Season two of RTÉ crime drama Kin wrapped on Sunday evening with more than 600,000 viewers tuning in to watch the dramatic finale across television and the RTÉ Player this week.
For Amanda Kinsella it was another episode fraught with danger as the family matriarch struggled to maintain her position at the head of the Dublin crime family.
Her unlikely ascent to the throne of the Kinsella clan across the series reminds Clare Dunne, who plays Amanda, of Walter White's rise from chemistry teacher to crystal meth kingpin Walter White in Breaking Bad.
"Something happens to her that makes her break [the murder of her son in series one]," Dunne tells Katie Hannon on the latest episode of Upfront: The Podcast.
Like Walter White in Breaking Bad, Clare Dunne’s character in Kin didn’t set out to pursue a life of crime but once she enters that world, there is no turning back, whatever reservations she may have.
"She's accidentally become the person that runs it all. That doesn't mean she doesn't find it hard to see a heroin addict in the street. It doesn't mean that she doesn't go to sleep at night going, what the fuck am I doing?"
But Dunne adds, "Once she starts getting into it, it's either you or them territory. You're either going to die or you're going to live in that world."
Her performance in Kin has proved popular with viewers and critics and Dunne is of the impression that it’s Amanda Kinsella’s embracing of her 'shadow self,’ that has really struck a chord.
"She's an unapologetic woman showing her shadow side. Everybody has light and dark. Everybody has the shadow and the light within their lives."
Dunne’s own journey to leading lady wasn’t without it’s own struggles.
The Ballinteer-born actor was forced to move back in with her parents when financing for her first feature film Herself fell through in 2018 just before filming began.
"There was a term going around, it was like, ‘invisible homeless.’ I had a room to go to in my sister's house for a while and I had a room then in my parents. I had turned down a theatre job because I thought we were shooting, and I just had no money.
"The film was my home, my psychological home. It kept me going because it was the only centre point in my life. I couldn't depend on work. The acting work was really sparse for me at the time."
Herself, which Dunne starred in and wrote, was eventually released in 2021 to critical acclaim.
It tells the story of Sandra, a cleaner from Dublin who is forced into homelessness with her two children in order to escape an abusive relationship.
"It is an actual cancer in society that is causing way more problems than we realise for the children of those homes."
Dunne picked up an IFTA for her writing work on Herself. She has since picked up another for acting for her portrayal of Amanda Kinsella.
Another series of Kin is reportedly in the works and while Dunne herself would love to see the show continue, she has yet to get the phone call confirming it has been green lit.
"I'd love to get a third series. Even one more, I think it deserves a trilogy. So, fingers crossed. The papers keep quoting me as saying, there's a season three and my answer every time they ask me is, I don't know, you'll know before me."
All episodes of 'Upfront: The Podcast' can be found here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
