TRY AND WRITE ME OFF, SEE WHAT HAPPENS!
At 81, Fionnula Flanagan is not only still a hot property on Irish TV but she’s mixing it with the elite in Hollywood too
In the early hours of a Californian morning, esteemed actress Fionnula Flanagan is waxing lyrical about her latest television incarnation. As the first episode of series three of Smother unfolded last Sunday, Fionnula stormed into shot as Caro Noonan, mother of the ever-unfortunate Val Ahern, stealing the scenes by flirting with her daughter’s new husband. ‘She’s a trollop,’ hoots Fionnula. ‘That’s been quite fun to play. She has interests at heart but they are mainly her own. She’s not a bad woman but she comes first and foremost, and everything else comes after that. It’s fascinating to play that, of course. It’s a lot more fun to play that kind of character than it is to play a goody-goody.’
It was a no-brainer for Flanagan to accept a role in the television thriller that has spread beyond the realms of RTÉ already and is now on series three. With a strong cast including Dervla Kirwan, Justine Mitchell, Carrie Crowley and many more, Smother is a strong, female-led Irish drama with more twists than a helter skelter, one of the things that attracted Fionnula to the role. ‘I saw one of the episodes and I got sent a great script and I thought, yeah, that’s a great cast and a great plot. So all of that was very attractive.’
There’s plenty more to come where Caro is concerned – Fionnula says her character is only getting started. She thoroughly enjoyed filming in Lahinch, Co Clare, bringing her little dog Betty with her. ‘I very much enjoy coming back to Ireland for work,’ she says. ‘We were shooting down in
Lahinch in February and March of last year. If you can survive Lahinch in February and March, you can survive anything,’ Fionnula says, laughing. ‘I don’t mean to be disparaging about Lahinch, which is a beautiful place, but the wind could be wild. I used to take my dog Betty for a walk on the promenade every day and there were days when we couldn’t turn the corner because the wind was so strong. I’m a strong girl and my dog is a strong girl too but a few times we had to turn back and come home.’
Not that the Californian weather has been kind to Fionnula of late either – her house in the hills above Los Angeles was a victim of the recent floods, just a day after she travelled back from Ireland. ‘I should have stayed in Wicklow because honest to God, it was unbelievable,’ she says of the scene. ‘I woke up to my own private waterfall which I hadn’t wished for, water cascading down from the street above my house and into my backyard.’
There was mud everywhere and the water managed to seep into her bathroom and
‘JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN OPINION DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO INFLICT IT ON THE REST OF US’
pantry. ‘I could have opened a mud spa but it’s back to normal now,’ she says. ‘For 12 or 14 days, I had two huge machines in my house thundering away day and night to dry out the walls, which they did. I’m very happy about that, I was very grateful that I had that. I dread to think what the electricity bill is going to be like but that hasn’t come yet.’
Her son Matthew and granddaughter Serena helped with the clean up but it was traumatic to say the least. ‘I’m going into competition with Noah,’ says Fionnula, finding humour in even this stark situation. ‘Just so long as the walls have dried out.’
It is often said that older actresses find it difficult to get roles and that Hollywood has a tendency to phase out the over-40s. But at 81, Fionnula’s acting talents are as much in demand as they ever were. ‘I’ve worked non-stop since midJanuary of last year,’ she says. ’I’m about to do a film in Belgium too.
‘When I was in Ireland, I did a couple of series, I did two films and then I went to Germany and did the prequel to The Hunger Games.’
She thinks it’s probably true that older actresses do find it difficult to get work but then, she says, she’s not looking for cheerleader roles either. Along with the passion for her craft, Fionnula insists the reason she keeps working is that there are bills to pay too. ‘Like everybody else in the world, I need to work,’ she insists.
Most people can only aspire to the kind of work Fionnula is doing, like that feted role of Grandma’am, starring alongside the likes of Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. She is sworn to secrecy about anything and everything to do with the blockbuster, due out next year. ‘I am sworn to total silence,’ she says. ‘But I did enjoy it very much. Francis Lawrence is a great director who has directed three of the other books and he certainly knows what he’s doing. He is an amazing man and it was an amazing film to work on.’
Award-winning Fionnula has moved seamlessly throughtout her career from the stage to the screen, picking up an Emmy and an IFTA along the way. California seems like a world away from the council house in Whitehall on Dublin’s northside where she grew up but it was acting that first brought her to the US on tour and love that made her stay.
She married renowned psychiatrist Garrett O’Connor in 1972 and has described him as the man who ‘always had her back’ until he died in 2015. She is stepmother to O’Connor’s children and loves spending time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, though some are scattered around the US. She has a home in Wicklow too so, like many actors, doesn’t see herself as a resident of anywhere in particular. ‘Every time I come back to work in Ireland I am happy to do so,’ she says.
