Eva Birthistle: Irish actor and filmmaker takes a new direction

From enjoying success in front of the camera to earning plaudits behind it, Eva Birthistle talks life and career with Esther McCarthy

Sat, 06 Jul, 2024 - 02:00

Esther N McCarthy

She is a star of the witty and bingeworthy hit show that’s gone global.

Playing middle sister Ursula in Sharon Horgan’s pitch-black Irish comedy Bad Sisters marks Eva Birthistle’s latest acting role. But the Bray actress has long harboured a desire to direct, with her first feature film coming to our screens soon.

Written and directed by Birthistle and featuring a powerful lead performance from Hazel Doupe, Kathleen is Here tells the story of a young woman who turns 18 and must navigate her life outside of foster care for the first time.

She befriends Dee (Clare Dunne), a new neighbour who has moved to the area with her husband and young son.

As Kathleen ingratiates herself towards the older woman, the cracks in her own facade begin to show.

We speak two days after Kathleen is Here had its world premiere at Raindance Film Festival in London.

Birthistle attended a Q&A hosted by her good friend Andrew Scott — and was thrilled with the response to the film.

“I was anxious beforehand, because obviously it’s my first feature film,” she said.

“You don’t know how something is going to land. You don’t know if it’s going to do all those things that you hoped it would do, when you’re writing it.

“I was absolutely bowled over because the response was incredible. I was so overwhelmed and grateful. People seem genuinely moved and taken by the story and the conversations were just lovely.”

The film will have its Irish premiere at next week’s Galway Film Fleadh, which is primarily a festival for showcasing new Irish cinema.

As well as the festival’s wide international and shorts programmes, over 32 new Irish films will be screened, among them six in the Irish language.

It’s the perfect place to screen Kathleen is Here, and the culmination of several years’ work for Birthistle, who has harboured ambitions to direct for many years.

“I had known for a long time that I wanted to direct film. I’ve just been mad about film, a total nerd about it, for a very long time. I would go to every possible genre and style of film. I always immersed myself in it from quite a young age.

“I knew maybe 15 years ago that I would end up directing, but I didn’t think that I would end up writing.

"That came a little bit later when I was trying to figure out how do I break into directing and how do you make that transition as an actor when I sort of knew that I wasn’t going to be going down the film school route, I felt like I didn’t have the time in my life to do that. I didn’t want to completely step back from acting either.

“I discovered writing was actually something that worked for me and I really enjoyed. I think when something clicks like that, then lots of other ideas came to the fore.

“I’d like to think also it won’t take me 10 years to make the next one!” she laughs, adding she is already working on her next feature film.

“I want to crack on with the next one now that I have the impetus and the drive to do it off the back of this. I’d like to think I would do it in a much shorter amount of time.”

Eva Birthistle: "You don’t know how something is going to land. You don’t know if it’s going to do all those things that you hoped it would do, when you’re writing it." Pic: Pip/@bypip

While Birthistle was developing her movie, Screen Ireland suggested to her that she make a short film as she geared up to the bigger project.

“That’s why I came up with the idea of doing a prologue to the feature, which is what the short is, essentially.

“It was a great experience. It was a two-day shoot and many of the fears I had about making that transition into being a director. It just felt like a very natural place for me to be. Those fears kind of dissipated and I just hit my stride very quickly with it. And that’s not to say I found it easy and I knew everything, I didn’t at all, but I just absolutely loved the process and the challenge of it.”

It was during a casting workshop that Birthistle met young Irish actor Hazel Doupe, and quickly realised she had found her Kathleen.

The up-and-coming star had impressed in Cork filmmaker Carmel Winters’ film, Float Like a Butterfly, which had filmed on location in West Cork locations including Goleen and Ballydehob.

“Hazel was one of the girls that came in, and she was brilliant,” recalls Birthistle. “An extraordinary actor with great emotional intelligence. She had this incredible ability to go deep and it felt very authentic and she really stood out, and that was it.”

A native of Bray in Co Wicklow, the young Birthistle played Regina Crosby in iconic Irish soap Glenroe, landing supporting roles in Irish movies such as Borstal Boy and Bloody Sunday.

Based in London for more than two decades, like many actors she supplemented her acting work with restaurant work, until a leading role in a movie cast by iconic British filmmaker Ken Loach ( The Wind That Shakes the Barley) proved to be a game-changer.

Set in Scotland, Ae Fond Kiss starred the Irish actress as Roisín, a schoolteacher who falls in love with a young Punjabi man whose parents want him to take part in an arranged marriage. Loach’s thought-provoking and compassionate film was widely well received.

“Like most actors, I was doing a job here and a job there, and I waitressed the rest of the time,” she remembers. “For a good solid 10 years, I was doing mostly waitressing and the odd acting gig thrown in. The turning point was Ken Loach’s film, that changed everything.

“I suddenly found myself being able to just act and not have to support myself in other ways. Ken and that whole experience were incredible. He has a very unique way of working, which is very much him. But that feeling on set of being respected and listened to that is collaborative, as film should be.

“That was a time where I experienced how important and crucial that team of people is, and how to get the best out of people. He surrounds himself with people that he loves and admires and respects, and everybody gets treated fairly, and as a result, he’s very happy.

“It was not only a turning point in my career, but it was just one of those experiences that I have kept with me since, which is almost 20 years ago.”

Irish actress Eva Birthistle attends "Bad Sisters" premiere at the Whitby Hotel on August 10, 2022 in New York City.

More recently, Birthistle has enjoyed enormous success with Sharon Horgan’s latest hit, Bad Sisters, which has been a global ratings winner.

A second series, recently completed in Ireland, will air later this year.

“It was having that experience of working with a team of women,” she says, adding that she met Sharon Horgan to discuss the role having previously worked with her on a pilot called The Circuit.

“We had a chat about it and read the script, and obviously it was brilliant, because everything she writes is.

“ Bad Sisters is a gift of a job — lots of brilliant, hilarious women every day for seven months,” she says.

Eva Birthistle attends the "Bad Sisters" London Premiere at BFI Southbank on August 18, 2022 in London, England.

With audience demand, a changing landscape and more women in decision-making roles, Birthistle’s happy to see more meaty and varied roles for female actors.

It marks a change from the ‘girlfriend roles’ she was often offered earlier in her career, she says.

“It’s just been a very long journey to get to this point. I don’t think there was a catalyst that kicked it all off, necessarily. I mean, certain things changed, maybe the types of stories that we’re telling now since #MeToo. I think that’s had a massive impact.

“But before that, things were changing. I think maybe just chipping away, and women getting into roles that had more power. And then bodies like Screen Ireland acknowledging the need to incentivise female writers and directors. How do we do that? Let’s have a particular fund that’s only for women that will help get those voices to the fore. It [the industry] just seems like such a healthier, better place now than it ever was.”