Meet Alison Oliver - the Cork star of Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends 

The Blackrock native on growing up in Cork, unleashing her inner animal and re-defining the notion of consent on screen

Alison Oliver. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

Alison Oliver absolutely loved Normal People. The TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s sophomore novel with its emotionally earnest performances and charged sexual energy felt like a “revelation” to the twenty-something actor, who agrees that the hit series was much more than just the sum of its parts.

There were other things too, we agree, that left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness – not the least, the 41 minutes of unapologetically intimate sex scenes that caused Joe Duffy’s phone lines to almost combust with complaints.