Sharon Horgan on exploring middle-age in Youth: "It's the sandwich generation"

Throughout her career, in hit comedies like Pulling, Catastrophe and Divorce, Sharon Horgan has brilliantly explored the dynamics of relationships. From looking for love, to finally finding it and eventually losing it, the Meath star has covered almost the full spectrum.

But in her latest HBO series, Youth, Horgan comes at the subject from a new angle. She plays fifty-something literary agent Alex, who’s divorced, single and has a son, Ruairí, who’s about to head to college. As Alex sets out to find love again, and finds herself entangled with the smarmy Patrick (Homeland’s Rupert Friend), Youth showcases typically brilliant observational comedy, filled with character insight and barbed social commentary.

For good measure, Horgan also shows her immaculate taste as a music fan, with the soundtrack boasting cuts from the likes of Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem and Geese. Notably, in a prior interview Horgan had done to promote the series, she’d said she had to continue writing Youth while filming. How did that all play out?

“I was writing it for a year before we started making it,” she explains. “It’s just that, as you start making it, it continues to evolve. Also, there’s always stuff thrown at you that you’re having to adapt the script for. So I was writing all the way through filming. But the scripts are already written, they’re just being adapted and changed.

“It was a nightmare because you want to be in the moment, on-set with the actors and prepping for that. Yet, you’re pulled from pillar to post, and that’s before you even start editing. We had to start editing while we were filming – we only started shooting in February and the show’s going out now.

“It felt like a massive level of work. But you get used to having to work in that way, you sort of adapt. We’re pretty resilient and you find a way through it.”

Does Horgan feel middle-age is a perhaps under-explored area in storytelling?

“It actually is,” she considers. “I’m only realising that now, just from talking to everyone today. I’m like, ‘Oh, maybe it hasn’t been out there.’ Or certainly, not explored in this way, where it’s the sandwich generation. People are living longer, so our parents are in our lives for longer. And your kids aren’t moving out of home when they’re 18!

“They’re sticking around, ‘cos it’s so expensive to go out and find property, it’s out of the question for a lot of them. So you find yourself in your fifties, and your body’s not operating in the same way, but you have all this extra burden. Then you put menopause on top of that, and there’s a lot going on.”

Alex enjoys wonderful comedic interaction with all of the other characters in Youth, none more so than her moody teenage son, played by Irish newcomer Aran Murphy. The son of Oscar winner Cillian Murphy, Aran would appear to have a similarly successful trajectory on the horizon, showing his comedic chops in Youth having previously starred in a series of dramas.

Sharon Horgan and Aran Murphy in Youth - HBO

“It was a great opportunity,” he says of Youth, in a voice uncannily similar to his father. “Sharon is such an icon, and an amazing writer, actor and producer. Working with her was a dream. I hadn’t done much comedy before. I had done a film called Klara And The Sun, which is a really funny film. But doing 30-minute comedy episodes is different gravy.

“It was a challenge. Because when you’re around so many funny people, it’s hard to keep up, especially with someone like Sharon who’s so hilarious. I was definitely thrown into the deep end, but it was great.”

Was it an intense shoot?

“We shot it over four months,” Aran replies. “It was definitely busy, but the crew and cast were amazing. It was a very open collaboration, so the whole thing was super enjoyable.

“Sharon described Ruairí as an 18-year-old who’s just finished school, who’s ready to go out in the world.  But he’s not really sure of what he wants to do, and when college doesn’t work out, he’s like, ‘Uh-oh, what’s gonna happen now?’ I was in a similar position where I had just finished secondary school, so there were a lot of relatable themes. There can be friction in the relationship between him and Alex sometimes, but at its core, it’s really loving.

“Deep down, they both really trust each other, and rely on each other. It’s also a really funny relationship, and Sharon managed to craft it really well. It’s deeply felt but also pretty funny.”

What was Aran’s favourite scene to film?

“I really liked the stuff in episode five in the club, that was really fun,” he recalls. “It was weird – we were in the club in the middle of the day. There were loads of people, lights and just funny stuff to be doing. There were a lot of good scenes in that episode.”

Did they have to film without music and dub a track in later, as sometimes happens in club scenes?

