The secret of Victoria’s success in La La Land
Bret Easton Ellis probably summed up the alienation of Los Angeles for some people when he wrote in his first novel, Less Than Zero: “I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is ‘Disappear Here’.”
It is doubtless a testament to Irish movie star Victoria Smurfit — and a testament to the way her parents Caroline and Dermot raised her — that her life in LA is as normal as it gets. It is no secret for Victoria.
She didn’t disappear into some La La Land existential void. She came into herself. Easter wasn’t celebrated in Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard talking shop with some Hollywood A-listers but at her exhusband’s home with him and their three kids, Evie, Ridley and Flynn.
“I had Easter lamb with the kids and Doug at his,” Victoria told me. “It was very relaxed and full of laughter.”
It says something about Victoria (and Doug Baxter) that she is still such great friends with her significant ex, does it not? (Their 15year marriage came to a natural end in February 2015.)
I asked the former Ballykissangel star how she celebrated her birthday last week in Los Angeles. (She doesn’t look remotely her age, which I won’t mention.)
“I had a party full of people I love,” she said. “I felt very lucky to have such a wonderful group of friends from the industry here.”
Any other news, Victoria?
“Other than I am the assumed killer on Marcella for ITV and I am just back from filming Once Upon A Time as Cruella in Vancouver for its penultimate episode before it finishes forever — nope.”