Popular actress Kate Thompson recently returned to our living rooms as 'Fair City's cougar Justine. She tells Linda McGee why she is thrilled to be back acting, after forging a successful career as a writer.
Linda McGee: First of all Kate, can you tell us about how the role for 'Fair City' came about?
Kate Thompson: Gosh, well, as you may know, I've been writing for the past decade and just shortly before Christmas of last year I ran into a friend, who's a radio drama producer, and I said 'Listen, I spend all day by myself, because my daughter is now left home and I realised that I was actually getting really, really lonely. So I said: 'If you've got anything at all in a radio play, I'd love to come in and just do a couple of lines' so, low-and-behold, something came up and it was a Tom Kilroy play and I go way back with Tom. I did a version of 'The Seagull' that he wrote, years and years ago. So I got a small part in that and I found myself working with a dozen actors whom I adore. They were all really good friends and I'd worked with them all years ago and I spent three days in the radio building in RTÉ, having the best laugh, which was completely unusual for me because normally I'll get up in the morning and I'll potter and do my chores, do a bit of yoga and have a shower and get into a clean pair of pyjamas and go to work! Because I don't see anybody! So this was like a complete eye-opener for me.
So I rang my agent and said 'If anything comes up that you think I might be right for, will you let me know?'... because I'd had a taste of what it's like to be sociable again, and to be back with my tribe of actors, and I really enjoyed it. So, low-and-behold, about a month later, at the beginning of January or thereabouts, she rang and she said 'RTÉ are looking for an AOW' and I said 'What exactly is an AOW?' and she said 'An attractive older woman'. So I said 'At least they're not looking for an unattractive older woman! It could be a runner'. As it happened, it was a lovely little niche. It was three weeks, very, very intensive work – very hard work – for nine episodes in a row. And that suited beautifully because I have a deadline to deliver my next book at the end of June, so I'm under a lot of pressure now that I've to do that. But it was just great to be able to take a month out of my writing schedule and come in and play such a fantastic character.
LM: So what were your very first impressions of Justine? There's lots to the character, isn't there?
KT: I thought she sounded really intriguing. Her background was... [This is the kind of brief you get, you just get a little pot of history]... and her background was that she was born in London of an Irish rogue of a father and went to LA and set up business there and married her first husband there, and took over the business and from then she went from strength to strength. So I thought that background is really, really intriguing and it reminded me a little bit, I suppose, of the Alexis Carrington thing. I know there was something on the boards but I don't go to the boards a lot because, you know, I'm older and wise enough to know better, but somebody said that there was something on the boards saying 'What a lazy actress she is, she's meant to have come from LA and she can't even manage an American accent', whereas my initial brief was that she was born of Irish parents in London. So, you know, you can't win when it comes to things like that. So that was the brief and I just thought that the character sounded intriguing and, you know, something very, very unusual for Carrigstown.
LM: Looking ahead to Justine's upcoming storylines, it seems that she has manipulation on her mind...
KT: Gosh, yes, she does. And I think she's probably a past-master at it! The interesting thing about a character like that is, in the first week you're trying to get a handle of her - you've got your scripts and you're seeing somebody for the first time - and then you kind of meet and marry the character and towards the end of the three weeks that Justine and I got to know each other I started having real fun with her. You know, I discovered a side to her, and this may sound crazy but this is the way actors talk all the time, and it's a bit like the way I would talk about the characters I write in my novels, you know, when you get to know them you suddenly see a side to them that you hadn't seen when you started writing it – and I guess with characters that you play, as an actor, it's a bit the same. And I started seeing quite a wacky side to Justine.
LM: She's an interesting character to watch, with the affect she has on people. It seems that Dolores has finally started to open her eyes up to the 'real' Justine, but, as she does, Wayne is falling under her spell again...
KT: Yes, it's fascinating to watch because when you read it cold on the script as a read-through you don't see all the elements that actors bring to bear and I was very lucky to be working with such fine actors as Martina (Dolores) and Victor (Wayne).
LM: And overall, how did you find being part of the 'Fair City' family for a couple of weeks?
KT: I loved it, absolutely loved it. In the days when I was in 'Glenroe', many years ago, we had a week to work on half an hour of drama and in 'Fair City' you have a week to work on two hours. So the schedule is completely frantic. You know, I'd find myself at the end of the day coming home and having to learn more lines and actually not being able to learn them because my brain was so dead. So it really is incredibly punishing work. But, on the other hand, you know, you've got astonishing teamwork going on.
LM: You mentioned 'Glenroe' there, a programme that has a fond place in many people's hearts. Do people still come up to you in the street and call you Terry?
