{"id":637413,"date":"2026-09-27T08:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T08:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637413\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T08:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T08:22:16","slug":"irelands-rising-star-ella-lily-hyland-people-would-say-i-was-meant-for-the-stage-because-i-was-mad-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/637413\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s rising star Ella Lily Hyland: \u2018People would say I was meant for the stage, because I was mad\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The black curtain behind Ella Lily Hyland<\/a> has dusty white smudges on it. She\u2019s backstage at the Lyttelton Theatre, part of the National Theatre on London\u2019s South Bank, and the clay substance she will later put on her face for that evening\u2019s performance seems to have got everywhere. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know that was there,\u201d she says of her backdrop. \u201cIt probably looks a bit mank.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Carlow<\/a> actor \u2013 usually Ella Lily at work, mostly Ella to her friends \u2013 is playing Chrysothemis in Electra\/Persona, a play in which the leads, Cate Blanchett<\/a> and Nina Hoss, toss a coin at the start of every show to decide which roles (two each) they will take on that night. \u201cI don\u2019t envy the challenge,\u201d Hyland says. \u201cYou could only do it with someone you really trust.\u201d I ask if she would sign up for a similarly daunting exercise some time. She loves the stage, so \u201cmaybe\u201d.<\/p>\n

This is poised to be a high-profile autumn for the rising Irish star. Tall Tales & Murder, a new RT\u00c9<\/a> crime caper, debuts this weekend, while the countdown is on for the return of Netflix\u2019s<\/a> stellar Black Doves, in which she plays a memorably offbeat assassin-for-hire. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things happening at the same time, which is really exciting, you know?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In Tall Tales & Murder, she is Bridget, a nursing-home carer who another character, Paul (Casey Walsh), describes as a \u201cbleedin\u2019 dark horse\u201d. Bridget will euthanise her patients if they ask her nicely. If attacked by someone from the \u201cencyclopaedia of bad guys\u201d, she will surprise herself by using a vape as an impromptu weapon. She\u2019s a \u201ccomplicated, contradictory\u201d person, Hyland says, and a joy to play. \u201cI think the adventure they end up going on is very much outside of her comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six-part series, commissioned by RT\u00c9 and BBC Northern Ireland, was created by Love\/Hate writer Stuart Carolan and The Thick of It star Chris Addison, who shares directing duties with Neasa Hardiman. Hyland is \u201ca big admirer\u201d of Carolan\u2019s writing, she says. \u201cI just felt really moved by what he\u2019d written. That was kind of the main draw.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show, shot in Dublin in the summer of 2025, has a screwball vibe with some surreal interludes. \u201cThe storytelling is insane,\u201d Hardiman told me last year. Does Hyland like her projects to be a little bit bonkers? \u201cYou don\u2019t want things to be mad just to be mad,\u201d she says. Tall Tales & Murder will be entertaining for the audience, she thinks, because the comedic minds behind it have taken familiar archetypes, then pulled them apart.<\/p>\n

She lives in London but loved being home in Ireland to film the show, and as it was (somewhat unusually) commissioned upfront for two series, she already knows she\u2019ll be back to shoot a second run. \u201cCan\u2019t wait for it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Our Friday afternoon chat is sandwiched between preparations for that night\u2019s Electra\/Persona and a morning spent \u201cdoing ADR\u201d \u2013 re-recording dialogue to improve on-set sound quality \u2013 for the second season of Black Doves, which arrives on Netflix on November 5th.<\/p>\n

Anchored by quality lead performances from Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, the first series of Joe Barton\u2019s high-stakes London spy thriller, released in December 2024, was smartly paced, steeped in wit and featured characters viewers were made to actually care about, making it easily the most satisfying scripted series to launch on Netflix in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"GabrielleGabrielle Creevy, Kathryn Hunter and Ella Lily Hyland in Black Doves. Netflix <\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely did a lot of things for me, Black Doves, and it was so unexpected as well,\u201d Hyland says. She uses her own accent to play Williams, a danger-embracing \u201ctriggerman\u201d who forms a double-act with fellow assassin Eleanor, played by Welsh actor Gabrielle Creavy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know what we were doing when we started filming. We were trying to kind of gauge what the tone was. Our characters were outside the tone in a way, and there was a lot of uncertainty about whether it would land. When it did, I felt like it led to a lot of other opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hopes the second season goes down as well as the first and cites the \u201camazing actors\u201d who have come on board for it, among them One Day\u2019s Ambika Mod and Neve Campbell of Scream fame. I mention that a rewatch reminded me of Sarah Lancashire\u2019s brilliant turn as an enigmatic spy handler. \u201cShe\u2019s so good, isn\u2019t she? She\u2019s like a wizard of acting.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thinks she has more verbal sparring scenes with the world-weary Sam, Whishaw\u2019s character, this time around, but she can\u2019t quite remember because the filming chaotically coincided with her casting in another play \u2013 The Unbelievers at London\u2019s Royal Court Theatre \u2013 and that time is all \u201csuch a blur\u201d to her now.<\/p>\n

