How agreeable are you?
I would say I am immensely agreeable. However, I do seem to enjoy disagreeing with people quite a lot. It’s a bit of excitement, isn’t it? It depends obviously on the subject, and how serious it is. Sometimes I’m arguing for the thrill of arguing. Sometimes I get very exercised about something and I get quite tenacious. It’s said I can be like a terrier.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
I don’t have a middle name, but I do have a double-barrelled first name. As a schoolchild I was too timid to inhabit my full name, but since, I’ve grown into it a lot. And now I love my name. Goethe had a remark about how we’re quite sensitive about our names and we kind of grow into them like our skin. We fit into them like our skin.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
My mind wandered the whole country, only to arrive back home to where I’m from – the stretch of coast between Malahide village and the Velvet Strand in Portmarnock. That stretch of coastline where you can look out to Lambay on one side, and out to Ireland’s Eye and Howth on the other. I just love it. There’s fossils in the rocks and it feels like home, yet always being sort of surprising and invigorating.
Describe yourself in three words.
Unknown to myself.
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When did you last get angry?
Earlier today. I was trying to make a computer programme, that I’m very inexpert in, do something that it’s not designed to do, and quite reasonably it refused. And I got enraged. And then I laughed at myself. But reflecting on it, I think anger seems to surface when I feel powerless. Even if it’s just little things like that.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
My pre-digital . Big time. I really notice it. It seems to think that it’s fine to just wander all the time, especially if I’m trying to read a book, if I’m trying to have an analogue experience where I need to concentrate. It’s just looking for my phone, or setting off to think about something else, instead of really taking the time to get to grips with complex, long-form ideas. It just gives up very, very quickly and I have to kind of discipline it.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
Sharing a secret that I shouldn’t have shared and then the really wretched guilt that ensued after that. I can’t tell you what it was because then I’d just be doing it all over again.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
I’m the eldest of three siblings. I’ve a younger brother and a younger sister. I think it might have contributed to my really strong sense of independence. And I also have a tendency to really like things done my way. But maybe also my instinct to be quite protective of others.
What do you expect to happen when you die?
Logistically my expectations are actually laid out in a dossier that my dear friend Sylvia keeps on file at her home. And then in less practical terms I expect to quite naturally resume the state, whatever state, preceded my birth. It feels very natural.
When were you happiest?
I found it interesting that this is phrased in the past tense. I will say I quite regularly fall into raptures when I’m with, or even when I’m just thinking about, my son, Sylvan. He’s four. I feel flooded with all these really wonderful chemicals, I guess dopamine and endorphins and serotonin, all those good ones. They just seem to bubble up and I get waves of them sometimes when I’m with him, or thinking about him. I don’t know if I’d call it happy, but it’s that experience and it’s quite a deep joy. But it comes and goes, and I expect it to continue coming and going, so I’m not going to put it in the past tense.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
My sister Róisín. She’s an actor. We look alike, you can tell that we’re sisters, so it fits in that sense. She’s also a very fine actor. And she knows me well enough to do me.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
I wish I’d had the courage to try acting myself a bit. The regret used to be quite sharp, but it’s abated massively.
Have you any psychological quirks?
When I’m really tired and I’m drifting into the twilight state before sleep, I sometimes hallucinate random, axonometric projections. And they just turn around and around in my mind. And I’ve no idea why.
