Cover story: The many roles of Jenny Dixon
She made her name on Fair City but now Jenny Dixon tells Niamh Walsh she’s thrilled to be back in the classroom
JENNY DIXON is using her training as both a teacher and an actor to educate and inspire future generations. The former Fair City star was a science teacher before she found fame on screen, and a chance lunch with a school vice principal prompted her return to academic interests.
‘It’s like two worlds colliding. I am doing some part-time teaching. I was out for a lunch celebrating my one-year wedding anniversary and we were having a bridesmaids’ and mums’ lunch,’ she recalls.
‘It was a double celebration because I had just signed to a UK agency. So I was telling the story of how the UK agent came about and one of the mothers who was there, she is a vice principal, and it came up in conversation. I have qualifications in teaching. She said “Oh, would you be able to do some work for us?” and I was like, “this is not what I expected.” But I didn’t think any more of it because we were just
‘There had been a bit of chat with Leo’
having lunch and it was a lovely day and there was lots of chat.’
The vice principal, sensing she had talent in her midst, set about persuading Jenny to take a leap back to education.
‘Then it was said a few more times and by the end of the two-hour lunch she said she would really like me to come in. The next day I got a call to see if I could come in.’
Since the end of last summer, Jenny has been teaching part-time, a decision she says she mentioned to her politician husband Tom Neville and their good friend Leo Varadkar, who also made himself available in medicine during the Covid-19 crisis.
‘There had been a little bit of chat with Leo but it wasn’t a case of one way or the other. There was just a chat about keeping busy during these times. Leo and Matt were at our wedding. We had met at Christmas. There’s not the meeting up with people like there was a year back,’ Jenny says.
In fact, Leo even referred to Jenny’s reprisal of her teaching career on the Claire Byrne Show when talking about the fall in employment in many sectors.
Jenny said she is just grateful that opportunity came knocking that fateful lunch date day. ‘I have been very grateful for all the opportunities that have come my way, especially during these times. I am doing some acting workshops with Transition Year students. Obviously, my background is science so I have been doing science and some religion. It’s part-time hours so it fits in with everything I am doing. It’s my two worlds converging and it has worked during these strange times. I had been in the school but now it’s all on Zoom.
‘They [the students] do recognise me. But they are very liberal – they are very accepting. The arts are held in a high regard, there’s less boxing of categories going on. Students will talk about Fair City or panto and there are lots of questions.’
Jenny said her story illustrates to students that there are many roads to success.
‘One student told me it was inspiring just as we were starting science. So that was nice, to have that word thrown into the laboratory, that you can do both worlds and have appreciation for two different things. They ask lots of questions; they are interested, they are so nice.’
But Jenny says there can be pressure to prioritise academic interests. There can be sometimes too much pressure put on to categorise into one thing whereas you can do a plethora of other things too. I think we crave it. Our two sides of the brain crave a bit of
‘The students recognise me, they’re so nice’
both. The feedback I have got from some of the management and the students has been nice.
‘I saw that before – students being interested in what one person has chosen to do. And interests can be almost infectious
and that is a good thing when passions are shared. So I see that in the students who say they love science but they also like acting or musical theatre.’
Having two vocations has allowed Jenny to broaden her horizons even during these restrictive times.
‘More and more so in current times you can do both, you can do many things. As humans we are so adaptable and I think current times has really proven this. I am aware that I have opportunities.
‘It’s not been an easy time for anyone. There have been times I’ve not been as busy so I realise how I am blessed to be busy and I am grateful for that. It’s not the way for everybody and it’s not the same across the board. So I realise I am very lucky.’
Not content with teaching and auditioning, Jenny has also taken to learning Chinese.
‘An opportunity came up that they were looking for more people to be adept in speaking Chinese. Then you would have a diploma in teaching Chinese.
‘I’ve always loved Asia and I have travelled to Hong Kong, the Philippines and most of South-East Asia. It is a culture that I really appreciate. I’m learning Chinese at the moment.
‘It’s totally different, the letters, the alphabet, the sounds. I’m trying to learn it like an acting performance and to be a character allows me to lose the inhibitions and do the sound better.’
But she is itching to return to the stage and screen.
‘Between my two agents I have a really good team. There have been some really good auditions but
they are on hold at the moment. When things do open up I think there are a lot of projects that will be ready to go.
‘A lot of actors are using lockdown time to do more training so I’ve been training my singing and my accents.
‘I think when you are recharged in a way it can propel you to use your time efficiently.
‘I find I am more productive the busier I am.’
Jenny and Tom’s first year of
‘It’s been a crash course in marriage’
married life has, she says, been memorable.
‘We are in our first year of marriage. It’s been crazy. Little did we know when we said I do, a few weeks later it would be 24/7.
‘It’s like a crash course in marriage. I think like everyone you go through all the moods of lockdown.
‘I always had a good idea of him as a person from the very start... so it’s not that I learned anything new about him, but I suppose it has just reinforced everything I know.
‘We are both into the same things. He’s not learning Chinese but he is definitely supportive of me doing it.
‘I just told him I’d signed up to the diploma in UCD and he just started laughing and said, “fire away”.’