Big hit on the small screen...
Ruth leads the wave of Irish stars taking up massive TV series roles
IRISH stars are ditching movie roles for TV superstardom as big budgets and top scripts get in on the act.
Some of our biggest household names including Colin Farrell, Ruth Negga, Colm Meaney and Ciaran Hinds have all signed up for new series on the small screen.
After getting an Oscar nomination for her role in Loving, Limerick actress Ruth
Negga could have had her pick of movie roles. Instead, she returned straight to the set of Preacher, the series that has made her an international star.
The 35-year-old actress – who found fame in Love/hate – is currently filming the second series of the show with reallife boyfriend Dominic Cooper.
She plays the badass Tulip in the AMC series, about the violent and twisted adventures of a preacher and his partners in crime.
In the coming months, Colin Farrell will follow up on his True Detective role by returning to the small screen to play a notorious character.
The Dubliner, 40, takes on the role of US marine Oliver North in a new series for Amazon about the Iran-contra scandal. The series is to be directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who he worked with on dark comedy The Lobster.
The series will tell the story of how US officials facilitated the secret sale of arms to Iran in the 1980s, despite there being an arms embargo at the time.
Ciaran Hinds has also made the move to TV, and will star in AMC’S new series The Terror opposite Jared Harris.
Based on an acclaimed novel, the series is set in the 1800s, when a Royal Naval expedition at sea is attacked by a mysterious and terrifying predator.
And Colm Meaney, who has increasingly mixed up movie roles with TV series in recent years, has another forthcoming series under his belt.
The actor has signed up for a leading role in Will, a quirky new series about William Shakespeare’s “lost years” when
he first moved to London and joined the party set. With the hope of captivating the public in a huge hit such as The Sopranos or Breaking Bad there is no shortage of takers for the small screen. And younger stars are finding their breakthrough roles by landing leads in high-profile series. Dubliner Amy Shiels will see her star stock rise considerably when the eagerly awaited
new series of Twin Peaks, in which she has a starring role, debuts at the Cannes Film Festival next month to huge worldwide expectation.
The first two episodes will be shown at Cannes before airing on American TV, and Shiels is believed to be at the centre of the murder and mayhem in the new series from top director David Lynch.
The extraordinary cast also includes a returning Kyle Maclachlan and Naomi Watts. Actress Dominique Mcelligott is following up her stint on House of Cards with a starring role opposite Kelsey
Grammer and Lily Collins in new series The Last Tycoon.
The actress has bagged a leading role in the Amazon series, which centres on a powerful studio executive in 1930s Hollywood.
Patrick Gibson may not be a household name here, but the Dubliner has become a superstar thanks to his role as the troubled Steve Winchell in Netflix’s supernatural smash The OA.
The twisting drama mystery about a woman who returns home after going missing for seven years has hugely boosted the young actor’s profile and he has already banked several new roles, including Sky’s new activism series Guerilla, where he stars opposite Freida Pinto and Idris Elba. Next month, Donegal teenager Amybeth Mcnulty will be beamed to audiences worldwide as the title character in Netflix’s new take on the classic story of Anne of Green Gables. The youngster will carry the series, which follows the trials and challenges of a young orphan sent to work with a pair of elderly siblings who had expected to adopt a boy to work on their farm.
Kerry actress Jessie Buckley is also enjoying growing heat thanks to a string of TV roles.
The 29-year-old, who got rave reviews for her role in TV miniseries War & Peace, has two new series coming up.
She will star with Tom Hardy in the shipping drama thriller Taboo, and is currently filming The Last Post, the story of a British army conflict with a Yemen insurgency in the 1960s.