By the end of the first series, Williams was showing her softer side, though she was often dubbed a psychopath in press, probably because she answered \u201cit\u2019s possible, I suppose\u201d when asked if she might be one. She\u2019s no more psychopathic than anyone else on the show, is she?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking that, actually. Someone was, like, she\u2019s a psychopath and I never really thought of her as a psycho,\u201d Hyland says. \u201cPsychopathic tendencies\u201d, sure. \u201cI would say she\u2019s quite philosophical. She thinks about life in this philosophical way, and I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s funny. You don\u2019t expect her to come out with those things and then she does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EllaElla Lily Hyland: ‘After you go through what you do in a stage job, you feel like you can kind of do anything for a little while.’ Photograph: Pip <\/p>\n

Hyland originally auditioned for the Eleanor role and thought she could \u201cbe kind of like Maura Higgins<\/a>\u201d, because the reality TV star\u2019s midlands accent is close to her own and she thought a \u201creally glam\u201d killer, with full make-up and hair extensions, would be fun. \u201cI went in talking about Love Island, and they were like, \u2018No, we don\u2019t know Love Island,\u2019\u201d she says, deadpan. The styling went in a different direction, but her initial instinct to incorporate a dash of Higgins still seems a clever one. \u201cI think she would be such an amazing assassin. Can you imagine? She\u2019d be, like, iconic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up in Carlow town, Hyland, who is now 27, \u201cdidn\u2019t like school at all\u201d and it didn\u2019t suit her, she says. But it did offer at least one chance to perform. It was during a school production of Grease the Musical in her mid-teens that she started to \u201csay out loud\u201d to her friends that she wanted to do acting. <\/p>\n

Her mother had been in Carlow Little Theatre, an amateur dramatics group, alongside an \u201camazing\u201d woman named Mary Doyle, who became Hyland\u2019s drama teacher from the age of five, and it was under Doyle\u2019s tutelage that she discovered she had a special love and knack for Shakespearean monologue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Shakespeare, I think a lot of people think it\u2019s quite intellectual, but actually there\u2019s a feeling to it. That\u2019s why I think people who learn it when they\u2019re young can understand it, because there\u2019s a rhythm and a feeling and it is more of a sensory thing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Still, drama was just one of her \u201cextracurriculars\u201d at this point. Sport was another. Hyland comes from a family of pole-vaulters: her grandfather, Dinny Hyland, was an Irish pole-vaulting champion, while her father and uncle trained kids in the sport, and her uncle still does. She was among them, doing pole-vaulting and high jump up until the age of 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that taught me a lot because there\u2019s a certain, like, discipline and focus that comes with it. A lot of the kids that went [to training] would be mad or, like, really hyper. I was one of them, you know,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"AidanAidan Gillen and Ella Lily Hyland in Tall Tales & Murder. Photograph: Pat Redmond <\/p>\n

\u201cMy da and my uncle definitely taught me how to channel my energy into a focused thing, and that really stood to me when I started getting into drama, and even now as an adult. Being able to take direction, first of all, is a positive. Everyone has the same shared goal, and there\u2019s a patience to it, and focus and all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

She joined Carlow Youth Theatre after she heard two girls talking about it, then a month later she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre, winning a role in Salt Mountain<\/a>, a play by Carmel Winters that ran at Project Arts Centre in 2015. \u201cOn the up: Ella Lily makes a confident national stage debut,\u201d read the picture caption in a review of the production in the Irish Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings started to happen really quickly. I was getting these opportunities to act and that\u2019s when I was, like, Oh, this is what I love to do,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

