Thalia Heffernan: I never thought I'd have the confidence to model

"I’d like to be remembered for spreading an honest message."

Sat, 27 Feb, 2021 - 08:00

Martha Brennan

I always say my job was a bit of a fluke. I definitely think in my career I’ve gotten lucky. I never thought in a million years that I'd have the confidence and the ability to do what I do. I do say I fell into it but maybe it is fate, maybe the stars are aligned somewhere.

The funny thing with my job is that I actually have no control of it. You just get booked for things and it’s like “oh I have a job now” and I’ve missed more castings than I’ve gotten them. It kind of took on a life of its own when I was really young and thankfully it never slowed down.

I think the greatest challenge is the loneliness of the job though. I’m kind of a one-man-band. I don’t have teammates. You show up to work on your own and leave on your own and I’ve travelled the world on my own since I was 16.

That’s been the hardest thing, coming from a family home where I always had my two sisters around and a small school in Dublin where I was always with my friends to just being on my own in foreign countries where I can’t speak the language. I find that very tough.

My moments of pride change every day. I could be so proud of making the perfect vegan lasagna one day and then the next day I could be so proud of my two rescue dogs who went from not being able to move to be so social and happy.

I think I’m one of the only Irish models to be signed with IMG Worldwide. I’m proud of that for sure. I’ve been very blessed with my agencies over the last ten years. I’ve been signed with Forde and Elite, some big agencies, but I had never been signed with someone worldwide.

When I signed with them I was in New York doing another shoot and just decided to do castings before my flight when I had time off. I went around to agencies in a weird nail-in-the-coffin way. I thought to myself “I’m 25 now. My career will probably be coming to end” and started to look at what I could do afterwards and was kind of in a bad place mentally. But then all the agencies I went to wanted me. It was a big shock. I still think back on that time, just before Covid, and think “you still got it girl”.

It sounds cliché but the greatest advice I’ve been given is ‘this too shall pass’. No matter how tough life is it’ll get better.

I’ve always been a lot more fond of animals than humans. When I was young my dad used to have a TV show on RTÉ called No Frontiers, he was the director. So, for the majority of my childhood he was travelling and every so often we were lucky enough to go on trips with him.

When I was about two we went to Barbados and we were staying in some gorgeous place and there was a dog living on the property. One day my mum was changing my nappy and my sister got in a fight so she had to leave the room and I managed to get off the nappy table, walk through the house butt naked, found the dog, left the property, and they found me walking down the beach holding the dog's collar.

Nothing’s really changed to be honest, except I tend to wear clothes when I walk my dog now. My boyfriend Ryan calls me David Attenborough because we'd be walking around and I’d be able to name every type of bird and dog we see.

Something to do with animals or art was always where I thought my path was going to lead but I took an absolute U-turn on it. That’s the beauty about paths though, they’re easy to change.

Ryan is the person I always turn to. I think particularly during lockdown it’s been so hard to turn to anyone else because it's not really the same over Facetime. It’s a lot easier when you’re having a bad day to turn to the person with you and I’m just very lucky the person I live with I also adore and he’s very good at sorting my mind out.

I think the world is so saturated at the minute with things that aren't that important, especially online. I’d like to be remembered for spreading an honest message. Being the girl who tried to make sustainability and veganism interesting topics and spoke about the environment and rescuing animals and maybe made a difference. That would be a legacy I'd love to hold.

The lesson I would like to pass on is that we are guests on this planet. We don’t own it. We have as much right to be here as everything else that’s naturally here. We can't all be perfect but small mindful changes can make a huge difference, particularly for generations that come after us.