{"id":283673,"date":"2026-02-14T10:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283673\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T10:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:18:09","slug":"i-really-didnt-imagine-a-film-career-for-myself-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283673\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I really didn\u2019t imagine a film career for myself\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alison Oliver<\/a> leaps up from the couch and merrily yells out my name. We had both, apparently, been wondering if, four years ago, I was the first journalist ever to interview her. So it seems.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour name just popped up and I thought, yeah, I think that was the first one,\u201d she says, bubbling.<\/p>\n

I remember it well. It was the end of 2021, and we were putting together a list of people to watch<\/a> in 2022. Oliver, a recent graduate of the Lir, the national academy of dramatic art, had just been cast as the lead in Element Pictures\u2019 adaptation of Sally Rooney\u2019s<\/a> Conversations with Friends. <\/p>\n

As follow-up to a world-conquering take on the same author\u2019s Normal People, the series was big news and Oliver\u2019s arrival a cause for celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlison\u2019s audition tape was a revelation,\u201d Lenny Abrahamson<\/a>, director of the series, told me at the time. \u201cIn terms of subtlety, expressiveness and screen presence, she\u2019s the equal of any actor I\u2019ve worked with.\u201d<\/p>\n

This remains a tough business. Plenty of talented folk have struggled after receiving an early break. Not this daughter of Cork City. She currently occupies an ornate room on the first floor of Claridge\u2019s Hotel, in Mayfair in London. The enormous press junket for Emerald Fennell\u2019s<\/a> \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d \u2013 this season\u2019s unavoidable movie \u2013 spreads across the luxury establishment like a flowery weather system.<\/p>\n

Oliver, excellent as Isabella Linton in the film, can\u2019t have guessed where she would so soon end up when we had that phone call back in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my God, yeah,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I think back to the beginning of all of that it\u2019s just so mad. I was in the Lir and \u2013 I know it sounds modest or whatever \u2013 but I really didn\u2019t imagine a film career for myself. Like so many of us, we were just dreaming to work in the Lir or work in the Abbey or Gate or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

We will return to her cracking performance in \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d, but let us first get a handle on how quickly things happened for Oliver. <\/p>\n

\"AlisonAlison Oliver in Wuthering Heights <\/p>\n

Fennell is an important part of the story. The English director cast her as Venetia, troubled sister to Jacob Elordi<\/a>\u2019s sleek snoot, in the much-discussed, much-memed Saltburn<\/a>, from 2023. She had a key role opposite Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen in Jack Thorne\u2019s harrowing series Best Interests<\/a>. She played opposite Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in Justin Kurzel\u2019s terrific thriller The Order<\/a>, which premiered at Venice in 2024. She starred in a revival of Marina Carr\u2019s Portia Coughlan at the Almeida Theatre in London. She was in Brian Friel\u2019s Dancing at Lughnasa at the UK National Theatre.<\/p>\n

That is quite some arrival. One is minded to ask if she has had time for a quiet sit down at any point in those four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually have. I really have,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I finished Conversations with Friends<\/a> I don\u2019t think I worked again for a while. I did another TV show. Then I did Saltburn. I did three plays. But, between all of that, there actually was time in between to just land \u2013 and move to London. And I was setting all of that up for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

If she will excuse me employing such cliched waffle, Oliver appears impressively unchanged by all the kerfuffle. It is not just the work. Over the past year, Oliver has \u2013 something she, understandably, won\u2019t answer questions on \u2013 found herself adorning front pages as the partner of the none-more-hot movie star Josh O\u2019Connor<\/a>. She attended the world premiere of his film The Mastermind at Cannes. They are papped walking blamelessly down the street.<\/p>\n

Yet, dressed today in the most fabulous cocoon of bustling fabric, she sounds like the same borderline-shy Cork woman I talked with in 2022. They don\u2019t teach you how to handle the red carpet at the Lir.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there is much you can do to prepare for it necessarily,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s always nerve-racking and sort of strange. But, I guess, you find your way. Tonight, for the premiere, I\u2019m just bringing all of my friends and my parents from Cork. And I think you find your way of normalising it and having fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WutheringWuthering Heights: Alison Oliver and Margot Robbie in Emerald Fennell’s film. Photograph: Warner Bros <\/p>\n

What have her parents made of it all? She was raised in a pretty ordinary home in Ballintemple. Oliver did a few acting classes a kid. But nobody can have seen this coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so lovely,\u201d she says. \u201cI have sisters who are about six and a half years older than me, so by the time I was deciding what I wanted to do my parents were, um, lighter with me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew school wasn\u2019t really my thing. And so I think they were just really pleased that I found a thing. You always want your children to just feel they\u2019re passionate about something. And I felt lucky in that way. I don\u2019t think they ever thought it would be like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks about the lush curtains, the thick carpets and the circling attendants. She cackles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re, like. \u2018This is just mad!\u2019 Ha ha! They came here for dinner last night, and we were just laughing, the three of us. \u2018What in the world is this?\u2019 But they\u2019re so supportive. And they were just enjoying it with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Wuthering Heights\u2019 review: Less 120 Days of Sodom, more Carry on HeathcliffOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Not that you would ever mistake Oliver for an aggressive, elbow-wielding striver. She is grateful for the opportunities but unapologetic about grasping them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. You maybe don\u2019t know it, because you\u2019re living through it,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I guess there are just those sort of periods. I remember Lenny saying that, when he was in college, he was friends with Ed Guiney<\/a> and Dominic West<\/a>. You sometimes get these groups of people who are all at the same time working together. I just feel so lucky and happy for my friends who are all doing so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let us talk about her relationship with Emerald Fennell. They could scarcely come from more different backgrounds. The actor\u2019s mam is a social worker from Cork. Fennell, daughter of the jewellery designer Theo Fennell, was educated at Marlborough College \u2013 alma mater of the poet John Betjeman and Kate Middleton \u2013 before moving on to Greyfriars, a theological college at Oxford University. <\/p>\n

