Smother star: ‘My kids have never seen me on any TV show’
SHE is now one of the most recognised faces on Irish television, but Hilary Rose says her two children have not seen one minute of her on the box.
The Smother and The Young Offenders star admits they still don’t know what her day job is.
The 42-year-old has a boy aged six and a three-year-old girl with husband Peter Foott, who created ribald comedy The Young Offenders for the big and small screen.
But she is in no rush to show her kids the wild and foul-mouthed antics of Conor and Jock, or the devious machinations of her character Alanna in Smother.
SMOTHER’S STRONG WOMEN
‘They are far too young for that. I don’t think they even know what we do,’ says Hilary.
‘The three-year-old definitely doesn’t have a breeze and I recently told the six-year-old I was a DJ.
‘I used to be a DJ years ago and that blew his mind. He was like, “Oh my God, will you DJ for me?”
‘So I said, “Er, OK.” He thinks I do that. I just don’t tell them. Dad writes stories and mum does something. He has seen nothing at all of the shows.’
Fans of Smother will be delighted to know there will be a third series of the hit RTÉ drama after the second reaches its conclusion tonight.
Hilary said she couldn’t wait to get back to Lahinch, Co. Clare, where the drama is set as she loved working on the show, particularly as there were so many strong women roles.
‘We kept on pinching ourselves on set,’ she said. ‘I’ve never worked on such a job that had so many female characters and such amazing women to work with, who are really smart, funny and really good at their jobs. We all clicked really well and it was lovely. We had so much craic.
‘I made friends for life on that job with some of these women. I always think if you can take away a few people like that from any job that’s just an added bonus of what we get to do as actors.’
The star said she loved getting her teeth into the role of Alanna as she had developed from a small role in the first series to a major character in the second culminating in the character’s explosive row at the end
of the last episode which left the Ahern family in tatters.
Hilary, who plays Mairead MacSweeney in Young Offenders, said: ‘I love comedy and drama. I feel that I’m kind of at this sweet spot where I want to be role-wise, which is really nice and interesting.
‘I always wanted to transition from comedy into drama and back and forth. Both have their pros and cons and challenges.’
■ Smother airs on RTÉ One tonight at 9.30pm