'Amber' star had only £300 when taking her leap for success

When Irish actress Eva Birthistle left Dublin 15 years ago she had barely £300 in her pocket.

But what she lacked in funds she more than made up for in talent and self-belief.

In an interview with the current edition of Irish Tatler, she talks about movies, motherhood, and making the move to London.

It’s been almost two months since the airing of one of RTÉ’s most controversial dramas, Amber, which tells the story of a missing Dublin teenager, the subsequent hunt for the 14-year-old (played by Lauryn Canny), and the increasing desperation of her parents, Sarah (Eva Birthistle) and Ben Bailey (David Murray).

The producers left the nation in a state of suspended animation, deliberately leaving the conclusion open-ended.

It caused fury and confusion in equal measure, as Twitter lit up with frustration, with even the usually mild mannered Ryan Tubridy admitting to telling “the TV to fuck off”.

Though they knew it had the potential to provoke, says Eva, both cast and crew were taken aback at the reaction. “I don’t think that the writer Rob [Cawley], and Paul [Duane, co-creator] thought it would all kick off like it did,” she says from her London home. But she’s proud they stuck to their guns.

“I feel like it got people talking, which hasn’t happened for a while with a drama. It got a lot of attention and debate about it.

“I know a lot of people didn’t like the ending, but to have that amount of debate about it, I think, can only be a good thing. It just means people cared, that they were invested.”

As it aired, Eva was welcoming her first child into the world and admits she’s relieved she wasn’t a mother at the time of filming.

“It was just so harrowing — if I had have been [a mother], my performance might have been different, I don’t know,” she says.

“You could have drawn some different experiences from it, but I am sort of glad in a sense. I had to use other stuff to get into that emotional state, which was difficult enough as it was.”

By her mid-20s, Eva decided it was time to make the move to London, which she did with just £300. “Looking back, I can’t believe that’s how much I went over with. I got a job around the corner from my new flat and slowly, the auditions started to come in.”

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