MovieGuide special Michael Doherty chats to actress Karen Hassan, star of Cellar Door
Michael Doherty sits down with actress Karen Hassan, star of Cellar Door, a compelling new drama being released in Irish cinemas this week
If it’s true that every actor wants to avoid being typecast, Karen Hassan has succeeded in spades. e Belfast actress rst made her mark in Hollyoaks in the role of Lynsey Nolan, a character whose dramatic demise became a cause célèbre on the popular soap. Karen has since taken on dramatic roles for TV in e Fall and Vikings, while also making her comedic mark in So Border Patrol and Amy Huberman’s Finding Joy. Not to mention plenty of stage work and a smattering of feature lms
is week, Hassan takes the lead in Viko Nikci’s debut feature, Cellar Door; a moving drama about a young woman attempting to rescue her son from a mother-and-baby home. Shot in a non-linear fashion with echoes of the time-twisting drama Memento (2000), Cellar Door was a challenging proposition, but one which Karen Hassan took head-on. “At the outset, I was just sent the sides [scenes to be shot on a given day], so I didn’t really know what to make of it!” she recalls. “A lot of the dialogue wasn’t yet joined up so that was a real challenge. I was given the script when I met with Viko to talk about the part. I le a er reading it and thought, I need a strong cup of tea! I was crying when I rst read it. It really touched me. I knew it would be a very special part and I’m very grateful that they chose me for it.” Landing the part was just the start. ere followed a long and detailed process during which that original script was transformed into a nished feature. ‘” ere were many di erent stages to it,” she explains. “I did two months prep because I knew I’d have to hit the ground running. en there was the actual lming of it and here I’ll steal Viko’s phrase because he describes it as a ‘fever dream’. en there was a full year when we didn’t hear anything because Viko was locked in his editing suite putting this jigsaw puzzle together. While we were shooting, things weren’t carved in stone. You could drop lines and say whatever came out of your mouth or turn le or right if you felt that was appropriate. at lming style is very freeing, but then it’s the editor’s job to si through all the footage and seamlessly join it all together. I was blown away by the nished product.” e nal lm is one of the most stylish and original Irish debuts in recent years, with a complex but fascinating plot that is so fraught on the spoiler front, it’s best not to talk too much about the unfolding narrative. What we can talk about is the splendid cast. Cellar Door revolves around Karen, but she is surrounded by some ne acting talent, including Stella McCusker, Ian McElhinney, Catherine Walker and Mark O’Halloran. “ ey are brilliant and they were also like a life-line to me,” says Karen today. “I was so immersed in my character and everything that was going on in her life, it was important for me to feed o their energy. I mean, Catherine Walker’s performance is unbelievable and I felt that when I was acting opposite her. I sometimes felt myself reaching out to her, ‘help me to get this scene right!’ It really was collaboration and it really was a stellar cast.”
Looking at her CV to date, it’s clear that Karen Hassan is not a performer who is easily pigeon-holed. Her career started on a soap opera but then took in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles, each of which brought the Belfast actress to a wider audience. “It’s good that you’re saying I haven’t been pigeon-holed,” she laughs. “When you start out in acting, the dream is to play di erent roles that really speak to you, but they don’t always land on your table. Other projects arrive and you give them your best. I’ve been fortunate that some of the stu that has landed on my table has done really well. If I had wanted to stay in the same type of role, I would have stayed in Hollyoaks. I loved working on that show and it brought me so much happiness but I knew that I wanted to do other stu . I was actually shooting Hollyoaks and e Fall at the same time and as soon as e Fall script landed on my desk, I thought this is what I want to be doing – good, hard-hitting drama.”
ere’s a real sense in the Irish lm-making community that this is a good time for the industry; not just in terms of scriptwriting, directing and acting talent, but also for the drive to gender equality. “I can de nitely feel that things are changing in that regard,” says Karen, “though it still has a long way to go. It’s still not 50/50, but the types of roles landing on our desks are not just there to service a man’s story. at used to happen quite a lot. I have played many a part where I had to ght to get a character name because she had been labelled ‘the girlfriend’ or ‘the shop assistant’. You just think, Oh, man! But when you look at the strong characters, both male and female, that are out there now, it has to be a good thing. Women’s stories are now being explored more. Actually my colleague and friend, Claire Cooper, found a really interesting story so we have been writing together to try and make it into a TV series. It’s a story that champions female actors of a wide age range. I really enjoyed the writing process and we worked hard at it. We want to challenge ourselves and we have a lot of ideas, but acting will always be my rst love.”
Cellar Door opens in selected cinemas this weekend
““I can definitely feel that things are changing: the types of roles landing on our desks are not just there to service a man’s story