“They do playback, so people can get what the level of music would be, and then it cuts,” Aran explains. “You can just hear shoes squeaking on the floor, and see people miming. It’s weird, and you have to speak at a level you would if there was loud dance music playing. But all that stuff is fun.”

Another of Alex’s key relationships is with the boss of her literary agency, Sam, played by Sharlene Whyte. Did the character come easily to the actor?

“I jumped right into Sam,” says Whyte. “It was ridiculous – it’s like a version of me just turned up, in really expensive clothes and good hair. I did work on her back story, where’s she’s from and her family. But it was so well written that I just had a lot of fun.”

Does Whyte normally like to explore a character’s back story?

“I do, actually,” she nods. “I needed to know how Sam got into the literary world, and why she was an agent – there are very few black agents in the country. I think there are three or four. I don’t want to get that incorrect, but it’s not as common as you would probably think. So I made Sam have a background in publishing, maybe her parents were publishers back in the ’70s.

“They were influenced by people in the ’60s, when you had to publish your own books. The West Indian community set up their own publishing houses to get their work out. That’s a legacy Sam brings to today, which is why she is brave enough to have her own literary agency, and to be one of the few black women in that position.”

Did you discuss the back story with Sharon, or was it more of a mental exercise?

“No, on this show, it was brilliant,” says Whyte. “We had rehearsals, so we talked about these things and shared our stories. I spoke to an agent in that world, and to publishers. We spoke about it at great length to make the character authentic, cos that’s what makes it funny.”

Was Whyte familiar with Horgan’s work beforehand?

“I was a massive fan,” she enthuses. “I’d watched Pulling, which was us trying to find men. Catastrophe was about getting pregnant. It feels like you’ve grown with this woman, we’ve all had the same experiences. Now you’re in your fifties, and she’s talking about your hormones and being horny.

“I read somewhere that menopause is like the adult puberty. Our hormones are all over the place, we’re just too horny now! We don’t like anything. We’re tall, our boobs are bigger or smaller. We’re wider, we’re skinnier, our body’s changing all the time. I was so excited to see her name in my email.”

How do you see the dynamic between Sam and Alex?

“I’m her best friend and her boss,” says Whyte. “That dynamic is naturally tricky. Sometimes it’s still friendly and we can be personal, but there are times when Sam is the boss. Hopefully, we can go out, and have a little drink and catch up after that, but there’s got to be boundaries.”

On the question of middle-age being under-explored in TV, Whyte reckons there’s been a bit of a shift.

“There are more voices now exploring middle-age, and being gorgeous, funny, fit, attractive – we seem to not be wallflower-ing it anymore,” she proffers. “But we also can’t be bothered, 'cos we’re a bit tired. This is why the show is so good, because all that can be explored.”

If middle-age was previously overlooked, does Horgan think it was because it’s seen as a much less glamorous phase of life?

“Potentially,” she muses. “But that’s why it was exciting showing it. I liked my character being out there, looking for love, to say it in a polite way. I enjoyed that, because it’s not like we stop when we get to that age.

“It might not look as pretty, you might need to find the right angles and lower the lighting, but everyone’s doing it. I thought it was really important to show that.”

As it happens, I’ve previously met Horgan on a couple of occasions – at Kilkenny Cat Laughs in 2014; and before that, I interviewed her after a panel discussion on TV comedy in Dublin, where the guests included Succession creator Jesse Armstrong.

“Oh yeah, I curated that,” remembers Horgan. “I brought Nicole Holofcener over as well, and Alice Lowe. Yeah, it was great.”

That was back in 2010, and in the years since, we’ve seen something of an Irish takeover of Hollywood.

“I think it’s absolutely amazing and exciting,” she says. “We’ve always had incredible storytellers, it’s just taken a while for the world to notice. Also, so much stuff was being filmed in Ireland anyway because of tax breaks and whatnot. But it was always big American or British productions, or Game Of Thrones or whatever.

“It’s nice to see Irish drama and comedy coming out of there, because we have an incredible industry – we have incredible crews, and the best actors and writers, so it makes sense. Long may it continue.”

• Youth is streaming now on HBO Max.