During her stint with the National Youth Theatre, she heard other kids talk about \u201cthis school in Dublin\u201d, meaning the Lir Academy<\/a>. She auditioned and got in. Everything just happened step by step, rather than as the result of any grand design, it seems to her now. \u201cLike, I felt like people around me would often say, \u2018Oh, she\u2019s meant for the stage,\u2019 because I was mad,\u201d she says. But it wasn\u2019t a case of \u201cI\u2019m gonna go do this\u201d.<\/p>\n

She was 17 when she started at the Trinity-based drama school, which counts Paul Mescal and her Black Doves co-star Agnes O\u2019Casey<\/a> among its alumni. \u201cI just felt so happy to be there. Being that age, I had such a sense of awe for all of the teachers and teachings. I hadn\u2019t been trained any other way, so I very much feel like I built any bit of technique there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years after graduating, she won the lead role in the Prime Video series Fifteen-Love, in which she was Justine, a traumatised tennis prodigy who makes an allegation of abuse against her former coach, played by Aidan Turner. \u201cI loved that part so much, and it was also the biggest opportunity I\u2019d had since drama school in terms of the scale of production and having to carry a show,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Fifteen-Love:Fifteen-Love: Ella Lily Hyland and Aidan Turner. Photograph: Prime Video\/World Productions <\/p>\n

The series, though fictional, was timely, as female tennis players had been increasingly speaking out about the abusive situations they were placed in when they were young. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe how common it was, this coercive dynamic that goes on between coach and players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her sporty background came in handy when she embarked on tennis lessons for the show. Thankfully, however, no one has ever tried to test her teenage pole-vault or high-jump skills on set. \u201cI probably wouldn\u2019t be able to do it now. The stunt people are fecking amazing though as well. They\u2019re so class.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ella Lily Hyland: \u2018I think we\u2019re often taught not to trust our instincts as women\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She has shown her spark in other screen roles, too, including a spot of costume-drama elegance in Towards Zero, a BBC Agatha Christie adaptation, and four days\u2019 work on A Thousand Blows, Steven Knight\u2019s Disney Plus crime series set in 1880s London. Then there was Five and a Half Love Stories in an Apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania, which involved a trip to the Baltic country for a week of party-scene night shoots. \u201cI think Ali got me that job,\u201d she says, referring to Wuthering Heights actor Alison Oliver<\/a>, her friend and Lir classmate. She hasn\u2019t seen the film, but remembers it was \u201cgas\u201d to make.<\/p>\n

Her training in Lir was a classical one, weighted towards the stage, and she wants to do more theatre if she can. \u201cIt\u2019s where you learn, where you get to fail. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything quite as electric and humbling as being in front of a live audience every night. A full audience is going to be able to tell what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not true in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

She played the title role in Grania at the Abbey Theatre in 2024, with The Irish Times reviewer praising her<\/a> \u201cstage presence and humorous delivery\u201d. Electra\/Persona, meanwhile, began in August and will continue until mid-October before being shown in cinemas here as part of National Theatre Live.<\/p>\n

A run like this requires stamina, Hyland says. \u201cIt\u2019s exhausting, but in a kind of beautiful way. After you go through what you do in a stage job, you feel like you can kind of do anything for a little while, until that wears off, because your muscle of acting and responding and creating is just so fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

She feels \u201creally lucky\u201d to be acting opposite Blanchett and Hoss and believes she is subconsciously absorbing how they go about their work. \u201cI\u2019d say there\u2019s lots that I\u2019m learning that I won\u2019t even have integrated until, like, two years\u2019 time. It\u2019s hard to be reflective or intellectual about it when you\u2019re in it. It\u2019s just more of a feeling thing. Like, I feel awe a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are her ambitions? She says she would love to do Shakespeare professionally, but she doesn\u2019t think too much about the future. Every job comes with its own beauty, its own challenges, and she feels \u201cblessed\u201d to be so busy.<\/p>\n

Tall Tales & Murder begins on RT\u00c9 One on Sunday, September 27th. The complete first series will be available to stream on RT\u00c9 Player straight away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The black curtain behind Ella Lily Hyland has dusty white smudges on it. She\u2019s backstage at the Lyttelton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[270767,28832,125349,16665,800,321,236812,93,61,60,4966,106563,709,10795,270766,1868],"class_list":["post-637413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-agnes-o-casey","tag-alison-oliver","tag-ben-whishaw","tag-carlow","tag-cate-blanchett","tag-celebrities","tag-ella-lily-hyland","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-keira-knightley","tag-lir-academy","tag-magazine","tag-maura-higgins","tag-national-youth-theatre","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637413","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=637413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}