‘THIS TIME, FOR ZAK, HE’S KIND OF sensed a different opportunity’
Fair City’s Stephen O’leary on family ties, playing Carrigstown’s Zak Dillon and joining the long-running soap… By Keeley Ryan
Fair City’s Stephen O’leary has opened up about the sweet way his mum helped him audition for his role on the show. He joined the soap as Zak Dillon back in 2021 — and told how the process of auditioning for the longrunning RTE show was a“weird one”due to lockdown.
As he was home in Cork at the time, he needed a helping hand for his self-tape — from his mum.
He recalled,“it was a weird one because it was during Covid. I was home in Cork — the first six months of Covid, my work in Dublin dried up so I moved home. I got a call from my agent on a Wednesday, telling me they were casting Zak.
“Obviously because it was during Covid, I didn’t meet anyone or anything. I got the scripts at home and taped it myself.
“Usually when I have to do a self-tape, I get one of my actor friends in Dublin or one of my buddies near home to help.
“But because I was home in Cork, I had to wait for my mum to come home and we did the scene together.
“She played the scene with me in the audition. And I’m pretty sure — I remember when I started, I had that storyline with the character Vinny. I’m pretty sure my mum played Vinny in the living room. She was delighted when I got the part — she was like, ‘oh, I did that scene with you!’”
The actor added that he felt fortunate to be able to work throughout the second year of the pandemic.
He said,“it was a new experience, for sure, with the restrictions on set, testing every day and everything like that. But I felt really, really lucky to be able to work through it.”
And while it may have been a new experience, Stephen told how there was already a familiar face on set — and how the experienced helped put him at ease.
He said,“one of my first jobs out of college was The Field by John B Keane in
The Gaiety Theatre. Geoff Minogue, who plays my on-screen dad Tommy, was in that production so we knew each other before I started on Fair City.
“It was very helpful. People have told me that before, too, that Zak and Tommy — myself and Geoff — we are very alike.
“I suppose that started on set, with having a good relationship with each other already.
“People say I sound like him and mimic his hand movements, but I think it’s something that just happens naturally, you know?
“My dad watches the show and he jokes at home,‘he’s more like your dad than I am!’”
“IT WAS A NICE JOURNEY TO PLAY HIM...”
viewers saw a different side to Zak then, where he had a bit more sense about him and it was a nice storyline.
“I can see how it’d be a bit of a let-down again, seeing that Zak has gone straight back to it.”
Stephen told how he reckons Zak is driven by“money and getting up in the world”and how the Carrigstown resident is a“lovely part to play”.
He said,“as an actor, it’s lovely to investigate why someone would be like that after being in prison — and I can look into things like his upbringing.
“Zak didn’t have a great role model growing up. His dad was going through some stuff and his mum left, he was sent to Kilkenny... Zak is a lovely part to play for me, because I can investigate those things.
“And I think this time around for Zak, it’s different — he’s mad e a decision that he’s good at what he does and nobody’s going to stop him, you know?”
The Cork native told how one of his favourite things about playing Zak is the fact that“you never know what’s coming up for him”— and opened up about the journey the character underwent over the last year.
He said,“it’s the spontaneity and the storylines — you never know what’s coming up for him.
“Whereas before, it was more of a childish thing where he was getting roped into these situations and then regretting these situations — I think that the journey for Zak over the last year is that he’s now in these situations fully and more confident in the decision that he’s made, that he is doing this.
“He feels like he’s the number one and doesn’t need to be talked down to by people.
“It was a nice journey to play for him. And it’s really fun to play a ‘bad’ character — those storylines are really fun, as an actor, to dive in to and try and find out why he’d do that.”
Stephen added that it is“more fun to play a character”who is considered the ‘bad’ guy.
He said,“i think that that’s one of the interesting things about Zak, he’s your typical ‘bad’ guy but people still see the innocence in him and the charmingness in him.
“And I think that makes it a little more shocking when he gets into these bad situations because people are rooting for him to become good, you know?”
Stephen also opened up about the moment that he realised that acting was the career path that he wanted to go down.
He said,“i moved to Dublin after my Leaving Cert when I was 18 and I’d got into drama college. But I remember having to make the decision when I was filling out my CAO and not knowing what I wanted to do.
“I’d done drama classes throughout my teenage years — my mum was an actress and she was a drama teacher.
“My older sister, Sally, was training as an actor in London and she just said to me,‘go for an acting school, if you don’t get in then you don’t get in — but if you do, you can make the decision then’.
“I went for The Gaiety School of Acting in Temple Bar and auditioned and got in. I made the decision then that like, if they want me in the course then I should go for it.
“And then there’s the training experience for two years — it’s two years extensive training, and it’s tough.you’re in every day other than Saturday.
“It was very new to me. And I think it was only after the first year, when I was starting to relax and get used to it, that I went, ‘yeah, I think I could do this’.” ■
Fair City airs on RTE One on Sunday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night and Friday night.