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Q&A with Maggie O'Neill - Radio Times, August 2007 |
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The actress chatted to Benji Wilson about life after Shameless - and the perils of making jokes during interviews.
BW: You're starring in Little Devil.
What's that about - the spawn
of Satan?
MO: No, no, no. It'd be fun if it was. It's a
story about adultery, but seen through
a child's eyes. I play Laura Crowe,
who's married to Will [Robson
Green]. They're good together, but
she starts working for Will's best
friend, who's a bit of a lothario, and
they end up having an affair. The
child kind of figures it out for himself
and starts behaving in strange ways,
smashing things up to distract from
what the parents are actually up to.
It's one of your
first roles since
playing Sheila
in Shameless.
Did you choose
to leave or were
you written out?
I wanted to go. Only
because I felt I'd gone
as far as I could with
her. I didn't want her to become this
extreme character who was there for
the sake of being extreme. I love that
character so much. She was a
nymphomaniac agoraphobic. How
many times do you get to play that?
She was wild, sexy, not wet; a very
good person. She just loved
everything - sex, life, people.
All of which meant you had to
get up close and personal with
one of the most scrofulous,
unpleasant characters ever
on TV - Frank Gallagher. Did he
smell as bad as he looked?
The thing about Frank is that he's
such a monster, a coward, a user,
a drunk and a drug addict… but
there's something about Sheila's
character that she doesn't see what
everyone else is seeing. She's seeing
the most wonderful man in the world.
Which is very endearing on her part,
but at the same time slightly
disturbed behaviour.
I'm not suggesting you're a
nymphomaniac agoraphobic,
but are there elements of
you in Sheila?
I suppose the only thing you can
use to connect is empathy. Whether
that means you have to have some
of that in you, I don't know.
That's like saying that
to play a psychopath,
you have to be a
psychopath.
Is it true you get nervous
when you're in the country, as
opposed to the city?
Oh, listen. I'll tell you what this is
coming from. It really annoys me
and is one reason I don't like giving
interviews. If you say something in
a humorous way, a lot of interviewers
write it down as deadly serious and
you sound like a complete moron.
I promise I won't do that.
Well, I remember that interview and
it made me sound like a nutcase. All
of my friends were ringing me up and
laughing. I hope you don't make me
sound like too much of a nutcase.
Never! I shall make you sound
as entertaining as you've been.
Because I'll come stalking you.
And reveal my true nutcase potential.
[NB: Maggie is joking. She's not
a stalking nutcase.]
One final question: has
playing Sheila meant
everyone wants to cast
you as a nutcase now?
Well, there aren't that many parts
as nutty as that! That's another
reason why, after doing three series,
I wanted to move on. I don't want
to keep repeating myself. It'd be
boring for the audience apart
from anything else.
**
See Maggie O'Neill's career at a glance - or take a look at our full Shameless guide.
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