‘MAYBE I SHOULD START DOING COCAINE!’
by Irish brand Electronic Sheep around her and pouring a cup of green tea. Her jokes land with such deadpan delivery that, for a split second, she sounds serious. When I wonder how Paul Rudd looks so baby-faced at 50, she instantly replies, ‘Cocaine.’ The publicist in the corner stops tapping on her phone and looks up. ‘He takes cocaine three times a day,’ says Aisling. ‘Absolutely full of coke. And you can quote me on that.’
The publicist-troubling statements are a sign that Aisling doesn’t yet feel like a star, or not the kind of star whose quotes might be plucked from their context and spread like jam across the internet, anyway. I hope she enjoys that freedom while she can. The other thing she’s enjoying is being ‘just an actor’ on Living With Yourself, after putting her heart and soul into passion project This Way Up. ‘It’s like having a one-hour baby compared to a 17-hour birth,’ she explains. ‘It’s like, oh, that one was fine. It just fell out.’
In Living With Yourself, Paul Rudd is a schlubby guy called Miles who, tired of feeling dissatisfied, spends the cash that he and wife Kate (Aisling) had saved for IVF on a spa that promises to turn him into the best version of himself. What they actually do is clone him, genetically perfecting him in the process, but they neglect to dispose of the first Miles. So Kate finds herself with two husbands: the grumpy original and a second version who is perfect in every way – except that he’s a clone.
The pair have great chemistry although, at 35, Aisling is 15 years younger than her on-screen husband. ‘That does tend to happen,’ she sighs, ‘and it is something I’d normally roll my eyes at. Paul is the exception because he can play 40, so it didn’t look weird. But it is unbelievable how, when you hit my age, which is still young, suddenly you’re the wife or mother. Four years ago, I was playing characters that had just got out of university. It’s like, bloody hell, how did that change so fast? Time speeds up three times faster for actresses, without a doubt.’
Despite the high concept, the show is grounded in reality: office politics, and the way that long-term relationships can slide into weary predictability. ‘It connects with stuff we’re thinking about,’ she nods, ‘in terms of finding yourself and what will fix… well, not fix, but help this.’ She taps her chest, then helpfully whispers into the dictaphone: ‘Pats left boob there.’
This Way Up shares a common trait with Living With Yourself: almost every character needs to be ‘fixed’. Aisling stars as Aine, who’s recovering from a nervous breakdown (it is a comedy, I promise). While we’re all much more comfortable talking about mental health these days, Aisling says it’s about dealing with one of the last taboos: loneliness. ‘If you talk about being lonely, people don’t want to be near you, like they might catch it,’ she says. But it is the element of the