The mighty QUINN
WHEN it came to casting Educating Rita, which enjoyed a successful run in the Gaiety Theatre in 2016, feisty Kerri Quinn was perfect for the role of sassy Rita. The drama’s location shifted from Willy Russell’s original backdrop of Liverpool to Belfast, and Quinn charmed audiences in the role that made Julie Walters a global star.
In fact, Quinn — likeable, overflowing with good nature, candid — isn’t unlike a young Julie Walters. And in much the same way that Walters came to prominence with her breakthrough role at 33, Kerri now finds herself, just a year older, on the cusp of a her own career break.
After treading the boards for years in Belfast — theatregoers there may know her from The Threepennny Opera, The Weir, Titanic Boys or Cabaret — she has just starred in her first major TV series for BBC One.
Come Home, starring Christopher Eccelston (Doctor Who) and Paula Malcomson (Ray Donovan) is a stylishly-brooding drama set in Northern Ireland.
Eccleston stars as Greg, a father-ofthree whose wife Marie (Malcomson) has made the tough decision to leave the family home and her children behind. From the outset, and as her family struggle with the fallout of her leaving, mystery looms large as to the exact reasons of Marie’s fleeing.
Quinn stars as Greg’s new love interest Brenna, a single mum running from a violent relationship.
After signing recently with the renowned Cowley, Knox & Guy agency in London, Quinn is hoping her star turn in Come Home heralds the turning of a professional corner.
‘I had a great agent in Belfast, but I felt limited in the types of jobs I’d been seen for,’ she admits.
‘There were restrictions on my postcode. Within a few months of being with the agency, I was being seen for different things, like the Royal Court (theatre), or for other TV projects.’
Quinn has long been a go-to actress for the Belfast stage; something that’s at once a blessing and a curse.
‘I was asked to do parts on The Fall a couple of times but they always fell through because I was never available,’ she says. ‘I was even contracted to a theatre gig when (the role in) Come Home came through. Thankfully, I was able to get out of the theatre contract. When I got to the final stages of auditions, there was a “chemistry” read with Chris (Eccelston) and it was very clear we were meant to do this project opposite each other.
‘An amazing friendship formed, and he was amazing with me. I was very nervous in the beginning and he took me right under his wing and told me, pretty much, that everything was going to be alright.’
And with roles in Doctor Who, Heroes, Thor and The Leftovers on Eccelston’s bulging CV, Quinn was certainly learning from one of the televisual greats.
‘Oh he is just the most generous actor, and there’s always this beautiful honesty with Chris,’ she enthuses. ‘What connected us is we are both parents (Quinn is mum to Libby, five). I’d show him pictures of Libby and he’d show me pictures of his kids (Albert, five, and Esme, four).
‘He said, “Someone like you should be in a room with Jimmy McGovern”, so he’s tried to get my name in front of other writers and directors.’
Their quick and easy friendship was certainly advantageous when it came to Coming Home’s sex scenes.
While most actors dismiss sex scenes, rather predictably, as mere choreography, or an occupational hazard, Quinn is refreshingly candid about them.
‘Do you know what? I was so nervous about doing them, especially with someone like Chris, but then we started to think about them logically,’ she explains. ‘I started to think about the early stages of Greg and Brenna’s relationship, and how certain sex positions represent the early stages of a romance, that bit when you’re getting your hair and make-up completely done.
‘So when we were taking about the sex scenes, I was like, “This is how I see their sex life”, wanting to make sure it was represented properly, and Chris was like, “Whatever Kerri says, and whatever she is comfortable with, I’ll run with it”. In the end we had such a hoot doing them. We laughed a lot.
‘An audience should really be willing Greg and Brenna on as a couple, and that’s why it was important to get those sex scenes right.’
Already, the signs point to Come Home becoming another drama hit — how might Quinn deal with fame, or at the very least making a leap from screen to stage?
‘I haven’t even thought about it,’ she laughs. ‘I’m really hard on myself so when I watched myself on screen I was picking holes in myself the whole time. You know what though? I’ve gone from one low-paid job to another, so I wouldn’t mind another TV show, or feature film. God knows I’ve earned it.’
For now, Quinn is parking the consistent run of theatre roles in the hope that she can be available to hop on a plane to London for more TV auditions. ‘It’s a gamble and one I hope pays off,’ she admits. Of course, the North is certainly having a moment in terms of TV projects. The Fall aside, it has also been the backdrop for some of TV’s biggest juggernauts including Game Of Thrones, Line of Duty and, more recently, Derry Girls.
‘It’s such an exciting time to be working in Belfast,’ says Quinn. ‘I’d do anything to be in Line Of Duty — I just adore Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar.’
OF the prospect of moving to London or further afield, Quinn muses: ‘I don’t know if I would, although I wouldn’t rule it out as I’d have to go where the work is. But my life and my family are here.
‘I’m a bit of a homebird. I’ve actor friends who moved to London, had to get bar jobs and ended up spending a fortune on rent. What’s the point? It’s not where my head is.’
Quinn and her daughter have been living at home with her parents, a true boon for any working actor.
‘I wouldn’t be able to work half as much without them. I actually love it. They’re very supportive and I’m getting on better with them now than when I was a teenager.’
Quinn moved in with her parents after a ‘very dark time’ a couple of years ago. A few years ago, she bought a bungalow in north Belfast, only a few minutes’ walk away from her parents. Then locals began raising Union flags on the street.
‘I’m not a fan of flags in any respect, but I thought, it’s probably just the Queen’s Jubilee. I can persevere,’ she says. ‘I got up one day and the flag on the lamppost at the end of my house had been taken down. I was asked, “What happened to your flag?” I had no idea. Clearly some people weren’t
Theatre stalwart scoops big break in hit BBC drama
happy.’ Another flag was erected and disappeared within weeks, and some locals soon started to take their frustrations out on Quinn. Pretty soon, she was consumed by stress, exhaustion and anxiety, and the episode took a toll on her relationship with Libby’s father Paddy.
‘We have a great relationship now and we’re really close,’ she says. ‘Libby has a great relationship with her dad, and we wanted to make sure that was maintained. But I haven’t sold the house (in Belfast) yet. I thought Belfast had moved on from all that but there are still a lot of narrowminded people.’
Now, Quinn has put that period behind her and is looking forward to her television debut. It’s a dream come true for the actress who admits that as a shy schoolgirl, she was in thrall to the confidence of the drama students.
‘I always had a good singing voice and had no problem belting out a bit of Patsy Cline at family parties and it went from there,’ she recalls. ‘At school I’d watch plays with the older girls and I’d watch them walking around, totally confident, and thought, “Wow, I’d love to be like that’.”
Professionally trained as an actress, Quinn sang in bands from the age of 16 and toured pubs and clubs as part of an ABBA tribute act.
After graduating from Queen’s University, she got her break in West Side Story at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, then returned to working in a bar and gigging.
It wasn’t until 2010, when she played Angie Best in Dancing Shoes: The George Best Story, a hit musical by Marie Jones and Martin Lynch, that her career took off but she never gave up.
‘I really took it quite seriously,’ she admits of her formative training. ‘One teacher I had told my parents I really had that thirst and that hunger.’
That hunger, it seems, continues apace. Quinn muses: ‘From a TV point of view, I’d love to do period drama. When I see Poldark I think, ‘What I’d give to be in that’. Not only is he (Poldark) a handsome man, but the women are slightly spunkier than average.’
Sounds like a perfectly good fit, then. Come Home begins on BBC One and RTE One this Tuesday.