But they see something in one another. Oliver\u2019s turn as the damaged Venetia in Saltburn offered a poignant diversion amid the decadent pandemonium of a chaotic film.<\/p>\n

She is better still as Isabella in \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d. We first see her as awkwardly devoted stan to Margot Robbie\u2019s<\/a> overpowering Cathy. Later, now the misused wife of Jacob Elordi\u2019s<\/a> Heathcliff, she sinks into properly disturbing degradation.<\/p>\n

What explains the connection between Fennell and Oliver?<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so grateful that I met her and that we crossed paths,\u201d she says \u201cBecause I think at the time, when I was auditioning for Saltburn, I really didn\u2019t think I was going to get that part. It was so different from me in so many ways. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s amazing sometimes about directors is they can really see something in you that you don\u2019t know you have access to. I felt she really believed in me and took a chance on me in a way. Having done that, it\u2019s completely changed my life as well. I feel like I have such a close partnership with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Saltburn:Saltburn: Alison Oliver as Venetia in Emerald Fennell’s 2023 film. Photograph: Warner Bros <\/p>\n

She makes a sound point about Fennell finding something in Oliver that isn\u2019t immediately obvious on the surface. She could hardly have a sunnier demeanour in person. Yet Venetia and Isabella both, ultimately, end up in the darkest places. <\/p>\n

At least one of her scenes in Saltburn \u2013 the one where Barry Keoghan\u2019s<\/a> character pleasures Venetia orally at a particular point in the month \u2013 joined the list of those discussed endlessly as the film gathered its cult. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith those types of scenes you come to it thinking, how is this telling the story and serving the narrative? I really trust Emerald and the people that I\u2019ve got to work with. It\u2019s just a case of, what is it about that scene that\u2019s driving the story?\u201d<\/p>\n

The pre-release furore around \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d has been deafening. It was back in July of 2024 that Fennell announced she would be shooting an adaptation of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s<\/a> Gothic romance. There was some muttering. Two months later the two leads were announced, and, as Fennell surely hoped, the internet went bananas. <\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t Elordi a little, erm, white for a character that, in recent years, many had decided was a person of colour? Wasn\u2019t Robbie a little too old and a little too blond? Later, rumours emerged of rampaging violence and explicit alfresco sex amid the footage. Conservative columnists had written it off as sick filth even before a trailer had been released.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I know. Look, I think that comes with any beloved book, or any classical novel that so many people study in school,\u201d Oliver says. \u201cIt\u2019s their favourite book. That is the case for Emerald. This is her favourite book. She talked about this novel since the moment I met her. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt means so much to so many people. So, of course, people are really protective over it. But I think what she\u2019s done really well \u2013 and been quite clear about from the offset \u2013 is that it\u2019s absolutely her version, her interpretation of it. The movie is her exploring what Wuthering Heights made her feel when she was 14, when she first read it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlisonAlison Oliver at Spencer House in London, England. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Hence Fennell\u2019s decision to place inverted commas around the title. Indeed, she has argued that all adaptations should nest the source\u2019s name in such quotation marks. What was Oliver\u2019s own relationship to the text?<\/p>\n

\u201cI had actually picked it up when I was a teenager and didn\u2019t finish it, which was silly,\u201d she says. \u201cBut then I came back to it, weirdly, two or three years ago. I was doing Portia Coughlan, and I remember Marina Carr<\/a> said Portia and Gabriel were like Cathy and Heathcliff. I thought I should read it again. And I was just so blown away by it. So when Emerald said she was going to make it I got so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whirlwind continues, and Oliver seems happy to be swept up in its passage. She has recently settled into a new flat in the Kentish Town area of northwest London, but she knows the actor\u2019s life could land her at any of the earth\u2019s imagined corners.<\/p>\n

Cinema? Stage? Telly?<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth doing screen and theatre have their fearful parts,\u201d she says. \u201cI personally love rehearsing. I love getting into a room with people when it isn\u2019t yet the finished product and messing around and playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Home still beckons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to come back sometime and do a play in the Abbey<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s still my dream \u2013 or in the Gate<\/a>. Hopefully soon. But nothing is planned. Nothing is planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWuthering Heights\u201d is in cinemas from Friday, February 13th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alison Oliver leaps up from the couch and merrily yells out my name. We had both, apparently, been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[158282,34718,54883,430,158280,4715,158279,22375,13535,156,9822,158283,13271,142926,158277,18566,158281,111,139,69,467,158278],"class_list":{"0":"post-283673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-abbey-theatre","9":"tag-alison-oliver","10":"tag-barry-keoghan","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-dominic-west","13":"tag-eanna-hardwicke","14":"tag-ed-guiney","15":"tag-emerald-fennell","16":"tag-emily-bronte","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-for-you","19":"tag-gate-theatre","20":"tag-jacob-elordi","21":"tag-josh-o-connor","22":"tag-lenny-abrahamson","23":"tag-margot-robbie","24":"tag-marina-carr","25":"tag-new-zealand","26":"tag-newzealand","27":"tag-nz","28":"tag-paul-mescal","29":"tag-zara-devlin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}