At the end of the day… Aisling Bea
The first thing I do when I get home is put my hair up in a bun and take my bra off. Anything that’s restrictive, I’ve always found hard to keep on for very long. My mother took me to the doctor when I was a kid, specifically to ask why she couldn’t get me to wear shoes. I hate shoes and socks. They’re very constricting. When I go to other people’s houses I always ask if I can take them off.
My house is full of Irish trinkets. Like a big thing on the microwave that just says ‘Ireland!’ on it, as if anyone in Ireland would dare to have that. Lots of photographs of friends and family, lots of colourful things. And plants. I’ve got plants everywhere. It’s a real drain to feed them – which is maybe why I shouldn’t have kids. But I garden so much. I recently got it done up, as a treat to myself, with loads of wildflowers, and things to attract birds and bees. So it’s like an Irish meadow in the back.
I will sit and watch TV, but on my laptop around the house while I’m getting ready, as I’m quite a busy bee and I’m often off somewhere. I watch most of my TV like a radio play – I sort of listen – so I can’t watch the Scandinavian dramas as I’d have to keep going back to read it. I watch Fleabag, Game Face, Derry Girls. And I watch cookery shows while I’m cooking. I don’t watch any of my own stuff, at all, but my mother does so I’ll normally give her a little ring and go ‘Did my jokes work?’
I really love cooking for friends so I tend to have what I call seven people over, which is really always 15 because I’ll think ‘Oh John’s on his own, he’ll come over.’ I’m very bad at quantities when I cook as well so there’s always too much food and people taking food home.
I rarely switch off if I’m honest – when I have an idea, I have to write it down. Or if there’s a deadline, sometimes you have to lean into your responsibilities. Social media can never be a substitute biologically for human reaction. Writing This Way Up was lonely – you have very little interaction as all communication was via email. But I loved how collaborative the making of it was. My sister was the costume designer and Sharon Horgan was back and forth as producer.
I have insomnia. There was a bout of a week where I slept every night, and I realised that I was grasping things more; that little things weren’t setting me off. Now I use CBD oil, the Calm app, and I have big baths with a ridiculous amount of magnesium salt.
You need a whole bag. I use a whole one, every time.
And I get the odd weird dream, but sometimes they’re so obvious they’re actually just boring. Like,
I’ll dream that
I’m going onstage without knowing what I’m talking about. What could that possibly mean?
I’ve lived so much in hotels that I have a system of unpacking, putting my things in their places, and going. But I’m very rarely impressed by hotels now. The novelty wears off. You just want to clean something yourself.
‘This Way Up’ is on Thursdays on Channel 4 at 10pm, and the whole series is available on More4