Noni’s nature
Noni Stapleton, who plays Joan Howley in Fair City, chats to Julie Lordan about her role and why she is nothing like her Carrigstown character
It’s a measure of an actor’s success when a character is unlikeable, irritating, negative and nothing like the person who plays the role. This is certainly the case with Noni Stapleton, who arrived in Fair City as Joan Howley, stepping on a lot of toes from the get-go. In real life, Noni is bubbly, friendly and critical of her character’s faults.
Joan is an astute businesswoman, a solicitor, a fixer, mother to Cian, and now we know that she has been hiding a secret for years – she had another baby before Cian, a boy that she gave up for adoption.
Noni understands why a woman like Joan would keep her past a secret. “In some ways, I think not telling Cian might be to do with it being in the past, being buried” she says.
“It would not come into everyday conversation and she is fearful of him knowing that she has kept something so enormous from him.”
Noni recognises that it is a particularly relevant issue in Ireland. “Considering what has been going on with adopted people’s rights, it’s sensitive and as an actor I wanted to be aware of that. Joan might come across as incredibly hard, but it was a very traumatic time for her – she felt she was doing the right thing, but it could be something that is just too painful to go back into.”
Joan’s son Cian isn’t too happy at the moment, as his mother makes it clear she dislikes his girlfriend, Dearbhla. “Without a doubt, Cian is Joan’s Achilles heel. He is her soft spot, and if she feels anyone is going to hurt him it is all guns blazing,” says Noni.
“It’s not that nobody would be good enough for Cian, but as soon as there is any weakness in his girlfriends, then her interfering and protective side emerges.”
What is apparent, and what Noni puts across so well, is that there must be something good in Joan for her son to care so much for his mother, even when she tests his patience at times.
Noni sees no resemblance between herself and Joan. “I don’t think so,” she laughs “but you want to find a part of a character that you like when you are playing a baddie, but honestly, I am not like her, in as far as I am not cut-throat. Winning at all costs is really not in my make-up, but her sense of loyalty would be me.”
Besides acting, Noni is the author of a successful one-woman play Charolais, which she also starred in. The subject matter is original – a woman and her intense rivalry with a heifer!
“I’m not even from a farming background, I’m a pure townie,” says Noni. “Born in Cork, lived in Clonmel, the Curragh, Naas and then Dublin, so it’s definitely more urban, but people were surprised when they saw the play. One man’s opening gambit was “Are you beef or dairy?’ she laughs, “but I did have the great good fortune to be introduced to a Dublin farmer who helped with research. Although I didn’t reckon on his invitation to calve a cow, which involved donning a glove and inserting my arm in the appropriate place,” says Noni.
Not exactly the glamorous life we envisage
actors having! “Yes, but he was brilliant and it really helped with authenticity for the play and more importantly, to see the connection that farmers have with the land and how it is utterly unsentimental but is a deep and caring link. And out of that came a play about women and women’s journeys through life and pregnancy.”
Of course, work slowed during lockdown for Noni, although she feels she was fortunate. “I had a garden and had my partner, so I wasn’t alone or lonely, but was stressed of course. Then I got a great role in a detective drama called Harry Wild, starring Jane Seymour, which is hopefully going to be shown on RTÉ later this year. So, overall I know I was lucky, not least because nobody I was close to died from Covid.
“Unlike others, I didn’t write several plays, finish my memoirs or make banana bread – that just didn’t happen for me” says Noni. But she remained in creative mode. “I do have some ideas on the go, percolating as such, and for me that is such an interesting part of the writing process, letting the brain do its job and then it is great when you do sit down and realise the ideas are there.”
She is grateful to her parents for the encouragement they gave her when she expressed an interest in acting. “My mum is a beautiful singer and musician, so I was definitely encouraged musically. My dad died in 2004, but as I was growing up, there was such support and that continued when, in my 20s, I decided to go to the Gaiety School of Acting. ‘Give it a go’ was what I heard all the time.”
I ask what her name was short for, but it’s just Noni, a family name that meant so much to her grandmother that she requested that the baby Noni be called by that name.
“Back then, if you were Nora, you were known as Noni, so there were loads of Nonis, particularly around Limerick,” she laughs.
Out of respect for her partner, Noni prefers to keep her private life just that. “He stays out of the limelight and I totally understand that,” she says.
But the woman she portrays on screen is not going anywhere quietly, and viewers will be glad of that.