Her house is in the California hills overlooking Los Angeles, a place she describes as an ‘ugly city’.
When she went to America, the Irish diaspora seemed to be more welcome in the US as, I venture, things are changing on a daily basis and the links between both countries seem to be unravelling. ‘Of course there’s a wide gulf,’ she answers, almost exasperated. ‘America is like living on another planet. There’s no comparison between Ireland, which has a very small population and is a very small country, and the United States, which is a huge, small, sprawling, greedy mass of a country. But yes, things have changed very much. There is inflation over here too. Things are going up in price and people are getting desperate for work. It has many of the same difficulties.’
Would she fancy, then, coming back to Ireland for good? ‘This is not something that I dwell on,’ she says. ‘Actors go where the work is. That’s the reality. We are always travelling, always moving, always going where the work is. I’m going to Belgium this month to do a picture with Dearbhla Molloy. She’s one of my best friends, we did The Ferryman together and we are going to play a pair of mad sisters in this picture in Belgium, which is called Mr K. Mr K is being played by a friend of mine, Crispin Glover. I have known Crispin since he was a child because his father and mother were the first people to befriend me as an actor here in Los Angeles.’
Svelte and sprightly with sparkling blue eyes, Fionnula belies her 81 years but, despite always cutting a dash on the red carpet, she’s actually a model for sustainable fashion. ‘Most of my clothes are ancient,’ she says. ‘The way I look at it is, if you keep them around long enough, they will come back into fashion. There are things that I’m wearing that I think, oh wow, that’s probably very old. But after a time, they come back.’ She loves
quality clothes, classic pieces and is a fan of both Irish and international design, the tailored looks of Tom Ford being a favourite. ‘There are Irish designers at the moment who are absolutely wonderful,’ she says. ‘But most of my clothes are extremely old and have been hanging in my closet for a while. I make new discoveries every day and find clothes that are still viable.’
Many of us have clothes that are ten years old or more but the issue is that we don’t have the figure we had then but Fionnula is lucky and also shows impressive self-restraint. ‘I do stay in shape,’ she says. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m rather fortunate in that I have had the same waist for the last nearly ten years. So that’s fortunate. I’m careful about what I eat. I resist pastries and desserts, and ice cream and things like that. I eat a lot of vegetables and I hardly eat any red meat any more. I gave that up about two years ago and I eat a lot of fish. I have Irish salmon, which is my favourite thing of all time. I have to say that I have a weakness for Kerrygold butter – I know, I know... but it’s well known that Kerrygold butter is a food group unto itself and it’s totally good for you! I drink goat’s milk rather than cow’s milk.’
Fionnula loves goats for more than their milk though, as she explains. ‘Once a year the fire department makes us cut down our vegetation. I live on a hill overlooking LA so they make us cut our vegetation down to six inches. I used to hire people to cut everything back but it was useless because they pull up the grass and operate things so it didn’t work at all. So what I’ve been doing for the last few years is that I hire a herd of goats to come in and munch away on the vegetation – everybody loves my goats.’
The children and grandchildren of the neigbourhood love to come and see the little herd of about 20 at work but they managed to escape one year and had to be chased back into the garden.
She loves to spend time in her garden – she’s lucky, she says, to have that space above LA in the hills and her granddaughter Serena is helping her with different bits and pieces at the minute.
‘I’m very fortunate. I live in the hills and I have a beautiful big garden and I get the goats in once a year and as long as the floods stay away we’ll be alright,’ she says. ‘I love to spend time in the garden but I wouldn’t call myself a gardener. I stick things in the ground and they either grow or they die within 24 hours. That is like summation of my skills and I love to read. I read a lot. Sometimes I cook for friends. I enjoy doing that.’
There is an Irish diaspora group of actors that she’s part of and Fionnula, who was brought up speaking Irish, is delighted to see An Cailín Ciúin getting nominated for an Oscar, as well as The Banshees of Inisherin.
At 81, Fionnula is still a tour de force and an example to any woman of a certain age. Far from
‘IT’S WELL KNOWN THAT KERRYGOLD BUTTER IS A FOOD GROUP UNTO ITSELF AND TOTALLY GOOD FOR YOU!’
being like those who feel they go unnoticed as they get older, this Dubliner is still firmly in the spotlight. ‘I’m sure it’s true that women as they get older, get taken less seriously,’ Fionnula says. ‘So you know, one has to assert one’s right to make a statement or to have an opinion. But as I have repeatedly told my granddaughter, just because you have an opinion, doesn’t mean you have the right to inflict it on the rest of us. Sometimes it’s better to keep your opinions to yourself and then behave accordingly.
