05:59

Esther N McCarthy

From Mistresses to A Love Divided to Star Trek’s savvy, Irish-accented Laris, Orla Brady has always relished playing complicated characters. She again delivers in Rose Plays Julie, a twisty and smart psychological thriller about thorny secrets and past lives.

Brady plays Ellen, a successful actor who’s traced by her daughter, Rose (Ann Skelly) who she gave up for adoption at birth. After Ellen refuses to meet her, she is deeply disturbed when Rose turns up unannounced at her home, in a bid to force her to confront her past.

Based in Los Angeles for many years, Brady nevertheless loves to return home to work, and jumped at the opportunity when she read writers/directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy’s dark and clever script.

“The characters had history, they had ballast. They had a true feeling. It wasn’t just dialogue and script and narrative. Many things you read, they’re fine. They rollick along, but aren’t the real deal, which this was.”

She was also excited to work with fellow Dubliner and young star Ann Skelly, who’s the latest Irish actor to make noise with this film as well as HBO series The Nevers.

As someone who herself had to go abroad to seek acting work early in her career, Brady is delighted to see the amount of younger talent breaking through internationally, initially by telling Irish stories.

“You come into the scene and try and stay open and be as close to the character as you can get,” she said of her younger co-star. “With Ann I could do that. I didn’t have someone performing at me, she had an extraordinary quality, especially for an actress her age. A depth and a dignity that was just there.”

Having worked on this and other Irish projects in recent years, Brady is enthusiastic about the amount of new Irish talent coming through. After all, she has seen firsthand how the film and TV industry has thrived since she was starting out as an actor.

“The reason I’m so pleased with this uptick in production is because it’s kind of high time that creative people, including actors, don’t have to leave to get work. There was very little filming around when I was here.

"It’s lovely to see that - actors living here and working here and having their families here. Many of us had to go.

“We do feel like we have a strong, confident film industry now - and confidence is a very crucial part of that.

“My generation, we felt we had to leave to establish ourselves. There wasn’t a film industry for one thing. When I was going on stage it never entered my head that I would have a film career. That was something that happened after I had gone to London and I was asked to do TV, and then film, and so on from there.

"But now there is an expectation that of course, we can. There is also a holding on to everything about oneself that is Irish, whereas again, when I was shooting in the UK, when I first went there, I was always asked to downplay my accent.”

L-R: Trudi (Sharon Small), Siobhan (Orla Brady) (front), Katie (Sarah Parish), Jessica (Shelley Conn), the leads in BBC drama Mistresses

With its UK and Ireland release delayed due to the pandemic, Rose Meets Julie opens in cinemas this weekend and marks the latest performance from Brady in what has been a diverse and impressive career. Following numerous TV roles, she shone opposite Liam Cunningham in A Love Divided, the poignant true story of a family torn by religious conflict in 1950s Fethard.

A leading role in highly regarded political drama Silent Grace followed, as did roles in Family Law, Proof and Mistresses. Just this week, she completed season two of Star Trek: Picard in an enhanced role.

The daughter of a publican, Brady was fascinated by the theatre scene here as a young woman, but could never have imagined her interest would lead to a screen career.

“I hung around backstage at the Olympia theatre a lot looking at shows. I remember just thinking this would be heaven to work in. But I thought I’d work as crew, as backstage. It took me a long time to creep up on performing because when I was young, I was not terribly confident. I believe I am a reasonably confident person now. But I had to make it, I had to find it. I’m very jealous of people from Eton who just have it!” she laughs.

She has always had a passion for playing layered women, which was part of the appeal of Rose Plays Julie.

“I was very interested in this case in somebody who has decided to bury something within themselves and to let the part of themselves that's controlling takeover, and the injured, part of oneself has to just take a seat and be quiet, so she deals with what happens with control. I think she's somebody who keeps people at arm's length. Perfectly lovely. Not an unpleasant person. But quite cool. She has a forcefield around her. I was interested to see how that might be cracked open.”

The recent changes in Hollywood brought on by the Me Too movement and global demand for more female and diverse storytelling has been something she has greatly welcomed. But on the ground, what has actually changed?

“I'm working with more female writers. More female directors, thank God, because that's been absent. That perspective, that voice has been entirely absent and needs to be there. It’s one-half of the human race. Don’t you wish Booksmart (Olivia Wilde’s hit female-led comedy) had been around when you were young?

“It’s this mistake we made in the 80s, which is, female empowerment means we’ve to step into roles that are shaped and created by a kind of male power paradigm in the first instance. Why should we stand in that place? Why should we emulate that? It was never a good model. I’ve read so many scripts now that say, you know: ‘She’s tough. She’s strong. She takes no shit’ and you think: ‘Oh God, here we go’.

"It’s fine, it’s fun to play. But it’s not what a woman would write.”

Shortly after we meet before the Dublin International Film Festival premiere of Rose Plays Julie, the world was upended by Covid. Brady had spent a week with family including her elderly mother, Kitty, and was at the airport about to fly back to her LA home as the first lockdown restrictions were announced. Amid the chaos and the delayed flights, she rang her husband, top photographer Nick Brandt, and decided to stay in Ireland with her mum.

“I remember suddenly thinking: I can’t leave,” she says now. “I can’t leave my mum and my brother to care for her and the epic carers, who are the women that keep this country running. I admire them more than I admire anybody. But they have families to take care of too. I called Nick. Air Lingus were lovely, they were absolutely amazing, and I went to my mum and stayed with her.”

She strongly caveats that having not lost a loved one to Covid, keeping those closest to her safe, and not having to worry about paying rent or losing her business, she feels very fortunate. However, she remembers feeling the stress the pandemic brought, especially during the unknowns of the first lockdown, and like many others, focused simply on getting through the day as a carer to her mother.

Kitty, she says, was very happy when her daughter signed up for Star Trek: Picard.

“She was a Trekkie and I only discovered this when I was offered the job. She has very good taste in heroes and so she’s always loved John Hurt and Patrick Stewart as actors.” The big-scale series has been a ratings and critical hit, and the Dubliner is set to return as Irish-based Romulan Laris in the second series. She just completed filming this week. Playing in her Irish accent, her phrase: “Cheeky feckers” went viral when it first aired.

“I'm in season two, and I’ve joined as a regular cast member. That was a huge treat, because in year one, I did a guest role in three episodes. They somehow responded to that, and felt that there was a connection between myself and Patrick's characters. They asked me to come back and join the cast, which was a lovely way for it to happen.”