Sunday night star: rave reviews for NI actress in primetime drama
Yet young NI star of new hit drama initially wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter
Co Down actress Thaddea Graham has been earning wide acclaim for her performance in the BBC’S hit Sunday night drama Us, about a couple’s fight to save their marriage during a family tour of Europe. Thaddea (23) has only been acting for two years and says her initial ambition was to follow in the footsteps of Zoe Salmon and Caron Keating as a Blue Peter presenter.
SHE is one of the stars of the new TV drama everyone is talking about... but Co Down actress Thaddea Graham has revealed that she grew up dreaming of being a Blue Peter presenter.
Rather than following in the footsteps of Zoe Salmon and the late Caron Keating, however, the 23-year-old former Bloomfield Collegiate student chose drama school instead.
And she is now garnering rave reviews as the brash, quirky Kat in BBC1’S new four-part adaptation of David Nicholl’s 2014 novel Us, which tells the story of a middle-aged couple attempting to save their marriage by embarking on a European tour with their teenage son.
Killinchy Primary School past pupil Thaddea, who was born in China but has spent most of her life in Northern Ireland, said it was wonderful to work with such gifted actors as Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves — who play scientist Douglas Peterson and his artist wife Connie — so early in her career.
“Getting to different cities I’d never been to before was a real gift, and obviously working with Tom, Saskia and little Tom (Taylor, who plays Albie, the son) was an absolute pleasure,” she said.
“They’re so talented and have so much experience. Just being around them was brilliant because I’ve only been doing this for about two years now.”
Thaddea’s character Kat brings a new dynamic to the storyline after she bumps into kindred spirit and fellow busker Albie in Paris, the first stop on the troubled middle-class Petersons’ pivotal family holiday.
For Thaddea, an accomplished singer and musician who plays piano and guitar, portraying a busker was right up her street but, as she told the Belfast Telegraph, what she loved most about the role was “getting to be somebody so completely different to me”.
“Kat’s so loud and confident, and she’s so unapologetically herself,” said Thaddea.
“I wish I had her confidence. But being able to merge music with acting was a really lovely thing to be able to do. Music is like therapy for me, and I haven’t been able to merge the two before.”
Now based in London, Thaddea likes to “come home as often as I can” because she misses Northern Ireland so much.
“One of my favourite things to see is the two Harland & Wolff cranes coming into view when I’m on a plane or a ferry,” she said.
“Seeing that on the skyline is one of my favourite things, because then you know you’re home.”
The alumnus of London’s prestigious Arts Educational School, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2018, was adopted by Northern Irish parents when she was 13 months old.
“When I was wee I told my nanny that I wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter,” she said.
“Then I found out that they make the show’s presenters face their biggest fears... mine is chickens, and as soon as I realised that they might make me go to a chicken farm I thought ‘no, no, no’.”
She made her acting debut in the short drama Painkiller 2014 and has also appeared in sci-fi drama Curfew and fantasy adventure The Letter for the King.
But it is the highly acclaimed Us, which started on September 20 and continues this Sunday at 9pm (the entire series is also now available on BBC iplayer), which is destined to make her a household name.
The Guardian said it was “gentle and poignant, offering warmth and wanderlust”, while The Independent described it as “a funny and acutely observed drama”.
Thaddea, who appears in all four episodes of Us, will next be seen in the Netflix production The Irregulars.
The eight-part mystery series was hit hard by production delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic and only finished earlier this month.
Thaddea said it “would be such a joy” to land a future role in something set in Northern Ireland, which has become a hotbed for the profession in recent years.
“That’s the dream — to work at home would be lovely,” she said.
“I’m very proud of where I come from, and being able to use my own accent means a lot.
“I’d love to work from home with people who sound like me and people who grew up here and it would be lovely, at the end of the day, to actually go home”.
Unlike her character in Us, the real-life Thaddea is intensely private, despite having thousands of followers on social media.
She has no siblings, “just two dogs”, and even their names remain a closely guarded secret.
And she divulged nothing about the existence or otherwise of a love interest in order to keep us “intrigued”.
In the meantime, she wishes the latest presenter of Blue Peter — fellow Northern Ireland rising star Adam Beales from Londonderry — every success in his new role.
‘One of my favourite things to see is the Harland & Wolff cranes coming into view when I’m on a plane or a ferry’