Feature: Bridgerton’s Jamie Beamish on rediscovering Ireland

Following his unexpected Netflix success as Bridgerton’s bad boy, Jamie Beamish tells SIOBHÁN BREATNACH about being back in Ireland over lockdown

Jamie Beamish is back in his childhood bedroom, complete with blue 70s wallpaper and a piano, just like when he first started acting, and a career in the arts was only a dream.

There’s just a tiny casual difference between then and now - Zoom calls to and from Hollywood. A self-confessed nerdy kid, ‘I didn’t discover girls until well late, it’s my misspent youth,’ he jokes,

Beamish is a salt of the earth genuine talent whose CV includes plaudits across film, TV, stage and musical theatre.

His self-effacing natural charm gives him a likeability that couldn’t be further away from the bad boy that catapulted onto screens last Christmas in Netflix megahit Bridgerton.

The show has been an unexpected life-changer for the actor, who also stars in sitcom Derry Girls.

“I knew I was filming a big show because of the money and support that was going into it,” he says. “But I never expected it at all. I thought it would be out in September then they suddenly announced the release date was Christmas Day and we were going

‘Oh my god, they must be confident’.”

Right on the money as it turned out. In its first four weeks Bridgerton was watched by 63million households worldwide.

Because of the pandemic, the usual industry celebrations took on a different shape. “Normally you do a cast and crew screening in Soho but of course because of the pandemic we’re all at home watching a virtual screening,” Beamish says. “There’s this massive Zoom call going on, I’m sitting in my room with Shonda Rhimes giving a speech on my screen and Netflix after sending me Champagne and a big box of goodies. I thought this is just so surreal. I couldn’t believe it.

“I never really tell anyone I’m in something,” he adds. “I might mention it but I never really make a big deal of it because you never really know what’s left of you.”

As it turns out, the editors left in quite a lot.

TV villain Lord Nigel Berbrooke was born. “I taped my audition and sent it off thinking there’s no way I’m getting that. Then they came back with an offer,” Beamish admits.

As it turns out the show’s makers felt the Irishman would make the perfect English aristocrat – bringing just the right amount of foolishness and darkness to the role.

“When I went to the first read through at the start of production, the director and producer came over and they said ‘oh my god, you’re Irish’, they didn’t know because on the tape I’ve an English accent. They got a shock. I was hoping they wouldn’t sack me after that,” he laughs adding it’s been a long-standing joke that if ever you needed someone to play the happy singing Irishman he was the one to call. Produced by industry big hitter Shona

Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder) and created by Chris Van

Dusen, Bridgerton is an eight-part series based on bestselling books by Julia Quinn. Narrated by Dame Julie Andrews, and also starring fellow Derry Girls actor Nicola

Coughlan, it follows the high society lives, loves and scandals of the Bridgerton family. Beamish’s character takes on a more sinister role in the TV series than the novels, a believable representation of toxic masculinity and a way to explore modern themes through a period drama setting. “That’s the cleverness of the writers and producers on Bridgerton,” Beamish says. “I think that’s why it hit like it did. It touched on things, a modern conversation, down to the diversity of the cast.

“There are some amazing people on it, Adjoa Andou, Ruth Gemmell, Jonathan Bailey, I was big fans of theirs, such brilliant actors,” he adds. “I didn’t know Regé-Jean Page, the Duke, or Phoebe Dynevor who played Daphne but they were so nice, so brilliant. “It’s amazing watching Regé, who’s the nicest guy though he looks like a god. Phoebe the work she did, the hours she put in, I thought she was magnificent. It wouldn’t be the show it was without her. She’s a young actress but is knocking it out of the park.”

So, will we see more of beastly

Berbrooke in series two?

“Maybe who knows, it’s left open-ended hopefully for a reason,” Beamish says. “Nigel is in the other books but is a very different character to the one I played, he’s more of a twit, a bit bumbling, foolish. Not dark and dangerous like this guy. We’ll see.” Beamish has spent the last half a year back in his home city of Waterford. He usually splits his time between London and Ireland. “As things get back to normal I’ll be back on that bi-locational thing. I like it and it’s possible,” he says.

In the meantime, like the majority of us, he’s taken to the great outdoors.

“I adore Dunmore East and going out on the cliff walk there,” he says. My father’s family were originally from there, out by Craven Head. Gorgeous part of the world,” he says. At the end of last year, he quarantined in a little flat in the seaside village so he could visit his nan safely at her nursing home.

“I was able to go on rambles and rediscover that part of the world. It was amazing, brilliant,” he adds.

You were also likely to spot him chatting away to himself on Waterford City’s riverside – though no cause for alarm there.

“It’s nice down there when the sun is out, and while I’ve been here I’ve still be auditioning for TV and film, that stuff goes off to Hollywood. I tend to go down to the quay with a coffee and learn my lines in the open air. But, of course, the people passing only hear me talking to myself,” he jokes. Rather than waiting for the phones to ring during lockdown, Beamish took matters into his own hands.

Using experience gained performing at venues such as the National Theatre and The Globe, he recently put on a live stream of his play Ghosting, co-written with and starring Anne O’Riordan, in Waterford’s Theatre Royal. “What it leaves you with at the end is ‘I can’t wait to get back into the theatre’,” he says. “To see theatre is to see us telling our stories. Culture is such a unique thing we have, especially in Ireland.”

He’s also written another piece.

“It’s a bigger play, five people, set in Waterford. I want to make an event of it,” he adds.

“We will get back in the theatre, we will get back on set and film, and we will get back in the pubs having the craic. It’s all about holding your nerve, that’s the hard part,” he says.

But Beamish has faced greater challenges over the 45 years of his life. It shows in his glass half full philosophical approach.

“I was very ill years ago but I never thought I wouldn’t get better. Even in the worst of it trying to be positive, that’s what gets you through,” he says.

In 2007 he was first diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma. He relapsed in 2009, received a stem cell transplant and 12 years on here he is with his health and sense of humour fully intact.

“It’s been a mad life. They told me years ago I should go on X Factor because

I have everything,” he jokes.

As for the future, there’s the new series of Derry Girls on hold, while he’s also desperate to get back on stage.

“I haven’t been in a play properly since 2018, for me that’s an awful long time. I want to be back and part of that conversation.”

There’s still a little time left to explore the island he calls home too.

“I’ve a big grá for Galway. The sea is a thing, even going down to Cork or

Kerry. Chilling in Wexford is another gorgeous part of the country.

“I love London at full throttle, whereas going back to Waterford, where there is a slower pace of life anyway, right now it feels less weird being here and it being a bit quieter,” he says. “The Waterford Greenway has been a lifesaver. I cycle a bit anyway so getting out on that has been brilliant, it’s been magic. I did it at night once, it was really stunning.

“I hadn’t done that before, it was a really bright night with the moon up over the city, it lit the way a bit.”

Almost certainly it won’t be too long before Jamie Beamish will be lighting up screens and stages again too.