ON THE COVER: LYNN RAFFERTY
The Taken Down star on trying to take over Canada and dealing with Love/Hate fame.
She found fame as tough-talking gangster’s moll Nadine in Love/Hate but she’s gone over to the bright side as a detective in the hotly anticipated Taken Down. Here Lynn Rafferty talks about taking risks in her career, finding her feet in Toronto and why she loves Irish storytelling
T hey say luck favours the bold and the brave and nobody knows that more than Dublin actress Lynn Rafferty. Struggling to land her big break after leaving drama school, the Dubliner slogged it away for years, keeping the wolves from the door with a fulltime day job in digital sales, while keeping her acting dreams alive by night. Then, she got bold.
She packed in the day job to become a waitress in a bid to free herself up for auditions. And it paid off. Within four months of giving up her full-time sales job, Lynn had landed the role of Nadine, hardman Aido’s equally hard girlfriend in Love/Hate.
‘You have to hustle in this game but at 27, I was older than most starting out,’ she says. ‘I’d always done it but in terms of deciding, I’m going all out and this is going to be my job now.
‘You have to pay the bills, and I was paying for training too and working on short films so most of the money I made I invested back into my career. It was a big decision.’
Love/Hate creator Stuart Carolan originally penned Nadine as a minor role. But Lynn, who hails from Dublin’s north inner city neighbourhood of Summerhill, injected Nadine with a rare, tough Dublin grit and she was a mega-hit with viewers. Her performance got her noticed and on to the books of renowned Dublin casting agent Maureen Hughes. So, Lynn got bolder still.
Despite her newfound success at home, she decided it was a good time to up sticks and move to Toronto with her partner of five years and try to make it in drama and comedy in Canada.
But just as Lynn settled into Toronto life, Dublin came banging at her door – or Stuart Carolan, to be precise.
The talented writer was so impressed with Lynn’s turn as Nadine, he decided to develop her character and work her into more storylines in his hit drama.
‘I said all my goodbyes and had a party and next thing I’m like, “Hi guys, yeah I know I said all those goodbyes but I’m back”,’ laughs Lynn, chatting from her Toronto home, where the temperatures are moving down towards zero. ‘Three months afterwards I was back on the set of Love/Hate. It’s funny, as people say in this business, the minute you leave Ireland, the work will start coming.’
They weren’t wrong. As we speak, Lynn is in the middle of packing for another whirlwind trip home to Dublin, leaving the next day – and she’s only back in Toronto a wet week, having spent most of the summer filming in Dublin.
She’s starring in the hotly-anticipated RTÉ crime drama Taken Down, hitting our screens tomorrow night. Given it’s the first time awardwinning Love/Hate dream team – writer Stuart Carolan, director David Caffrey and producer Suzanne McAuley – have gotten back into the room together since the hit gangster series and the fact it stars many of the hit show’s actors, it’s no surprise the show is being billed as the next Love/Hate.
Fans will be delighted to see Jimmy Smallhorne, who played IRA boss Git in Love/Hate, is back in town, along with Brian Gleeson, who played gangster Hughie Power and plays another shady character in Taken Down. French actress Aissa Maiga also puts in a powerful performance.
And this time, Lynn has graduated to the role of leading lady though she’s left her dodgy days behind her, playing Detective Inspector Jen Rooney. The original idea for the show comes from crime fiction novelist Jo Spain, who joined the Love/Hate crew writing the show.
Set in Dublin city, it begins with the violent murder of a Nigerian woman not far from a direct provision centre. When another young Nigerian girl called Flora, who lives at the detention centre, is reported missing, Detective Rooney’s inquiries lead her to a city centre brothel. It’s a tough, hard-hitting story that invites viewers into a very real part of modern Dublin that many of us know very little about, where slum landlords and criminals prey on the most vulnerable.
Armed with first-hand knowledge of the magic Stuart and David are capable of, Lynn jumped at the chance to get back on set.
‘Given it’s Stuart and David’s first thing since Love/Hate, it was incredible to get the call. Stuart’s talent is mindblowing – it was such a pleasure stepping back into a world he created and David Gaffrey, knowing their talent together.
‘It delves into social issues and the research side of that was just amazing but at the end of the day, it’s entertainment, although not your typical police procedural. The characters are so multi-dimensional and with Jo Spain on board too, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever read.’
She continues: ‘I’ve always wanted to do something like this. I’m a huge fan of crime stories and investigative journalism. Jen is tough, streetsmart and has a great sense of empathy but like us all, she’s not without her flaws.’
As part of her research and to get inside her character’s head, Lynn picked the brains of some garda friends.
‘I know two guards that I spoke to, to get an insight into the world and what a difficult job it is. They said if you go in and find someone in a bad situation you’re trying to get them out of it, that wanting to help people is difficult and sometimes they don’t want to be helped.’
Although Lynn loves living in Toronto, she misses Dublin and is thrilled her work takes her back and forth. Not that she had any idea when she first headed off that she would be home so often.
‘I’d absolutely no idea the role of Nadine would be developed when I left but coming back and forth was so lovely. It’s a great balance.’
Still, it must have been strange, becoming famous for her Love/Hate shenanigans while in absentia, thousands of miles away.
Just as Love/Hate morphed into something of a juggernaut back home, and her star was on the rise, she was living in Toronto, where presumably, she remained unknown?
‘It was weird when I came back to Dublin, I think it was season five, I could feel it – everyone really recognised you when you went out. But even in Canada there are so many Irish over there and I’d get recognised a lot by Irish people whereas
“WANTING TO HELP PEOPLE IS DIFFICULT AND SOMETIMES THEY DON’T WANT TO BE HELPED”
“IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO EVENTUALLY SAY, I NEED TO BE TRUE TO MYSELF”
I’d have completely forgotten about it and I just assumed we knew each other,’ she laughs. ‘It’s incredible how far and wide Love/Hate travelled.’
Canada, meanwhile, is also being kind to Lynn – and her diverse background is opening lots of doors. ‘I focus on doing a lot of theatre and comedy here though not stand-up, I don’t think I could do that.
‘Right now between auditioning, I’m developing a TV sitcom pilot with a Canadian producer. I’ve a mockumentary with producers in LA, trying to decide what to do with it and an Irish-Canada emigration story in development.
‘Theres’s a super scene for TV and film here and there’s a great arts scene. At the Toronto Film Festival this year there were five Irish films winning awards and with a great buzz around them.
‘I love being part of Irish storytelling as we know how to do it really well. There’s always such a buzz about Irish TV and film because of the writers, directors and actors, and we’re getting more and more well known.’
She continues: ‘I’m not afraid to hustle to get what I want now. In this business, stuff doesn’t just turn up at your door. When I was working and doing the acting and writing in the evening, I could never tell myself I was a full-time actress but once I gave up sales, I was out with my ear to the ground, networking and ready to hustle for myself.
‘I didn’t even have an agent back then. You need to put the work in but also be in the right place at the right time.’
And does she ever foresee herself moving back to Ireland full-time?
‘It always depends on work,’ says Lynn. ‘I’m happy to go wherever work is. That’s the nature of the job. You go where the work is and follow your passion wherever that is.
‘I’ve always been a storyteller and performer and always wanted to do it but it took me a while to eventually say, I need to be true to myself, I need to take the risk. This is who I am.’ TAKEN DOWN begings on RTÉ One tomorrow at 9.30pm