Leah McNamara: ‘I want to be doing this when I’m an old lady’
Leah McNamara in vintage Mickey Mouse T-shirt; shorts: FRAME £195; Earrings: Auro London
She was the schoolgirl who came between Marianne and Connell in the TV adaptation of Normal People and now takes the lead in Sky’s new dark comedy thriller Then You Run. Barley’s Tom Pattinson meets Leah McNamara and finds the quietly driven Irish actor charting a determined path to screen stardom
Whilst waiting for Leah McNamara, in the garden of an East London café, I start to worry that the oasis of flora festooning this concrete desert could turn out to be something of a nightmare for the young Irish actor’s hay fever.
The previous day, McNamara was in south London, having her photograph taken for Barley’s first digital cover. In between bouncing on sofas and expertly steering a vintage Alfa Romeo around the block for the shoot, she was popping Piriteze to keep the effects of her allergy at bay. Now, I wonder, have we picked the wrong location for the interview?
It seems not. She arrives wearing casual jeans and a blue striped t-shirt, her long blond hair flowing against a fresh, well-rested face. We order cans of her favourite CBD drink (Grapefruit and Mint for me, Pomegranate in Ginger for her) and, pleasingly, there isn’t a red eye or sniffly nose in sight.
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She was up ‘early’ for an 11am appointment this morning – she’s late to bed, late to rise, she tells me – and now at a comfortable hour in mid-afternoon, she sits relaxed in her local café. Without an army of photoshoot assistants fluttering and fiddling with wisps of hair or touching up eyeliner, she seems more confident and much chattier.
She tells me that she’s more comfortable being in front of a TV camera than posing for a magazine shoot. It’s something she’s going to have to get used to. Her career is on a promising trajectory.
‘Then You Run is a fast-paced if, at times, unsettlingly violent drama, with a decent splattering of comedy to boot. Imagine Breaking Bad goes on a summer road trip with a gaggle of badly behaved teenage girls’
McNamara plays the lead role as Tara in the new comedy thriller Sky series Then You Run. The eight-part story unfolds on a journey across Europe as Tara discovers that her estranged family are running a large-scale drugs operation. A visit from Tara’s friends Nessi (IsIdora Fairhurst), Ruth (Yasmin Monet Prince) and Stink (Vivian Oparah) sparks chaotic scenes as drugs are plundered and a bloodbath ensues. The girls – and their stolen drugs – go on the run, hotly pursued by a ragbag of dangerously aggrieved criminals and assassins.
Before watching the first three episodes, or reading about the show, I had expected another teen comedy drama – so it was a shock (albeit a pleasant one) to discover that Then You Run is in fact, a fast-paced if, at times, unsettlingly violent drama, with a decent splattering of comedy to boot.
Imagine Breaking Bad goes on a summer road trip with a gaggle of badly behaved teenage girls. The show is aimed at an audience skewing younger but has the comedic appeal and adult subject matter that would certainly keep your dad from dozing off on the sofa.
“I love how it just kind of goes for it. Yeah, it doesn’t kind of shy away from things,” McNamara laughs. “I think it all fits into the story really well.” She sees my raised eyebrow. “I think it does. Those darker moments get balanced out well by some of that comedic stuff. It moves very fast and I really like that. Ultimately, it’s just very entertaining.”
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In the opening scene we witness a traveller stuck overnight on a snowy motorway somewhere in Germany. When the snow has settled, he gets out of his car and there follows a terrible scene of carnage. This sets the tone for the rest of the episode and – three episodes in – I am none-the wiser as to what the travelling mass murderer has to do with the main plot. “I’m excited to even get to that myself because I remember reading it in the script and I was like, ‘Ugh’, so I can’t wait to see it.”
Unless you are squeamish, the show will hook you in. I binged the first three episodes back-to-back and was hungry for more.
