{"id":203949,"date":"2025-10-10T22:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/203949\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T22:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:08:07","slug":"tech-terror-and-tom-hollander-niamh-algar-on-her-wild-new-tv-thriller-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/203949\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech, terror and Tom Hollander: Niamh Algar on her wild new TV thriller | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

Explosions weren\u2019t a problem, nor were the guns, fire, multiple fights and a spell underwater \u2013 but dealing with cockroaches? The line was drawn. \u201cThat was the one stunt we weren\u2019t allowed to do,\u201d says Niamh Algar<\/a> with a laugh, \u201cbecause cockroaches are actually quite dangerous.\u201d Plus, she says with a wry smile, you can\u2019t train one not to bite. It\u2019s not too much of a spoiler to say her character in the new Sky Atlantic show The Iris Affair has a run-in with a bug infestation \u2013 CGI it turns out, and fakes made by the props team \u2013 that makes her other encounters with corrupt police, internet sleuths and a potentially malevolent megaquantum computer seem tame.<\/p>\n

Algar, most recently seen in the ITV thriller Playing Nice<\/a> with James Norton earlier this year, plays Iris Nixon, a genius who is on the run having disappeared with a notebook that contains the encrypted activation sequence needed to \u201cwake\u201d a supercomputer. She stole it from Cameron Beck (a typically wonderful Tom Hollander), who has borrowed vast amounts of money so that in a brutalist bunker somewhere in the Italian mountains he can make the machine, named Charlie Big Potatoes \u2013 \u201cwell, he\u2019s not small potatoes,\u201d says Beck of the most powerful computer ever built. His\u00a0life now depends on getting\u00a0it\u00a0going again.<\/p>\n

\u2018Could AI wipe out the human race? It\u2019s a terrifying concept \u2013 and a very relevant question right now\u2019 Niamh Algar photographed in London for the Guardian. Photograph: Alicia Canter\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fast and fun, while also getting at the big existential questions about technology, consciousness, ethics and whether we\u2019re all on a runaway train \u2013 right now, with AI \u2013 that will wipe out humanity. \u201cI think if you were to look at a narrative like this 20 years ago you would be like, that\u2019s so sci-fi,\u201d says Algar. \u201cI don\u2019t think we realised how quickly technology was going to advance. The idea of building a computer and technology that is so advanced that it might have the capability to solve huge questions, like the cure for cancer? But then, does it also have the ability to wipe out the human race? It all depends on the hands controlling it, and it is a terrifying concept \u2013 and a very relevant question right now.\u201d Iris, she says, \u201cis very suspicious of the\u00a0whole thing, and I think there\u2019s\u00a0reason\u00a0for\u00a0it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t ever get to know much about Iris, only that she is superhumanly clever, supremely capable and physically strong (she also has a nice way with tailoring). Is it hard to play someone without any backstory? \u201cNo, I think it\u2019s more interesting because sometimes you feel like you have to honour a backstory.\u201d Though she did come up with a bit of her history, which she sent to Neil Cross<\/a>, the writer (who also created Luther<\/a>), just to give herself a foothold.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not like anyone I\u2019ve got to play before,\u201d she says, when we speak over Zoom, with Algar at home in London. \u201cIt was hugely enjoyable. And to play an enigmatic genius, it\u2019s fascinating to get inside that.\u201d Iris also doesn\u2019t go in for emotion, but Algar defends her against suggestions she may be a psychopath. It\u2019s more, she says, \u201clike a coming-of-age story for someone who, as an adult, is trying to understand emotion and relationships later in life. I look at her almost like this computer. She looks at something, she copies it, she stores it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great role for Algar, whose first big breakthrough was as troubled young woman Dinah in Shane Meadows<\/a>\u2019s 2019 Channel 4 series The Virtues<\/a> and who starred as a consultant doctor under incredible stress in ITV\u2019s 2023 drama Malpractice<\/a>. Both were tough and brave, but playing Iris, not someone wounded by trauma or particularly emotional was, says Algar with a small laugh, \u201creally freeing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Data retrieval \u2026 Algar with Tom Hollander in The Iris Affair. Photograph: Sky UK Ltd\/PA<\/p>\n

