Comedian Justine Stafford: 'More often than not, I am surprised positively by people'

Justine Stafford: "I’d like to be remembered as someone who never dipped out when it was their round"

I grew up on a farm in Kilbeg just outside the village of Nobber, County Meath with my parents and older brother Lorcán. Living in Dublin, I now appreciate the upbringing I had more and as much as I love my life in the city, it’s always lovely to be able to go back home to the fields (and scream in them.) There wasn’t a lot to do growing up so I entertained myself by learning to juggle late. Later, when I got a camcorder from Santa at age 11, I started creating my own comedy films to occupy myself and I cast my family members in them - much to their annoyance.

My earliest memory is being over at my cousins’ house while waiting to get a family photo taken. Me and my cousins and brother were playing outside on our plastic toy tractors when my brother fell and scraped his entire face. Subsequently, the whole photoshoot had to be rescheduled.

I’ve always had this idea that you would be a different person if you had a different name but ultimately, I think your environment shapes you to become who you are. My primary school in Kilbeg was where I was first introduced to filmmaking as a project through my teacher, Mr Watters.

I suffered from anorexia at age 13 and I found that affected me and my mental health greatly. It led to me developing depression and later getting a diagnosis in my 20s of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. Getting that diagnosis was, if anything, a relief - to know my symptoms with unstable emotions, bouts of depression, and self-harm were recognised as a condition but I don’t let it define me or hold me back. I think that’s been my greatest struggle.

I am very self-critical and I find it hard to believe that the work I’m doing is good enough. I struggle to do things alone - take chances career-wise, move location, handle rejection. These are things that everyone struggles with though and perhaps my own reactions are just more heightened? Being aware of it has certainly helped me in managing it.

Comedy is so broad and often it’s hard to know if I should focus more on video creation, acting, stand up or writing? Stand-up causes a lot of anxiety for me but I’ve always been told I’m very good at it and it can lead to more opportunities so it’s a struggle for me! I feel most comfortable acting and writing for comedy though. It’s definitely my first love. You have full control with a final edit - often with a live stand-up show you don’t have control and anything can happen mid-show to affect a punchline landing, or a crowd might be drunk or heckling.

Winning an award for a short film I’d created at age 13 at Ireland’s Youth Film Festival Fresh Film Festival is my proudest achievement. It was a comedy about a group of elderly people escaping from a home (starring again, my more than obliging family members). I got to represent Ireland at an international youth film festival in South Korea.

I remember at the festival in Limerick this very distinct laugh coming from behind me during my film that I was annoyed by, as I was worried it was so distracting to the rest of the audience. To my surprise, it was Pat Shortt. This comedian I’d looked up to as a child was laughing at my film.

Justine Stafford: "Perfecting the art of the Irish goodbye is my greatest skill."

I don’t know if it’s an Irish thing, but I find it very hard to speak positively about myself! I can juggle or say the alphabet backwards (great party pieces) but empathy is certainly the thing I think is my greatest quality.

This might sound bizarre but in terms of [career advice] it is talks featuring Bo Burnham that I find most beneficial to me. So frequently he voices the thoughts and concerns I have with online content creation and the struggles faced in comedy. I turn to my friends Dermot Ward, Martin Angolo and Ger Staunton most for comedy or life advice.

Unless you make that mistake yourself, you never fully learn from it. You can spend your life taking advice and avoiding doing these things but I think you truly don’t ever learn from them until you experience them, that has a more lasting impact on you going through that than just taking the words from someone else.

I’d like to be remembered as someone who never dipped out when it was their round in the pub and first and foremost as being kind.

If I could change one thing from my past, I’d go back and never pluck my eyebrows or shave my upper lip hair. I barely had any to begin with and now it just always grows back thicker - big mistake. I’ve often wondered would I go back and change it so that I never developed anorexia but the more I’ve thought about it, I don’t think I would be the person I am today had I not gone through it. I don’t think I’d be as empathetic or motivated at times.

As a pale, ginger Irish person, climate change has certainly affected me; I burn just by looking at the sun. The winters are far more unpredictable here - driving home during harsh weather in rural Ireland is dangerous on ungritted roads.

Perfecting the art of the Irish goodbye is my greatest skill.

More often than not, I am surprised positively by people. My faith in humanity is often restored by helping and chatting to an elderly person in the shopping queue and realising this may be the first conversation they’ve had today.

In school, I really enjoyed art and home economics. I think I could’ve potentially ended up as a baker or a home economics teacher. Other than that, I think I could’ve ended up as a therapist and often still think about it as something I’d like to do.