Irish-Norwegian actor Liv O'Donoghue, recently nominated for an Irish Times Irish Theatre Award for her performance in Good Sex, is about to start touring Ireland with the critically acclaimed Pan Pan production The Patient Gloria, with dates in Cork, Galway in Dublin - find out more here.
Liv has also co-founded a new production company, Athrach, to find ways to make film & TV in the most sustainable way possible - they've just wrapped their first short film, After The Storm.
We asked Liv for her choice cultural picks.
FILM
I recently saw a beautiful short film called Nido by the Dublin-based Chilean director José Miguel Jiménez, who also happens to be my dear friend and collaborator. He travelled to the Amazon where made a film which follows a local health nurse working in an indigenous community. It is a stunning portrait that shows her day to day reality as well as going deeper into her inner world. It'll be hitting film festivals this summer and I really hope everyone gets to see it.
MUSIC
I have a two year old toddler, and it may be futile but I'm doing my darndest to avoid Baby Shark for as long as I can get away with it! He’s just started getting words and right now his favourite song is Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Nancy Sinatra. He thinks it’s hilarious every time she sings the lyric 'bang bang’, and it’s the cutest thing hearing him repeat it. It’s a go-to tune for car journeys when he’s cranky, but I’m under no illusions that Cocomelon willno doubt feature heavily in our futures.
BOOK
I’m about to go on tour with a show called The Patient Gloria, in which I play the role of Gloria Szymanski, the woman who was at the centre of the controversial 1965 film, Three Approaches to Psychotherapy. Her daughter Pammy wrote a book called Living with the Gloria Films describing the fallout of her mother’s ordeal, so I’m re-reading that book to help get me back into character. Every time I read the book I discover some new fascinating detail and I find it really helps me to keep my approach to the part fresh.
THEATRE
I’m excited to see An Old Song, Half Forgotten directed by Louise Lowe at the Peacock Theatre. It's a play about conjuring memories, performed by the brilliant Bryan Murray who has himself been recently diagnosed with Alzheimers. Matthew Malone will play his younger self and I’m really interested to see how they put it together. Louise is such an exciting director, so no doubt it’ll be brilliant.
TV
I love a good crime show. I’ve just started Blue Lights, a new BBC police drama and so far, it’s fantastic. I’d love to get to play a detective in a cop thriller so maybe I’m projecting! My mother is Norwegian, so I’m also a big fan of anything Scandi Noir… Outlier was a recent standout that I really enjoyed.
GIG
The last gig I went to was LCD Soundsystem at Brooklyn Steel in November. I’d previously seen them play big festival stages, so it was great to see them at such a small and intimate venue. It was the second night of their 20-night residency there and the crowd was electric. It was also the first big gig I’d been at since covid started and I hadn’t realised how much I’d really missed feeling the vibration of live music coming through those enormous speakers and the sensation of a packed crowd moving together. Glorious.
ART
Got Damp by Avril Corroon at Project Arts Centre looks at the issue of damp and the poor quality of housing in Ireland. They did a callout for people living in damp accommodation in Dublin and have given each of them a free dehumidifier. Instead of discarding what’s collected in the dehumidifier tanks, it will be poured into a Damp tank at Project, plumbing damp donations through the building. There’ll also be an installation in the foyer alongside a film focused on issues surrounding the Housing Crisis. I love art that really looks at social issues in a meaningful way and tries to make a genuine difference.
💦 Join us for the launch of @avcorroon's GOT DAMP!
— Project Arts Centre (@projectarts) April 4, 2023
Explore damp as a crisis of nature in the home - considering housing insecurity, the cost of living crisis, health impacts, & forms of community protest
ℹ️ https://t.co/fl6hG8Ar5w
🎉 Free to attend!
🗓️ Thurs 20 Apr
⏰ 5:30-7pm pic.twitter.com/iBSMfk33eu
PODCAST
I love listening to podcasts at the gym. It really helps me zone out and forget the fact that I’m actually exercising. Lately I’ve been listening to A Wee Boost, a new podcast collaboration between Dublin Fringe Festival and Project Arts Centre that pairs artists together in conversation. I also love Tom Moran’s Personality Bingo, a treasure trove of interviews with (mostly) Irish actors. He’s a brilliant interviewer. The podcast has a really fun format with a bingo machine with 60 questions, but somehow Tom always manages to get to the nitty gritty of some really deep conversations.
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TECH
I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes to technology, but my biggest vice is probably Instagram. I love the idea of it being like a visual diary, a way of collecting memories in one place. My job means that I get to go to lots of different places and work with different people all the time, so it’s a lovely way to try to stay connected with the people you meet. I do also hate how addictive it can be though. I read somewhere that 10 years ago we used to scroll only about 5 metres a day, now we’re scrolling potentially hundreds of metres a day.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
I’m hoping it’s sustainability in filmmaking! Myself, fellow actress Aoibheann McCann and director Maeve Stone have recently set up a small production company called Athrach. We’ve just finished shooting our first short called After the Storm as a pilot project to see how we can approach sustainability across all departments in a truly meaningful way. It’s been so heartening to see what’s possible. The process of making film can be hugely wasteful, especially with things like sets and costumes often being used no more than once and then dumped. Ellen Kirk, our production designer and Saileóg O’Halloran, our costume designer both played a blinder in sourcing and reusing old items, as well as finding life for things after we wrapped filming.
The Patient Gloria is at Everyman Cork on 14th April, Black Box Theatre, Galway 26th April and Project Arts Centre, Dublin from 2nd - 6th May - find out more here.
