{"id":463917,"date":"2026-06-06T11:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/463917\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:46:07","slug":"actor-philippa-dunne-someone-once-saw-me-in-a-play-and-said-that-i-was-disgusting-life-and-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/463917\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Philippa Dunne: \u2018Someone once saw me in a play and said that I was disgusting\u2019 | Life and style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Born in Dublin, Philippa Dunne, 44, trained at the Gaiety School of Acting and co-founded a comedy group called Diet of Worms. Her TV work includes Derry Girls<\/a> and This Is Going to Hurt. Since 2016, she has played Anne Flynn in the BBC sitcom Motherland and its spin-off, Amandaland, now in its second series; her performance won her a Bafta nomination this year. She is married with a daughter and lives in London.<\/p>\n

When were you happiest?
Any time I\u2019m in rehearsals.<\/p>\n

What is your greatest fear?
I\u2019ve a phobia of statues. It does go back to childhood. My parents brought me to look at a French church late at night. Since then I can\u2019t deal with them.<\/p>\n

What is your earliest memory?
Being about two and a half and drawing stick men on little wooden blocks with a blue marker. I thought this was the best idea and why hadn\u2019t someone thought of doing it already.<\/p>\n

What is the trait you most deplore in\u00a0yourself?
Laziness.<\/p>\n

What is the trait you most deplore in\u00a0others?
Narcissism.<\/p>\n

Aside from property, what\u2019s the most expensive thing you\u2019ve bought?
A wedding ring.<\/p>\n

Describe yourself in three words
Funny Irish woman.<\/p>\n

What makes you unhappy?
How cruel humans can be.<\/p>\n

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I\u2019m trying not to focus on disliking anything about my appearance.<\/p>\n

What is your most unappealing habit?
Negativity.<\/p>\n

What scares you about getting older?
Becoming invisible.<\/p>\n

Who is your celebrity crush?
Keanu Reeves for ever!<\/p>\n

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
An actor. I watched a lot of TV because we lived in the countryside and the weather was so bad.<\/p>\n

What is the worst thing anyone\u2019s said\u00a0to you?
Someone once saw me in a play and said that I was disgusting.<\/p>\n

Would you choose fame or anonymity?
Whatever the middle ground is.<\/p>\n

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Reality TV.<\/p>\n

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
My mother, because when I\u2019m stressed, I can be really horrible to her.<\/p>\n

What has been your biggest disappointment?
I started my career not getting jobs, but then you learn that 95% of this job is not getting jobs, and you just have to make peace with it.<\/p>\n

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
If I needed less sleep.<\/p>\n

What has been your closest brush with the law?
I am a very compliant personality, but I did get brought into the headteacher\u2019s office in school for screaming because there was a bird in the classroom. That was my closest brush with \u201cthe law\u201d.<\/p>\n

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
You are your own greatest asset.<\/p>\n

What happens when we die?
You go home.<\/p>\n

Tell us a secret
I\u2019m obsessed with cats \u2013 cat videos, talking to any cat I meet in the street.\u00a0Asking people about cats: can\u00a0I\u00a0see a picture of your cat, do you\u00a0want to see a picture of my cat? I\u00a0like them a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born in Dublin, Philippa Dunne, 44, trained at the Gaiety School of Acting and co-founded a comedy group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-463917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463917","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=463917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}