Monday, 30 September 2013

Interviews Adrienne O'Sullivan by DJ Forrest



In 2007 I was in Cardiff and there was a road traffic accident film on the tv called COW, about a girl called Cassie Cowan.  There were a few familiar faces, Jonathan Owen was at the crash scene, but I also recognised you as the Mum of Cassie.  It was a pretty shocking statement of what can happen if you’re texting while driving, and it’s the brutal snapping of the necks of the passengers that made me feel pretty sick.  Have you watched the film since appearing in it and has it made you more aware of the dangers of texting or using a mobile when driving?

Adrienne: Yes, it has made me more aware of texting/mobile use when driving. The film was made with Gwent Police and I wanted to do it because I have lots of nephews and nieces who were going to see it in their schools. The film was viewed more than a million times on YouTube and attracted media attention worldwide. 

How did you get into acting and who was your inspiration for becoming an actress?

Adrienne: I wanted to be an actress from an early age and was mad about period dramas such as Poldark, and of course Dr Who was a must watch in our house. Angharad Rees, who starred in Poldark, had a relative who lived up the road and I thought that if she could do it so could I.

The faeries were pretty scary in the episode Small Worlds and although a lot was CGI, did you have an idea what the creatures looked like in order to give such a terrified performance when Roy was facing his ordeal?

Adrienne: Yes, the special effects team showed us the ‘working’ CGI to give us an idea of what we were up against.

The legends and myths about Celtic folklore is a fascinating subject and many people have researched about fairies, claiming to have seen them, including some great writers.  Do you think there’s much truth in their existence?

Adrienne: Good question, I think we like to explain the unexplained in digestible ways and creating mythical creatures is an effective way to deal with the gremlins in life. Do they exist? Who knows?

And do these stories hold a fascination to you?  Such as the story of Jasmine being a chosen one to travel through time with the faeries?

Adrienne: Yes. I do think that sometimes you meet people that you think have a very old soul and seem to have timelessness about them

What was the last book you read?

Adrienne: I have two small children so I am slowly ploughing through Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Will I ever finish it? I hope so.

What new projects are you involved in that you can share with us?

Adrienne: I have spent the last few years concentrating on being a mum and my next goal is to develop a character as a long running role in a drama or series. It would be lovely to do something that is a comedy. I did a BBC Radio 4 play with Alison Steadman called Beyond Black and really enjoyed working on a script that had laughs in it.  

You trained at RWCMD (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama) was this before you became an actress or since? It looks an impressive campus, with many actors from the stage and TV on their list.  Did you meet any during your training who you later worked with on set of TV and films such as Torchwood or Submarine or Holby City?

 Adrienne: I trained as an actress at RWCMD and got a theatre job straight after college. I’m good friends with several of the actors that I was in college with.  Rakie Ayola was a year below me and is a close friend who did several years in Holby, but wasn’t there when I did my episodes. I did the Merry Wives of Windsor with Eve Myles at Ludlow Festival, so I knew Eve before filming Torchwood. Dougray Scott of Mission Impossible and Xmen fame was a year above me. I could go on, it’s a small network of actors in Wales and pretty much everyone knows each other. I played Craig Robert’s mum in a short film called Oscar a few years before filming Submarine and was so happy that he had got the role. A lovely young actor.

Was there a premise with Lynn Pierce, a background to her character?

Adrienne: Yes, there was an interesting backstory about her and her partner.  It was about the tensions in a family between your children and new partner. Who you love the most and what would happen if you lost them.

You’re from Newport, same as Gareth David-Lloyd, what are your memories of childhood growing up in Newport and has much changed over the years, when you spent 12 years in London had much changed when you returned to Wales?

Adrienne: I have many great memories of my childhood, it was a time when as a group of young kids we spent most of the day in ‘the dingle’ looking out for each other, caked in mud. Sadly as I got older Newport became a much more violent place, with lots of pubs and nightclubs.

I thought returning home to Wales was going to be so easy and when I came back it took me two years to adjust to life back home. I missed my London life but loved spending more time with my family and yes everything was different.

When you were 12 what did you want to be when you grew up?

Adrienne:  I was clear from the age of four that I would be an actress. Strange really as no one in the family did anything to do with the arts.

Who was Doctor Who when you were 12 and which is your favourite Time Lord as an adult?

Adrienne: Tom Baker. I loved his scarf and fruity voice. It made the scary bits easier to watch.

As an adult, Christopher Eccelston is my favourite Time Lord. He is a brilliant, charismatic actor. Russell T Davies is a genius and brought Dr Who into the new millennium. Thank you Russell.

What was the last film you went to see?

Adrienne: We took our children, aged 3 and 18 months at the time, to a Sunday children’s film club. The new Tin Tin movie was on and was too much for them to take. We lasted 10 minutes.

You were a newsreader on Doomsday for the Tardisodes (1 min piece before the episode) was it from this performance that you were chosen for Lynn in Torchwood?

Adrienne: No, they were cast independently. I went in for a different role for Torchwood and the director asked me to read for Lynn. We talked about previous work I’d done. I’ve played a lot of roles that involve heavy emotion and she thought I’d handle Lynn.

Fans Questions:

Kirsty Price:  How did Adrienne O’Sullivan manage to get her level of emotion to that level when Jack gave Jasmine away?

Adrienne: The challenge in acting is getting the level of emotion accurate and you often have to do the scene lots of times. You just get in to the zone and hope your ‘honesty’ comes through on screen. 

Pauline Howard:  Just wondered if you had any funny moments working on Torchwood as I know John and Eve got up to mischief, bet they made you laugh when you were meant to be sad?

Adrienne: It was a great laugh. You are reacting to thin air; you have a large wind machine blowing you over and lots of other people dealing with the same level of surrealness. It is hilarious and all of the Torchwood team were a hoot.

Claudia Lindner:  It’s often heard from actors; don’t work with children or animals, because you can only lose then.  So how was it working with a child actor, how different and in which way was it compared to working with adult colleagues?

Adrienne: I find that you have to be rock solid on your lines and be really focussed when working with children as they may not have done much acting or there will be a tight timescale to get the scenes filmed. So I spend time getting to know them, making them feel that its fine whatever happens.

Whether you work with a child or adult it all depends on their personality, experience, the atmosphere on set, scenes to be filmed and the relationship that the director develops with you.

Jess Emma Towey:  In TW how easy or difficult was it to act with the faeries considering they were special effects added later, did they use props or were you just given directions where to look?

Adrienne: We were given directions, such as, ‘look at the last tree in the row follow your eye line across the tops of the trees – when the faeries reach a certain point they will fly at you’. It is trickier than acting with real people. The Dr Who tardisode was harder as I was in a small room imagining that explosions were going off and I was about to die. I did feel a bit silly between takes.   


Special thanks to Arts & Business Cymru for the use of their photograph of Adrienne in a stunning outfit that was taken at the Arts & Business Cymru 2013 Awards.  With thanks to Suzanne Packer, Simon Harris and Glenn Edwards, the photographer.

BBC Torchwood
BBC Doctor Who
Google search 
Gwent Police for Road Safety film


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