SHARON HORGAN

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Horgan is not only the star of the Apple TV+ Irish series Bad Sisters, she’s one of the show’s creators and writers and its showrunner. But writing for herself doesn’t necessarily take the pressure off her when it comes to acting in those scenes. “The big part of the problem is that when you write stuff, the last thing you think about is, usually, your own performance,” she says.

The show follows the Garveys, a family of five sisters, in the aftermath of the sudden and somewhat mysterious death of one of their husbands, the abusive John Paul (played by Claes Bang). In the first season’s final episode (spoilers ahead), Horgan’s character reveals that she was raped by her now-deceased brother-in-law, while one of her sisters confesses to the murder. “It was a big ensemble scene, and you’re doing this thing where you’ve got to pull something from deep within you, when you’re trying to live and feel the trauma of what that character is living and feeling,” says Horgan. “You need to find a bit of space for yourself and then walk out onto set and do it. There were like 500 people on set that day, and it’s not like you stop being a showrunner, because you’re still thinking about everything.”

Still, despite the overwhelming nature of the task at hand, Horgan relished the chance to work alongside so many actors she admires. “I’m learning from the actors about their characters,” she says. “I’m not trained [as an actor], and after a lot of time, I do feel a bit like, ‘What am I doing here?’ Sometimes when I’ve written a project, I feel even less like an actor. But with Bad Sisters, it’s all about the ensemble. I really felt like they were my girls, like they were my sisters.”