‘It’s true to say that women who abandon their own interests in pursuits in favour of either a man or a family or whatever, tend to get lost in the shuffle. I’m not one of them. They have my sympathy but I would just say, “look, pull up your bootstraps girl and find something to do”. I could say take off gardening but then look at my terrible efforts,’ she says laughing. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d advocate.
‘But no, I don’t feel that I’ve ever been written off or put aside,’ she says, before adding mischievously ‘Go on, try and write me off and see what happens!’
hen I was growing up with my three brothers, we didn’t have TV, internet or mobile phones, so we passed the long hours of the holidays with any of the following recreational activities. French cricket. Reading. Hitting each other. Gathering logs (there was no central heating either). Lying on our beds trying not to hear our father shout, ‘Kids! Woooooding!’ – which meant being ordered up vertical hillsides to ‘source’ yet more firewood.
When we went to our maternal grandparents, however, there was one undeniable attraction: Swingball.
We whacked six bells out of that poor ball on a string attached to a pole from dawn ’til dusk. Since then, I’ve never seen a ball game I don’t like and don’t want to win – and nor have my brothers.
We all play tennis, table tennis and badminton like fiends, so when I discovered that a new bat and ball game was sweeping all before it – a game that all ages and abilities could play, that already boasted superfans including George Clooney, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio – I couldn’t wait to get on court and beat everyone. It’s called pickleball, and I’d never heard of it until recently. It’s a big thing in America – getting bigger all the time – and now it’s arrived here, so you too can start your pickleball journey.
But where did it all begin? Well, like most things that find their way to Europe – chewing gum, movies, Meghan Markle – it originated in the US, but unlike Meghan, it’s here to stay.
Indeed, there’s already been an in-depth essay in New Yorker magazine about the cultural importance of the game (it has aspirations to become a fully fledged sport). The title: ‘Can pickleball save America?’
Yes, it can! You see, pickleball has it
Never heard of pickleball? You’ll be nuts for this easy-to-play sport before you know it, says ball-game addict Rachel Johnson
PICKLEBALL SUPERFANS INCLUDE GEORGE CLOONEY, KIM KARDASHIAN AND LEONARDO DICAPRIO
all. If you like ping pong, badminton and tennis, and can play to a basic standard quickly, then you will love it. The kit is cheap. You can pick up the basics in seconds – addicts say it’s ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ – and play to a competent level within half an hour.
Imagine a tennis court, shrunk down, four players with graphite or wooden paddles about twice the size and weight of a ping pong bat, and a plastic ball with holes that bounces, but not high. There are various strokes: the serve, underarm, into the opposite diagonal court, like tennis; the dink – bouncing the ball back and forth; the erne – a flying leap… But the game is basically serve, return and then race up, both of you, to volley the ball at each other in a blur of back and forth over the net.
I hate the word ‘sociable’ applied to games or sports, as it reminds me of bridge and bowls clubs, but pickleball really is for everyone. In the United States there are even pickleball restaurants (I imagine the vibe is a bit like those bowling alleys with burgers and fries and waitresses on roller skates).
In America there are already five million registered players, and it’s much more come-as-you-are than tennis, where mostly you have to book a court. You can just head to a facility with a pickleball court and put your name on a list. As soon as someone drops out, you can swap in. Otherwise folks just mark out their driveway or yard with pickleball lines.
It’s not supposed to be elite and exclusive, and it’s about as far removed from a lawn tennis club as you can imagine. Players of all ages, shapes and sizes muck in and out. Grandparents dink with their grandkids. You’re not supposed to have doubles pairings to crush all comers
(I took note) but rapidly the picklesphere is becoming professionalised in the US.
Not here, not yet. I played for the first time on a court next to a baby gym lesson, with three fans of the game including my partner, Chris, who wore his official pickleball T-shirt with pride.
I served, underarm – then rushed to hit the return on the volley. Fault! The return has to bounce. Next, I stepped over the line by the net when I smashed another shot. Fault! That line is to stop you goal-hanging at the net, and you have to keep behind it. Apart from that, there seem to be very few petty rules, which makes it all the more fun.
I was hooked instantly, and insisted on playing three sets* (the only thing that I
didn’t understand is the scoring – see panel, above).
So I’m not remotely surprised that it’s the fastest-growing sport this side of the Atlantic, too: the official organisation, Pickleball Ireland, will host the Irish Open from 22-25 June, 2023 at UCD.
As for me, I’m totally hooked – and I’m already wondering whether to put in a pickleball court in the back garden (and turn off the wi-fi) so my children and future grandchildren and their mates can have even more fun with pickleball than we did on those gala occasions with Swingball.
*Oh, and yes, Chris and I won all of them – need you ask?!
Head to pickleballireland.org to find your nearest place to play