‘She grew up in Limerick, on the west of Ireland. She perfected Tara’s grimy London street accent to the point where she even fooled the crew’
Watching McNamara play Tara in the show, with her mix of not-so innocent teen meets cold-blooded killer, it’s easy to forget that she is not from London. She grew up in Limerick, on the west of Ireland. She perfected Tara’s grimy London street accent to the point where she even fooled the crew. The McNamara Method? “I stayed in that role the whole time so anyone who I worked with in terms of hair, makeup, they only heard my [real] accent whenever we had wrapped.”
McNamara is enjoying the auspicious start to her career and revels in the fact that she gets to work, travel and generally have a lot of fun with her colleagues – who are in fact her close friends. The bond and friendships she formed whilst filming Then You Run in Berlin and Hamburg over the summer of 2021 are ones she especially cherishes. “The four of us were away in a different country, away from our friends, away from our family, living in this new city for a good seven months,” she says. “The vibe, the craic, the energy was there straight away.”
Although based in London for the last four years, you can hear her Irish accent pour from every vowel and syllable. She talks fondly of Limerick. “I love the quiet of where I grew up.” She tells me about the walks she takes with her soon to be 93-year-old grandfather and his miniature Jack Russell, over the fields behind her house or in the nearby Cratloe Woods. She’s close with her family – her parents are still in Limerick and although her siblings are living overseas, they regularly return home. We talk a lot about our shared love of the West Coast of Ireland – its time-stand-still beauty, never-ending skies and celestial sunsets.
Living in the capital, she has encountered the woes many young people experience renting here. She has plans to move to America, at some point, for “the right film”, but not permanently. I’m unsurprised when she tells me about the quietly romantic pull of the home country, and she happily admits that she would like to end up back in Ireland one day.
“We had a mobile home in Castlegregory, in Kerry, that we rented every summer. It’s the most beautiful place. We’d run around up in the sand dunes and go surfing on one of the three beaches,” she recalls. “I could definitely see myself settling down by the sea. There’s not a better feeling than just going for a walk by the sea. It gives you so much energy.”
Thin-strap silk crepe de Chine slip dress by Raey, £180; Vintage Havva Jacket by Tim Ryan; Cask Glass by LSA £55.
McNamara is fiercely proud of her roots. She talks with authority and intelligence on Irish history and politics – we discuss everything from Artificial Intelligence (bad) to grain taxes of late 19th Century Ireland (also bad). McNamara has opinions and backs them up articulately and passionately. “We were one of the only nations in the world where the population drastically decreased,” she says concluding a long conversation on the myths surrounding Ireland’s potato famine.
‘She spent her summers in rural Ireland, where all the children would only speak Irish. No internet, no phones and certainly no English was permitted. ’
She feels strongly about protecting Irish culture. As a child at school she learned Irish language until she was 12. When the schools stopped teaching it, she would spend summers in a house in rural communities in Ireland, where all the children would only be allowed to speak Irish. No internet, no phones and certainly no English was permitted.
“We were kids, we had to make our own fun and it’s incredible how good my [Irish] language actually got,” she says. “In that part of the country it’s so untouched…that’s their first language. It’s sad that that part of our culture is kind of disappearing, being lost.”
Thin-strap silk crepe de Chine slip dress by Raey, £180; Vintage Havva Jacket by Tim Ryan; Cask Glass by LSA £55.
Although the native language is on the wane, the film industry in Ireland is going through something of a renaissance. Films such as the Oscar-winning The Banshees of Inisherin starring Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell reminded us all of the untamed beauty of Ireland but also made names of new stars such as Barry Keoghan, who gave an extraordinary performance as the vulnerable and abused islander Dominic Kearney. McNamara expects there will be more Irish language films appearing in the wake of last year’s award-winning An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl). Cult shows turned mainstream hits like the Derry Girls have done much to promote Irish talent. But it took the lockdown dramatisation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People to deliver a truly global TV viewing experience.
