Jessica Reynolds: "Kneecap is so representative of its time and the community it’s set in"

The likes of “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning”, “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” and “Here’s looking at you kid” may be classic film lines, but they don’t have the rud áirithe Bhéal Feirsteach of “I’m going to blow you like a Brighton hotel!”

Spoken – well, screamed – to Mo Chara by his secret Protestant lover, Georgia, during a frenzied bout of sectarian sex, it outraged all the right people and is one of the many reasons why the Kneecap movie became an instant counterculture classic.

It also signalled a dramatic change in fortunes for the Belfast actor playing Georgia, Jessica Reynolds.

“I hadn’t worked in a year and-a-half before that,” she recalls. “I was down and out thinking, ‘This is not happening for me right now. I was 23, 24 and, ‘Ooh, might have to get a proper job!’ So when Kneecap came through, I was like, ‘This could be my saving grace!’ and took the whole thing very seriously: ‘This needs to be good and I need to be good!’ And luckily, it’s sped everything else up since.”

Talking to Hot Press shortly after the Kneecap movie premiered, Mo Chara reflected that: “Technically it’s a sex scene, but it’s really just a fucking argument with two people screaming obscenities at each other. We’ve had a lot of pushback against the ‘Blow me like a Brighton hotel’ line – a lot of the funders wanted that taken out – but we held tight over it. It’s an English director and a Unionist character saying it, so it’s fine.”

How did Jessica prepare her Mum and Dad for what they were about to see on the big screen?

“My Mum’s just the most happy-go-lucky person,” she smiles. “She thinks everything I touch turns to gold and was, ‘Yay, we’re so proud of you!’ You laugh about it for a second and move on to something else.

“We’re not from a Republican or Catholic background; we’re kind of multi-denominational. My Dad was raised as more of a Protestant, though. He’s a man of few words and quite insular, but he absolutely loved Kneecap!”

It’s an example of Northern Irish stories finally being told by Northern Irish people.

“That’s crucial with any minority or marginalised group;  you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth,” Jessica resumes. “It can’t always happen to a tee, but there should be more of an effort to cast locally and authentically. That way it’s more pungent and lived in.

“People are so scared about regional dialects because they think no one’s going to understand it, but that’s what everybody’s seeking nowadays. Like Trainspotting was in the ‘90s, Kneecap is so representative of its time and the community it’s set in. Beneath that underdog story, there’s a universal message.”

Which, given their own colonial past, is probably why they were queueing round the block in India to watch Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí’s big screen exploits.

“Oh my god, yeah! All oppression is interconnected, it’s all intersectional,” the 27-year-old notes. “If you see another marginalised group revolting and rebelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, you understand it.”

Jessica Reynolds with Kneecap.

Asked to tell us more about her upbringing, Jessica says that, “No one in my family is in the arts. They’re either teachers, like my parents, or majorly into sports. Dad held the Irish Hurdles record for thirty-three years before my brother broke it. He was proud and raging at the same time! I grew up doing gymnastics five times a week, it was very intense. It was always something I was good at but didn’t love.”

Meanwhile, things at school were turning sour.

“Behind closed doors I was a massive performer and always, ‘Camera on me, camera on me!’” she reflects. “In school, though, I was more reserved and a bit of a tomboy. Then I hit 12, 13 and, as my Mum says, changed overnight. The hormones were raging and I turned from ‘I love you, I love you!’ to ‘I hate you, I hate you!’ I was feeling everything.”

There was a reason for a lot of that angst.

“I’d been in the popular group at school, going to all the parties and getting lots of attention, but then I was bullied quite badly,” explains Jessica who found salvation at the cinema.

“I wouldn’t say I was a hellion, but I was experimenting with stuff like drinking early,” she recounts. “It’s common in Ireland and the North. So naturally I went to see Thirteen, the Catherine Hardwicke film about two teenage girls going off the rails. It’s almost documentary style – the cameras are in these girls’ faces – and going through my own ups and downs, I was just bowled over by it. The hurt and everything, oh my god, it spoke to me. It made me think, ‘Yep, yep, that’s going to be my life!’ I just wanted to be around film and art then.”

Also speaking to Jessica in the ‘90s was Hayley Williams.

“From 14, I was kind of pop-punk, wearing darker clothes and eyeliner and, yeah, Paramore were my everything. I stalked them round Belfast and met Hayley. That was my lifeline at the time.”

Inspired by both Thirteen and Paramore, Jessica typed “How to become an actress?” into a search engine, which led to her signing up with Extras NI.

“The first job I got from that was Frankenstein Chronicles with Sean Bean – I was observing and absorbing but also trying to get in camera. I was basically method acting as an extra, hoping I’d get scouted! Then I did a wee CBBC thing called Millie Inbetween a couple of times and Derry Girls. I was an extra in the very first episode, sat at the back of the bus with Wee Tina, and returned in season 4 as Deirde Mallon.”

Jessica Reynolds

Was Derry Girls as much fun to make as it was to watch?

“I was only on it for a week but it’s one of the favourite jobs I’ve done. When they called ‘cut’ the whole room exploded with laughter. I was like, ‘This is class!’”

Fast forward to 2026 and Reynolds is starring in the Channel 4 adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s steamy period potboiler, A Woman Of Substance.