KT: No (laughs). No, I mean... gosh, the last time I was called Terry... I can't remember. I mean it really does seem like a lifetime ago for me, because I've gone and forged a brand new career since then as well. And the interesting thing, as well, is that the book - it's called 'The O'Hara Affair' - that's just gone on the shelves, one of the characters in that is a cougar, and that character was written way before Justine Lennox was even on the horizon as far as I was concerned. So I think that's a lovely serendipitous thing.
LM: Speaking of your writing, I know you have a deadline coming up this summer, do you feel pressure when it comes to writing deadlines or does your love of the work just drive you to want to finish it anyway?
KT: Now this is the first time I've ever worked to a deadline. I write very, very fast and one of my editors calls me 'every editor's dream writer' because I deliver early. I do just love it. I really, really love the writing process. So, as I say, this is the first time I've worked to a deadline and because there's been a lot of publicity around the Justine character and all of that, every week I kind of think 'Oh God, at the beginning of next week I've got to sit down and really concentrate on the book' and I am actually, come Monday, I'm just going to have to turn off the phone, turn off the Internet and really get cracking because I have, I think, three chapters down but I've many more words to write between now and the end of June… But I'm obviously not afraid of hard work. I mean anybody who can last three weeks in 'Fair City' is no slacker!
LM: In terms of your career, once you meet your writing deadline, are you keen to do more acting work? I know you've said before that you often miss the company of other actors when you're writing...
KT: Do you know what I'd love to do more than anything is... I used to do a lot of voice-over work and I absolutely loved it and I was very good at it. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant... It was one of those things - you'd go to a studio and, people buy studio time by the hour and I'd go in and I'd work with a load of wonderful people... there'd be a real teamwork thing again going on, with the sound engineer and the scriptwriter and what have you, and we'd get the recording done really, really fast and then you could spend the rest of the hour having coffee and catching up on gossip and all that. So that was something else I missed from my old acting days, doing voiceover work.
LM: When you’re choosing acting roles are there certain factors that you always consider or does the character just have to pull you in?
KT: Totally, [Justine] she pulled me in. I liked her enormously, immediately. It's not that I have anything in common with her because, as somebody said, 'Kate, you're the most happily married woman in Dublin possibly'. I've been married forever. My daughter is 23 now. And, you know, when I first got the brief I thought 'People are going to say - what's that old bag doing on our television screens?'. I was a little fearful that people might not warm to her but actually I think she's just a fantastic character and I'm enjoying every moment of playing her. And the feedback has been astonishing, the feedback I've got from friends, that I haven't seen since my old acting days. They've been phoning me and saying 'Well done'... also, the beauty is, one of the reasons I left 'Glenroe' was because I knew that I was hitting my 'best-before' date as an actress. Most actresses, their shelf-life in the US is kind of 30 max. Over here we're a bit more generous. You know, you might get to 40 before they decide you're an old bag here.
LM: Is there genuinely a real sense of that in the industry? Did you always feel that kind of pressure?
KT: Oh absolutely. That's why I started writing. I thought 'If there's anything else that I can do, now that I'm hitting my best-before date...' and that was when I was hitting 40. But I kind of went into my 40s flying because I thought 'I've got to make a career change. I've got to do something that's going to earn me a livelihood'. And I managed to do that and, you know, have been writing happily for the last decade.
LM: So, even though you missed acting at times, you haven't ever regretted that decision, have you?
KT: No, I've never regretted having giving up acting and funnily enough Martina Stanley, who plays my mother-in-law [Dolores], such a joke, she and I go way back... so I knew Martina from ages ago and I had met her about five years ago and she said 'Kate, when are you coming back to us?' and I said 'Martina, I'm not ever going to act again' and she said 'You will, you know' and I said 'No Martina, I won't' and then low-and-behold I come back with a vengeance, and Martina and I are working together.
LM: Is it a bit like a bug? Now that you've gotten a taste of it again it'll always pull you back in... do you feel that way?
KT: I kind of do now. I didn't believe that for a while. I was so happy writing and making my living from writing, I didn't think I would want to go back. It was Emmet Bergin actually who said to me once... he talked about our 'tribe' and that's what it is. Actors are a tribe and we have our own language. Somebody said before 'Were you nervous? Was it difficult coming back?'. The thing that I found more difficult was learning lines, especially since every evening you have to sit down and maybe learn the lines for 12 scenes for the next day. You know, it's really heavy-duty work, so I found that tough going but, aside from that, no, it was just like getting into a pair of comfortable shoes.
Kate Thompson's latest book 'The O'Hara Affair' is out now.
