Dublin Murders As the major crime drama kicks off this week, Michael Doherty chats to one of its stars, Sarah Greene
There are a number of psychological crime thrillers in the autumn schedules, but few have been as anticipated as Dublin Murders. For one thing, it’s based on Irish-American crime writer Tana French’s bestselling Dublin Murder Squad novels. en, the eight-part series was written by acclaimed TV dramatist Sarah Phelps, whose previous credits include e Casual Vacancy and e ABC Murders. Finally, there’s the cast. Not since Love/Hate have we seen such an array of Irish acting talent on the small screen. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Moe Dunford, Leah McNamara, Conleth Hill and Peter McDonald all feature; but the drama itself unfolds through the eyes of two homicide detectives played by Killian Scott and Sarah Greene.
ough she has been associated with many leading actors over the years, from Suranne Jones to Keeley Hawes to John Malkovich, screenwriter Sarah Phelps declared herself “in total awe of our peerless cast of blazing Irish talent”. One of these blazing talents is Cork actress Sarah Greene, who recently wowed cinema audiences with her searing performance in Paddy Breathnach’s homeless drama, Rosie, and she is currently shooting an adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People for Lenny Abrahamson. While both of those dramas o er strong characters, the actor was particularly intrigued by the opportunity to take on the role of Detective Cassie Maddox.
“Cassie is a young detective on the Murder Squad,” she explains. “She worked her way up at quite a young age by doing a stint undercover in order to get onto the Squad, so she’s really ambitious. I suppose she’s very manipulative, too, which you have to be when you’re working undercover. It’s like the best acting job of your life!”
Something else that sets Cassie apart is the fact that she is very much a woman in a man’s world (the series opens in 2006 at the height of the Celtic Tiger), who faces discrimination and sexism among her peers. “She’s the only woman on the squad at a time when there are jokes made about the size of her t*ts, because you could still do that then,” says Sarah. “So it’s a very di erent world. Cassie experienced major trauma as a child, so there are two sides to her personality, with the darker side always kind of threatening to come out. And sometimes she taps into that dark side for her work.”
Such an intriguing back story is meat and drink to any actor, and Sarah Phelps has hinted, quite cryptically, that it was Cassie’s intelligence and imagination that saved her life as a small child. “I’m afraid to say too much about that!” laughs Sarah, “but all will be revealed as the series unfolds.
It is fair to say that the coping mechanisms of Cassie’s young life provide resources she taps into for her career. is is actually something she shares with her partner, Detective Rob, played by Killian [Scott].
Both have gone through something quite traumatic in their childhood and the guilt of surviving those experiences is something that binds them together. ey have become the keepers of each other’s secrets; they know everything about each other and they’re very protective of each other. ey’re a really good partnership.”
In the opening episode of Dublin Murders, that partnership is put to the test when the detectives are called upon to investigate the murder of a young girl, a tragedy which evokes strong echoes of the past for a tight-knit Dublin community. is isn’t your typical buddy-buddy cop scenario, or a typical good cop-bad cop scenario: both detectives have their own agendas and both are battling their own demons. “Cassie is more personable and better in social situations,” says Sarah, “whereas Rob is more of a loner. Cassie is emotionally intuitive where Rob is more forensic and has time to focus on those microscopic details because, for one thing, he doesn’t have much of a life outside of his work. Not that Cassie isn’t devoted to her work, too, but she has other things going on in her life, including a partner [played by Moe Dunford].”
Given that Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels are so popular, I wonder if Sarah went back to the source material to nd Cassie, or if everything she needed was contained in Sarah Phelps’ script? “I completely found her on the pages of the script,” she explains. “I did order the rst two books in the series [ Into e Woods, e Likeness] and by happy accident, in terms of this adaptation, e Likeness arrived rst and I devoured it. It was like reading someone’s diary because it’s all in the rst person. So that
was handy for learning about who Cassie was before I even got to read the scripts. I was very lucky to have access to those details but, to be honest, Cassie is all there on Sarah’s pages. I think Sarah is an incredible writer. Yes, Dublin Murders is a crime drama following two detectives, but it’s not your standard procedural. Every person in Sarah’s world is a 3-D character with an authentic voice and the description of everything in the world around us is also very detailed. Her scripts are like novels in their own right.”
All of which suggests that the script was pretty much carved in stone. “Sarah’s writing is so good,” says the actor, “you’d be very slow to deviate from what she’s written. But there were a few things here and there that I thought sounded a bit twee or sounded a bit more British than Irish. Sarah was incredibly open in that regard. Towards the end, as we were wrapping up, there were one or two things I questioned. By that stage, I loved Cassie and was ercely protective over her, having lived with her for seven months. I know how she would react and how she would do things. My instincts were listened to and that was very rewarding as it did feel very collaborative from start to nish.”
In addition to immersing herself fully in the role of Cassie Maddox, Sarah also found herself su ering for her art, courtesy of an early accident on set. “I was injured for much of the time on Dublin Murders,” she laughs. “I fell down the stairs during rehearsals and pulled my neck out. I was being a dope and messing during rehearsals and my boot slipped. I couldn’t move and ended up in hospital, thinking I was having a heart attack at one point! ere were lots of pains and aches, but I’m hard as nails and the show must go on!’’
e show has been going on for Sarah Greene since she graduated from the Gaiety School of Acting in 2006 and made her TV debut with a small role on Bachelors Walk that year. She has subsequently featured in TV series such as Raw, Vikings, Rebellion, Ransom and most famously, Penny Dreadful (as the witch, Hecate Poole). Her big-screen credits include
e Guar d (2011), Noble (2014), Black 47 (2018) and the title role in the aforementioned Rosie (2018); while the Cork star has also made a huge mark on stages, ranging from Dublin’s Abbey eatre to London’s West End to Broadway, where her performance in Martin McDonagh’s e Cripple of Inishmaan was universally acclaimed and nominated for a Tony. Despite shining on all three platforms, Sarah nds it di cult to choose a favourite. “ ey are all very di erent mediums,” she explains. “If you had asked me that a few years ago, I would de nitely have said theatre; but between Rosie and Normal People and now Dublin Murders, it’s more and more interesting. I’m feeling the same satisfaction and pride that I used to feel when working in theatre. Every two years, I like to get back to the theatre because there’s nothing like it. It’s where I grew up. I’m so at home on the stage, but I’m de nitely feeling more at home in front of the camera now, which is good! Creatively this is a very satisfying time for me. I count my lucky stars and I’m grateful to be getting these meaty and juicy roles!”
“Dublin Murders is a crime drama following two detectives, but it’s not your standard procedural“