Alex Murphy: The Young Offenders was an absolute gift and my proudest achievement

My dad always has good advice. His usual is: "If it's not alright in the end, it's not the end" which is a good one

'I've had a great start to my career thanks to Peter Foott.'

I grew up in Rochestown in County Cork and lived in the same house until I was 18 years old with my parents, my brother Luke, and my sister Megan. After school, I moved to Dublin where I've been living for five years now. I'm the only one in my family that's into the Arts in any capacity, including my extended family. I broke the mould I suppose. My mum wanted me to go to drama classes when I was about seven years old because I guess she saw something there. I wasn't very good at sports though, so maybe it was just to keep me busy during the week. I remember not wanting to go because my older brother didn't do drama and I was embarrassed. Sure enough, I ended up loving it.

I did a few plays in Cork city growing up but I didn't know I wanted to be an actor until I was about 17. It wasn't my dream as a child. It really wasn't until I neared the end of school that I really thought about it as a possible career. We're told acting isn't a real job, so when I was younger it was like, "What makes me think I could do it full-time?". But then you grow up and you hear about Cillian Murphy. I saw him in a play and it was like, "Cillian Murphy's from up the road? Well, he's doing okay."