Seána Kerslake On Her Budding Career & Repeal The 8th

Far be it from me to boss the Irish Film & Television Academy around, but if I were them I’d just hand Seána Kerslake her 2017 Best Actress Award now. Actually, they need to give the 25-year-old from Tallaght two gongs; one for her starring role in the finest wedding romp with a lesbian twist to ever come out of Drogheda, A Date For Mad Mary, and another for upstaging Nika McGuigan and Amy Huberman (who are also top notch!) in new RTÉ dramedy, Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, which is how Lena Dunham might have conceived Girls whilst on a WKD binge with her crew in Copperface Jack’s.
Previously a bit-part player in Kirsten Sheridan’s Dollhouse and the Pat Shortt-starring Life’s A Breeze – she also bagged a role in The Lobster but ended up on the cutting-room floor – Seána is now being fawned over on a daily basis by the likes of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, a sure sign that her career is about to cross the Atlantic.
“It does take a bit of getting used to,” admits Kerslake who this week had the first person yelling “Howaya, Mary!” at her in the street.
“I hadn’t expected the two of them to come out at the same time,” she resumes. “The film was shot a year-and-a-bit ago, but because it’s his first feature, Darren (Thornton) wanted to make sure everything was perfect before he let his baby out into the world! Now that he has we’re over the moon with the feedback we’ve been getting.
“It’s worked out really well because with the likes of Sing Street, Room and Brooklyn being so successful, there’s a huge appetite internationally for Irish film that mightn’t have existed even six months ago. The Young Offenders is also getting really good reviews at the moment, so it’s a bit of a golden age.”
While Mary ends up having her first lesbian kiss, it’s not a lesbian film with a big ‘L’ like, say, Room In Rome or Blue Is The Warmest Color.
“I like the way people haven’t focused on that one aspect. It wasn’t a big reveal or anything; Mary just happens to fall in love with someone who’s a woman. Even living in a big city like Dublin, coming out to your friends and family is still not an easy thing to do. You’ll be in a taxi and get that, ‘I have no problem with gay people but…’ line. That drives me mad. When Tara and meself kiss in the film you can sense people thinking, ‘Oh gosh, how far is this going to go?’ and then relaxing when they realise it’s done tastefully and left to the imagination.
“We were all delighted when … Mad Mary won an Audience Award recently at the GAZE LGBT Film because it shows that it was done in a sympathetic, believable way. I don’t think anybody could accuse it of being exploitative.”
The shoot took just six weeks, with the interiors done in Dublin and the exteriors in Drogheda, which is made to look positively glamorous by Thornton who’d previously impressed with his Frankie and Two Hearts shorts.
“There were so many locations and we were working off one camera, so it was ninety miles per hour,” Seána laughs. “Me and Nika McGuigan, who plays Danielle, were in every day and too busy worrying about the next scene to worry about the last one!”
The pace was no less frenetic when almost straight after wrapping A Date With Mad Mary, Kerslake started work on Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, which is a gig she’d been desperate to get.
“I’d have been devastated if I hadn’t got the role,” she confesses. “When I read the script, the words jumped off the page. It was so much fun. The writing was so quick; the core people in it say about seventy things in a sentence. It took a long time to get into that headspace of where my character, Aisling was at, but it was so exciting. You get to enter a world that people are familiar with, but which hasn’t really been shown on Irish TV before. The director, Cathy Brady, was very collaborative and asked us for our take on the music and illustrations, which are both big parts of the show.”
Asked what’s on her iPod Nano – a between takes essential for all working actors – Séana breathlessly shoots back: “I love Morrissey and Thin Lizzy and Queen. I’m probably a bit dated and hardly listen to the radio, but I really like the Christine And The Queens record and Wyvern Lingo. It was really off-putting doing the play I’m currently in, From Eden, at Electric Picnic because the lads were on a nearby stage at the same time and I could hear them in the background!”
Kerslake also had to block out what was going on around her when Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope went location shooting aforementioned Copperface Jack’s.
“Jayz, it was mental! I’ve been in Coppers many times before and knew what to expect, but was still glad we had background actors to serve as a buffer between us and the crowd. You know what people who’ve had a few beers are like when they see a camera! The sound guys also had their work cut out with people yelling all sorts at us! It makes the episode in question look really authentic though.”
Seána deserves another IFTA for her mastering of the Cork vernacular.
“I’ve as broad a Dublin accent as you can have, so it took a lot of work,” she laughs again. “The writer, Stefanie Preissner, is from Cork so I was able to say, ‘Pick me up on every word and action that seems wrong to you’ – and she did!”
Some of Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope’s best moments are when Kerslake’s Aisling gets to clash with Amy Huberman’s Kate.
“Amy plays my boss, and I’m a thorn in her side. I’m good at my job, but care very little for it. I’m just there to make money so I can go out partying. Amy was brilliant to work with; she’s so funny and open and lively. It was a really friendly set.”
While perfectly content with her current domestic mix of film, TV and theatre – From Eden is being performed on September 16 in Dun Laoghaire’s Pavilion Theatre as part of Culture Night with a Clontarf run to follow – Séana has industry people to see next month when Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope showcases in New York and Los Angeles.
“If you look at virtually any of the new shows from HBO, Showtime, AMC or Amazon Prime, there’s an Irish cast member,” she concludes. “The quality of the acting, writing and directing talent here is phenomenal. We’ve more confidence in the product we’re putting out and people are increasingly supporting their own. As in music and literature, Irish film is really punching above its weight.”

Seána On The 8th
“I’ve been part of the Repeal The 8th movement for quite a while. As Gloria Steinman said in her book, ‘If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.’
“It’s not a simple ‘yes’/‘no’ issue like the Same Sex Marriage Referendum, though. A lot of people don’t know how they feel, which isn’t helped by all the misinformation that’s being put out there. Those videos from when the Times went undercover (at the Women’s Centre in Berkeley Street) are just appalling. I can only imagine how stressful and emotional going to a place like that would be for somebody who’s looking for support and gets propaganda instead.
“Repealing The 8th is a conversation that has to happen – and is happening. People aren’t necessarily bigots; they just need to have things explained to them in terms they understand.
“If you’re going to bring it in, what will the parameters be? You can be pro-choice but still have concerns about the number of weeks involved. What can’t be denied is that Irish women are travelling every day to the UK to have them and that there’s no aftercare, mentally or physically.
“What’s amazing about the Repeal The 8th movement is that it’s as much men, gay and straight, as it is women, gay and straight. It affects everybody in Ireland.”