In Normal People, McNamara played Rachel – the third wheel that put the relationship between Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell (Paul Mescal) in jeopardy. Rachel is the popular schoolgirl a confused and overthinking Connell takes to the ‘Deb’, precipitating his and Marianne’s agonising separation.
‘Normal People came at a time where the entire world was void of any human connection and contact’
“Normal People is a great show, but I always feel like it came at a time where the entire world was void of any human connection and contact,” says McNamara. “That show was all about deep love, deep human connection, and suddenly that had just evaporated from our daily lives. I feel like a lot of people were lonely and it was a story about connection that many people were able to associate with.”
I ask if she found it hard to play the anti-hero when the audience are rooting for Marianne and Connell and clearly shooting daggers at the screen when she comes on. She is philosophical. “Rachel is definitely a supporting character. She serves as an obstacle within Marianne’s love course, and ultimately, she serves as a vehicle so we can empathise with Marianne and that entire situation.”
McNamara never went to drama school but her parents were big supporters of the arts in Limerick, and from an early age encouraged her to explore that world. “I went to stage school when I was five. I took up dancing. I play piano. I was always singing and doing shows and stuff.” She initially thought about a career as a singer but “there was just something about acting and the big screen and being a part of big movies that gradually pulled me in and took my full focus over time.”
Her first role was in the 2015 high-school horror flick Cherry Tree, where as a teenager she first experienced the excitement of being on a film set. A series of small roles in mostly Irish films followed before she took on a chilling part in the BBC series Dublin Murders. And then she got the call to do Normal People, thanks in part to the casting director of the series, who McNamara describes as a mentor, and who had been following her career with interest after originally casting her in Cherry Tree.
Vintage Mickey Mouse T-shirt; Alexander McQueen denim Jacket £1,650; FRAME demim shorts, £195; Necklace: Sophie Buhai; Rings: Spinelli Colin; Earrings: Auro London
She played the wife of soldier Brian Wood (played by Anthony Boyle) in the BBC film Danny Boy. Based on a real incident that occurred during a deadly gun battle in Iraq in 2004, Wood is accused of murdering prisoners of war, and we see McNamara dealing with the emotional toll of a soldier being hailed a hero one minute and a war criminal the next.
McNamara moved to London and missed out on drama school. Instead, it was hard work, grit and slowly landing better parts that got her to the point that she describes today as having “momentum.”
‘I’m all about the longevity in this, you know what I mean? I want to be doing this when I’m an old, old lady’
“It’s nice to know that you can get into anything,” she reflects. “I feel like in this life, if you really, really want to, and you put the work in… you don’t just have to get this degree or go to that school to be seen.”
As well as starring in the summer’s big Sky TV series, she has just finished filming the TV remake of Guy Richie’s movie The Gentleman, with an all-star cast including Joely Richardson, Theo James and Vinne Jones. And she also has a big part in the new Hellboy movie The Crooked Man.
Leah McNamara on set of Then You Run
McNamara already has an impressive and carefully curated portfolio of work. “I’ve definitely held out from jobs before if the script doesn’t resonate with me or the story doesn’t speak to me,” she says – with beguiling wisdom.
Next up she might fancy a crack at some comedy. “All my friends say “you’re really funny, why aren’t you doing anything funny”’? Or else it might be a “a really beautiful love story”. She finishes her drink and gets up to walk me back to the train station, telling me that whatever the next part is, whether funny, straight, romantic or frankly terrifying like Then You Run, it has to be right for her. “Because I’m all about the longevity in this, you know what I mean? I want to be doing this when I’m an old, old lady.”
Then You Run’ premieres on Sky Max and NOW on July 7
Creative Director: Tom Pattinson
Photography: Tim Marsella
Styling: Colomba Giacomini
Make Up: Lucy Wearing
Hair: James Tarquin at Carol Hayes using Bumble and Bumble
Producer: Sam Richardson at The Production Factory
Photography assistant: Richard Bartram
Car by Civilised Car Hire
Shot on location at Stockwell Studio and The Canton Arms