The time-hopping action focuses on Emma Harte, a maid in a stately English home who exacts revenge upon her loathsome employers when she becomes an unlikely business tycoon. With much of the intrigue happening between the sheets, my four word review is “Downton Abbey on Viagra.”

Jessica plays the younger Emma, while Brenda Blethyn in her first major post-Vera role is the older, vengeful one.

“Emma starts off as this innocent little maid,” Reynolds says of her character. “She’s got her intelligence and Yorkshire wit, though, and her heart’s wide open. Her Mum isn’t well and she’s working hard to put food on the table. From very early, this aristocratic family, the Fairleys, dictate her life and Emma decides she has to take a stand against them. She can’t allow people like that to control her anymore.”

Asked whether she’s a Vera fan, Jess guilty admits, “I’ve never seen it! The first time we met was on set. I was about to go off for a week or two, and it was Brenda’s first day shooting her bits.  It was in the wind and the rain on the Yorkshire Moors. There wasn’t much time or shelter but we gave each other hugs. That idea of seeing your older self – ‘Oh god, you’re playing that version of Emma!’ It was a real moment and felt quite iconic. Brenda’s class; very funny and zero airs and graces.”

Jessica also has lots of kind words for John Hardwick, the Liverpudlian director who’s previously worked on the likes of Brassic and Cold Feet.

“He was an absolute angel to me and really allowed us to collaborate,” she enthuses. “The scripts were amazing. Just being on the moors… the landscape and the characters and relationships were so grand. That said, John and the rest of us were really focused on authenticity and keeping it grounded. With period drama it’s easy to get carried away and not fully connect, but in this you totally believe what’s happening to Emma.”

The biggest rotter in the Fairley family, lord of ther manor Adam, is played by Finglas’ very own Emmett J. Scanlan who’s also currently the baddie (or is he?) in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast.

“Emmett is such a showman!” Jessica observes. “People are usually like, ‘I’m so proud of this’ when they have something come out, but he creates and posts little comedy sketches. He can do serious and he can do pure silly. I love him, he’s great craic.”

Last year found Jessica climbing up the social ladder as Lady Christine O’Madden in House Of Guinness. A great gig apart from the corsets…

“The first few days, ooh, it’s panic-inducing, but then your body adapts,” she smiles.

Niamh McCormack, who plays fearless Fenian Ellen Cochrane in the show, told us that many a post-work pint was enjoyed by cast and crew.

“I don’t drink but I was on the zeroes! It’s a great piece of television and the soundtrack – which Kneecap are all over – is amazing as well. It was nice having a mostly Irish young cast and, yeah, I feel blessed to be in it.”

Jessica is currently in the London borough of Hackney which is where the Kray twins used to run amok, but later today flies back to Belfast to start filming the Channel 4 adaptation of Michael Magee’s debut novel, Close To Home.

With Anthony Boyle, Seamus O’Hara and Oisín Thomas also on board, it promises to be another milestone in a career that’s gone into interstellar overdrive.

“It’s a two month shoot, which is great because I’ll get to hang out with all my friends and family,” she beams. “I read the book when it came out four years ago and loved it so much. It’s rooted in how I grew up. You’re reading a novel and it’s referencing the first clubs you ever went to…”

Which were?

“The Limelight was decent as were Mono and El Divino which was hard to get into, but Thompson’s was number one,” Jessica fondly reminisces. “I was there every Friday for a night called Misfit. My friend tells this story about how I had my biology exam coming up – obviously we were under age – and took my textbook with me to the club to get some extra revision in! Like I say, I was a proper party girl when I was young. I’d be dressed to the nines in my 6” heels and bodycon dresses. I’m a different woman now!”

The aforementioned Anthony Boyle starred as Brendan Hughes in Say Nothing, which I consider to be the best TV drama to ever come out of Northern Ireland.

“Anto and Lola Petticrew are just class in that show, I loved it,” Reynolds enthuses. “I was a bit sceptical on account of it being an American writer and American showrunners, but they did such a great job with the scripts, which felt really authentic.”

Lola Petticrew was also outstanding – and has the Best Actress in a Drama IFTA to prove it – in that other groundbreaking Norn Iron series, Trespasses.

“Me and Lola met on a BBC comedy show we did, My Left Nut,” Jessica recalls. “I don’t think we’ve worked together since then, but know each other from being out and about in Belfast. When I saw them in Say Nothing, I was like, ‘Wow, they’ve really made their mark and shown the world what they’re capable of.’”

Returning to this year, and you’ll also be seeing Jessica Reynolds in Ancestors, the “love story, noir mystery and metaphysical fable” that additionally boasts the talents of Éanna Hardwicke, Jack Wolfe, Rupert Everett and Christina Hendricks. What can she tell us about it?

“It’s a queer love story set during the AIDS crisis and follows Éanna’s character, Bo, into a mystery and the pursuit of a lost friend,” she concludes. “I play his best friend in it, so it’s also a love story between us in a platonic way.

“It’s about youth and an epidemic which changed a group of people’s futures forever. I found an entry in my journal from two years ago that just says, ‘Work with Éanna Hardwicke…’ And then that happened!

I’m glad the role manifested itself because working with him was such a massive highlight of last year. Even though it’s heavy material, being in scenes with him felt effortless. Éanna’s massively inspiring and I can’t wait for people to see the film because I know it’ll have a profound effect on them.”

• A Woman Of Substance airs every Wednesday at 9pm on Channel 4. Catch up on channel4.com