{"id":607206,"date":"2026-08-28T12:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607206\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T12:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:04:10","slug":"im-not-even-an-actor-i-was-just-grieving-rising-star-lara-ricote-on-the-heartache-behind-her-new-breakup-comedy-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/607206\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m not even an actor \u2013 I was just grieving!\u2019 Rising star Lara Ricote on the heartache behind her new breakup comedy | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Break Clause, recent graduates Lil and Ben move from Leeds to London after the former lands a job at an architecture firm. Yet as soon as the couple start settling into their new flat, everything goes horribly wrong. Ben (Samuel Bottomley<\/a>) reveals he slept with someone else at their leaving drinks the night before, so Lil (Lara Ricote) immediately ends the relationship \u2013 but quickly discovers their rental contract is far harder to get out of. Cue an agonising six months of cohabitation and a novel will-they-won\u2019t-they (get back together) setup for a winningly bittersweet new sitcom.<\/p>\n

You may recognise Ricote from recent appearances in two other Channel 4 comedies: Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping<\/a> and Sam Campbell\u2019s crackers Make That Movie<\/a> (although probably not from the \u201cfunny and crazy\u201d telenovela she briefly worked on as a teen). But Break Clause is the Mexican-American comedian\u2019s first leading role. It also happened to be the \u201cbest case scenario\u201d for Ricote\u2019s debut: let\u2019s just say getting into character wasn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n

Shortly before filming began, the 29-year-old broke up with her own long-term boyfriend. Then she moved to London for the first time. She originally played Lil in Break Clause\u2019s 2024 pilot, meaning creator Jess Bray had already shaped the character around Ricote when writing the full series \u2013 like Ricote, the character is Latin American and hard of hearing. But now the pair were in eerily similar emotional states, too. Bursting into tears at the drop of a hat was easy. \u201cI\u2019m not even an actor \u2013 I was just grieving!\u201d says Ricote. The job ultimately allowed her to \u201cprocess things. It was kind of a gift to be able to go to work and cry every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Best case scenario? \u2026 Samuel Bottomley and Lara Ricote in Break Clause. Photograph: Kerry Spicer\/Channel 4<\/p>\n

Mercifully, however, her real-life living situation was less stressful: she currently houseshares with actor and comedian Charly Clive, who offered her a room after they met on the set of Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping (and who also happens to play Lil and Ben\u2019s neighbour in Break Clause).<\/p>\n

Ricote isn\u2019t at home when we speak via video call; it\u2019s early August and she\u2019s in Edinburgh, sitting on the bed she\u2019s sharing for the month with her sister Maya, a clown, in a flat belonging to a woman who answered her Instagram plea for a room to rent at the fringe. She\u2019s at the festival to perform her latest standup show, Inkling<\/a>, which will go on to receive universal praise for its zany braininess, as well as a nomination for the main Edinburgh comedy award (the winner will be announced on 29 August).<\/p>\n

Inkling is partly themed around the aforementioned breakup \u2013 itself precipitated by an argument with a man in a museum who refused to speak more clearly even after she told him she was hard of hearing.<\/p>\n

double quotation markYour feelings are messages from you to you, and you should be checking those out!<\/p>\n

Despite the disconcerting subject matter, Ricote\u2019s natural buoyancy means it\u2019s hard to imagine Inkling being anything other than life-affirming: she begins our conversation by expressing her astonishment at the lyrical genius of David Byrne<\/a>, whose oeuvre she only recently discovered. I presume her personality also provided the inspiration for Lil\u2019s sometimes ludicrous exuberance (in one scene she impulsively joins in with a troupe of baffled street dancers), but she says that\u2019s closer to Bray\u2019s vibe. Ricote\u2019s style is slightly more cerebral; her comedy is often powered by a goofy yet genuine sense of awe at the human condition. Inkling centres on her epiphany that \u201cyour feelings are messages from you to you, and you should be checking those out!\u201d she says with evangelistic urgency.<\/p>\n

Yet much of her wonder is reserved for the strange path her life has taken. The daughter of a telenovela actor (hence that early role as \u201cMaria\u201d who \u201cjust loved her dad, loved to go to church and was brokenhearted by her mom\u2019s alcoholism\u201d), she grew up in Miami, before moving to the Netherlands to study politics. There, she started performing comedy and soon found acclaim in the UK, winning the Funny Women stage award in 2021 and the Edinburgh newcomer prize the following year. Nowadays, she is a core part of the alternative \u2013 and increasingly, thanks to her primetime TV appearances, mainstream \u2013 British comedy scene, something she finds utterly bizarre. \u201cThere are so many elements that have nothing to do with what I thought was my life 10 years ago. I\u2019m grateful but very confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a hopeful thing to bring into such a rigid world\u2019 \u2026 Lara Ricote. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/the Guardian<\/p>\n

Filming Break Clause in Manchester opposite 25-year-old Yorkshireman Bottomley (\u201cI had a real sense of: I don\u2019t know anybody like you\u201d) was also \u201csurreal\u201d. That said, Ricote has managed to find a way to rationalise her standup success. The UK has a comedy scene that embraces difference; Ricote can \u201coperate in that space because I\u2019m from random places for you guys \u2013 I\u2019m Mexican, but I\u2019m also American, but I\u2019m also Venezuelan, and Latin America isn\u2019t really a continent that [Britons] are relating to that often\u201d. The fact that her other qualities are also quite \u201crandom\u201d (\u201cthe way I talk is kind of weird,\u201d she says \u2013 she has previously described her voice as \u201cBart Simpson with a lisp\u201d) means she has avoided being pigeonholed, often an advantage for a comedian.<\/p>\n

Another upside is that she rarely gets starstruck. Break Clause\u2019s supporting cast is full of great up-and-coming comedy talent \u2013 Cat Cohen, SNL UK alumni Jack Shep and Hammed Animashaun \u2013 plus a bona fide legend in The Fast Show\u2019s John Thomson. Ricote\u2019s co-stars were \u201cfreaking out\u201d at his presence; she was nonplussed. \u201cI was like, that\u2019s so special that I get to meet him \u2026 but also not yet for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is very special, thinks Ricote, is Break Clause itself. As a viewer, it\u2019s incredibly difficult to decide whether Lil and Ben should get back together \u2013 something Ricote has a typically deep take on. She views the show\u2019s ambiguity in this area as an antidote to kneejerk judgments and an allegory for the unpredictability of life. \u201cThe premise, basically, is that people are continuous \u2013 people aren\u2019t one action. And that\u2019s such a hopeful thing to bring into such a rigid world. You want so badly to just decide: bad guy. And you can\u2019t in the series. You gotta wait. You have to see it out,\u201d she says. \u201cYou never know what things are gonna mean for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Break Clause is on Channel 4<\/a> this autumn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Break Clause, recent graduates Lil and Ben move from Leeds to London after the former lands a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-607206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}