Waking Hours

From the Olympia Theatre to Hollywood

My alarm goes off at 6.35am. I get into my workout clothes, which I put out the night before. Because I am a mother, everything has to be pre-done.

I take a 7am Pilates class. It’s a five-minute drive away from me. I live in Valley Village in LA. If you are looking at the Hollywood sign, it’s right behind it.

My son, Sullivan, is a brilliant sleeper, so we don’t get to see him until 8am.

My husband, Phil Eisen, is a freelance TV producer. The way our schedule works, he doesn’t need to leave our house until 9am, so we trade-off. I work out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, while he stays at home. We take turns.

I’m from Dublin but I’ve been in LA for nine years. I came over on an O-1 visa because of all the acting work I’d done in Ireland. It’s for artists, and you have to prove that you are the top 5pc of the talent in the country. It was very difficult to get at the time, and it’s near impossible now, with the current administration. I have a green card now because my husband is American, and I will be going for citizenship. But I’m not going to do it until we have a different president signing my paperwork. I feel very strongly about that.

I adore the weather here. I finally live where the weather suits my clothes. I’m used to the sun now. I never take it for granted, and I’ll never get over seeing oranges and lemons growing on trees in our garden. We’ve got a pool, too. I sometimes look at my son with all the blue skies and sunshine and think, ‘This is your life — you’re so lucky’. It’s just so far from what I grew up with in Dublin.

When I get back from Pilates, my husband will have Sullivan up. While he is in the middle of breakfast with him, I’ll grab a shower. Then we make sure that all the boxes get ticked, regardless of who does it. I’m almost five months pregnant with my second child, so that has affected things for the last few months. I’ve been very sick.

If I don’t have an audition or a class or a script to learn that day, I go into mum mode. I’ll bring Sullivan to a music or gym class. Everything is in the car in LA. It took me a while to get used to that. I drove a lot in Dublin, but now when I go back, I think that the roads are so narrow. I’d prefer a drive on an LA freeway over a really winding country road in Ireland. The roads in LA are actually built for cars.

I do a lot of auditions for TV and film, and I do a lot of voiceover work, too. A lot of the time, I need to send in an audio. So I record at home under a duvet because it helps with the sound. Also, I will be asked to tape my own audition and send it in. A lot of it comes down to money, and it’s cheaper to have actors self-tape than rent out a casting room for the day.

I think it’s OK if you want to murder someone for not giving you the part — it’s natural. But it’s important not to dwell on it. The most important thing is to pick yourself up and keep going. I look at auditioning like a job, and then when I get the job, that’s the fun part. It gives me so much joy, and it doesn’t feel like work. LA is the centre of the business of TV and film. The pace of auditions and the hustle here is really unlike I’ve experienced anywhere else. I got a small role in a film called

Motherless Brooklyn, which opens in cinemas in November. Edward Norton has adapted it from a novel, and he also stars in it, as well as directing it. It is set in 1950s New York, and he plays a private detective who has Tourette’s syndrome.

I play a fresh-off-the-boat young Irish girl. I have two scenes in the film; one with Edward. I was three months post-partum with my son, and I was still nursing him. I just did three days’ work on the film, but Edward made me feel so included. There was no ego, and everybody just wanted to get the best shot possible. It was fascinating to observe him act and then step out of his role to direct. I love acting. I think I came out of the womb asking for an audition. After speech and drama classes at primary school, I studied with Betty Ann Norton. I adored her, and she drilled it into me to be a professional. Even now when I’m on set, I always hang up my costumes afterwards. People from the wardrobe department seek me out to thank me for doing this. It makes you wonder what other actors do.

I started acting professionally at 12, and I was always determined that I wouldn’t put my life on hold for this career. I was no spring chicken having my son, but that’s exactly when I wanted to get pregnant. I just believe that if I continue to live a successful life and do things with joy, then the work will follow.

When people ask me what motherhood is like, I tell them that I am forever changed. There is no going back. I’m a different person intrinsically than before I had my son. I take that as a massive positive. Now one of my favourite words is ‘no’. I find it really freeing because Sullivan puts things in perspective. I don’t have time to indulge my disappointments or gripes.

He goes to bed at 6pm. Then I’ll have dinner with my husband, and we’ll catch up. Then it’s bed by 9.30pm. If it has got to 10pm and we’re still up, we look at each other and say, ‘Who are we, teenagers?’ I know that it sounds a bit sad but it’s what we need to do now — to be present for Sullivan, and to be able to learn all the lines and not fall asleep.

“I adored my drama teacher Betty Ann Norton. She drilled it into me to be a professional”