Sharon Horgan: My huge fear over turning 50 – and why I wish I could learn to relax
SHE made her name by writing award-winning comedies about sex and motherhood – but in real life, what’s most troubling Sharon Horgan is her upcoming 50th birthday.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, the recently separated Catastrophe star admits to having ‘huge fear’ about reaching the milestone in July.
She says she wants to be more relaxed in her next decade – but worries she has too much drive to slow down.
‘The kind of person I want to be in my 50s, I’m not entirely sure I’ve got the tools to be that,’ explains Horgan, who’s also a successful TV producer.
‘I want to take my foot off the pedal and just enjoy it a little… but I don’t want to lose my energy, because one of the things I like about myself is the energy I have. I hate feeling tired. I hate anything that even suggests that I have to slow down at all.
‘But then I don’t want to protest too much. I don’t want to be like, “I’m 50!” I just want it to go away a little bit.’
Horgan’s 14-year marriage to TV executive Jeremy Rainbird recently ended – soon after she produced the American TV show Divorce starring Sarah Jessica Parker – and she says she now has a new awareness of how her work could affect her daughters, Sadhbh, 16, and
Amer, 11. ‘The embarrassment of having a mother who writes about sex, or the breakdown of sex in a marriage!’ she says.
‘Sadhbh definitely had situations where boys said, “Why did your mother write herself a part where all she does is have sex in the first ten minutes of the show?” ’
She says her teenage daughter’s reactions to early edits of her work can be ‘brutal’ and says in return: ‘I expect a lot from them, which is not great. I wouldn’t call it criticism, but I think it can be read as that.’
Horgan also reveals her struggle to balance parenting with a career in TV and film, including starring in the new movie Military Wives, based on the true story of Army spouses who formed a choir.
She admits a casualty of her hectic life has been the close working relationship she had with Rob Delaney, her costar on Channel 4’s Catastrophe. Asked if they are still in touch, she replies: ‘Not at all... We spent five really intense years together. I think it’s healthy to have a break from that.’