Norma’s too busy with work to be Dead Still for a moment
ACTRESS Norma Sheahan had to leave her vanity behind in her role as a grieving Victorian mother in RTÉ’s new hit thriller.
Since graduating from RADA in London, the Cork star has been one of the country’s hardest-working actresses with starring roles in everything from Moone Boy to The Clinic to her own stand-up show and podcast series.
Her latest turn in the macabre dramedy, Dead Still, starring Michael Smiley and based on the ghoulish Victorian practice of taking staged photographs with dead relatives for family portraits, has been receiving critical acclaim around the globe.
In the make-up trailer on the set of the RTÉ murder mystery, she underwent the opposite of a make-over to play grieving mother Lucinda Breslin. ‘They were dying my hair to be the right kind of manky for the period,’ she said dryly.
The Bridget & Eamon star was gripped as soon as she was sent the Dead Still script over two years ago.
‘I think it’s based on pretty much true stories. There are legs added to all of them. But in the 1800s if you died, we would all sit around and get a picture with your body.
‘It’s been out everywhere – New Zealand, America, Canada, it’s flying, it’s doing really well.’
The mother-of-three is using every
‘I think it’s based on pretty much true stories’
facet of her training at Britain’s most lauded academy for the dramatic arts to stay creative during the pandemic.
She has become a familiar voice to the nation after voicing some of the government’s Covid ads.
The dream would be her own show. ‘Everyone I know is on a writing team for something. Look at Chris O’Dowd, Amy Huberman, Sharon Horgan – it doesn’t exist anymore that you sit at home waiting for the phone to ring.’
Her friendship with Finding Joy star Huberman began in RTÉ medical drama The Clinic back in 2003.
She remembers the string of household names who first appeared on screen in the show.
‘Saoirse [Ronan] was in it as Rachel Pilkington’s sister.’
She jokes that Poldark star Aidan Turner, who played a receptionist on the show, was the ‘big ride’.
Chris O’Dowd was another young actor who went on to major stardom.
‘I would be good friends with Chris but I might only see him every two years,’ she said.
With Amy Huberman, they just bonded.
‘I think why myself and Amy were friends at the start was because I wasn’t on social media. I only joined social media two years ago,’ she said.
‘We could chat about normal stuff. Also, we were both parents who were trying to keep a career going because it is the oddest job, some days you have nothing and other days it’s 24/7. ‘It’s highs and lows.
‘Amy has been so good to me, everything I do she gives it a boost or a plug.
‘I think any boll***s who slags her is a keyboard warrior and they need to go and have a good think for themselves. She’s nothing but goodness.’
She laughs off being responsible for the star and her husband
Brian O’Driscoll meeting up when she orchestrated their first date with a mutual friend.
‘That is true,’ she laughs before adding, ‘Ah Jesus, he’d have found her alright.’
The actress – who has spent her life performing – is worried about friends in the arts.
‘There are a lot of theatres not opening till 2022. I am very concerned about a lot of artistic friends.
‘As my kids say, “why do you do a job where you let people tell you you’re not good enough every day?”’
But she has been kept busy. She said: ‘I had a comedy show which was selling out across the country. A few of them got cancelled due to the (pandemic) and I changed it into a podcast.’
news@mailonsunday.ie Dead Still is on RTÉ One tonight at 9.30pm