This summer, she worked on a film in Ireland, based on Anna McPartlin\u2019s novel The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes, in which a dying woman is surrounded by family and friends. \u201cIt was a beautiful script,\u201d says Algar, and it was also the first time she had worked on a production where there was a mental health adviser on set. Just as intimacy coordinators now routinely work on sets, to ensure comfort and safety in vulnerable scenes, the emotional toll of acting seems to be taken more seriously. Of course it\u2019s acting but, says Algar, \u201cyou are exploring emotions and you can trigger something within you that you didn\u2019t realise. You have to be mindful that you\u2019re portraying the human condition and not take for granted that sometimes your body doesn\u2019t know\u00a0the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Algar grew up in Mullingar in Ireland, the youngest of five. There was an arts centre opposite her primary school and she remembers taking drama workshops there, and falling in love with acting. \u201cIt\u00a0just brought me so much joy. It\u2019s a sense of play that is, for me, hugely addictive. I think it\u2019s escapism. You\u2019re escaping into a different world, putting on someone else\u2019s shoes for a moment.\u201d She wasn\u2019t from a family with connections to the arts \u2013 her father was a mechanic, her mother a nurse \u2013 but becoming an actor didn\u2019t feel as if it was an impossibility. \u201cI looked at it as a huge, exciting challenge,\u201d she says. She moved to Dublin to study design, her parents encouraging her to think about a more stable job, while also taking acting classes, writing and performing in theatre roles; alongside that, she had worked as a runner and in the art department on film sets.<\/p>\n

Having moved to London, it was her role in The Virtues, starring Stephen Graham, that allowed her to give up her pub and temping jobs to focus on auditions. Algar had grown up watching Meadows\u2019s films. \u201cHe gave me a huge sense of ownership over character,\u201d she says. \u201cHe instils an immense work ethic.\u201d Was it intimidating to go on to a show such as that, so early in her career? Did she have self-doubt or imposter syndrome? \u201cI think imposter syndrome is unavoidable, like, I didn\u2019t train, I\u00a0didn\u2019t do the drama school way into acting.\u201d When Algar first came to London, she says, she planned to say she had been to drama school in Ireland. \u201cBut it\u2019s not like medicine,\u201d she says with a laugh, \u201cwhere you go, yes, you need eight years\u2019 experience to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In cahoot \u2026 Algar with Julianne Moore in Mary & George. Photograph: Rory Mulvey\/Sky UK<\/p>\n

Surely, with the career she is building, she doesn\u2019t feel like that now? \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s ever going to go away,\u201d she says. Algar remembers Julianne Moore, on Sky\u2019s historical drama Mary & George<\/a> \u2013 Algar played her lover \u2013 admitting to nerves before filming. \u201cI was like, how are you nervous? You\u2019ve got Academy awards, you\u2019ve\u00a0worked with some of the most established film-makers, it always looks effortless.\u201d It\u2019s that old quote, she points out, about the moment you think you know everything is the moment you stop learning. \u201cSo I think imposter syndrome has benefits to it. Every set is different. You always feel like you\u2019re going back to school on every production, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever met an actor that\u2019s not said they\u2019ve been nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there added pressure when you\u2019re the lead? It\u2019s not that it doesn\u2019t enter her head, she says, but \u201cyou take it week by week\u201d. She was inspired by the actor Helen McCrory on the BBC drama MotherFatherSon. It was one of Algar\u2019s first jobs and she had long admired McCrory; she was excited to have a big scene with her but it was cut, the news delivered by McCrory herself, who then stayed for a long chat, dispensing career advice. Most other lead actors, she says, wouldn\u2019t have thought anything of allowing a runner to tell the unknown actor their scene had been cut. McCrory lobbied for a smaller scene to be shot. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget that, because that is the definition of a generous actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

So now, leading a production such as The Iris Affair, she says, \u201cit\u2019s being aware that you can set the tone.\u201d She adds, \u201cTom [Hollander] is brilliant in that sense.\u201d Presumably, their quantum computer co-star Charlie Big Potatoes was less good. The day before we speak, Algar saw the viral clips of Tilly Norwood<\/a>, the AI-generated actor that has drawn condemnation from actors and performing arts unions. \u201cI think as humans, we connect to each other on a very human level, and I don\u2019t think you can ever replace that.\u201d Then she adds with a laugh, \u201cI try not to think about it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Iris Affair starts on Thursday 16 October, Sky Atlantic, 9pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explosions weren\u2019t a problem, nor were the guns, fire, multiple fights and a spell underwater \u2013 but dealing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-203949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}