Channel 4
Gillian Anderson plays an alcoholic and broken matriarch in Trespasses
Holywood, County Down in 1975 – five miles north-east of Belfast and 23 years before the conflict in Northern Ireland would end.
This is the backdrop for the new Gillian Anderson and Lola Petticrew-starring Channel 4 drama Trespasses, based on Louise Kennedy’s award-winning novel, in which the town plays a significant role in a cross-community love affair.
It marks a return to Northern Ireland for both actors – Belfast-born Petticrew starred as IRA volunteer Dolours Price in the Disney Troubles-era drama Say Nothing while Anderson’s serial killer thriller The Fall was also set in and around Belfast.
For Anderson, who plays the alcoholic and broken mother of Petticrew’s character Cushla, the trauma of Northern Ireland’s conflict is still something she detects “in the cells of everyone”.
The American actress Gillian Anderson stars in the upcoming Northern Ireland-based thriller series Trespass.
“What I was surprised at this last time was the degree to which the trauma is still under the surface, all the time” she told BBC News NI.
“And so it is so much a part of the character of the place, too. Coming as an outsider it’s shocking because one’s told that it’s part of the past, but it’s clear that it’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues still today.
“There have been changes, but I’m not sure I want to see massive change because it feels like it’s so much of the identity of the place and there’s an ownership and a righteousness from all sides, that it feels like it’s very much a part of the personality of the place.”
Channel 4
Gillian Anderson plays an alcoholic and broken matriarch in Trespasses
What is Trespasses?
Trespasses explores cross-community forbidden love, not across the barricades but across the bar.
The story sees Lola Petticrew’s Cushla, a 24-year-old Catholic school teacher pulling extra shifts in her family’s pub, which serves the soldiers from a nearby barracks and other locals.
It’s there she meets the upper-middle class Protestant barrister Michael Agnew, who has dedicated himself to representing a young Catholic man.
While their relationship is at the story’s heart, it also has a lot to say about the conflict here and its impact on people.
The seriousness of that is not lost on Lola Petticrew.
“I take that responsibility really, really seriously,” they said.
“I love home so much and I care about people at home so much and I want them to feel like their lives are being taken seriously and reflected with love and care and reverence.
“So it feels like a massive responsibility, but it’s also a complete privilege. And if I only got to tell Irish stories for the rest of my life, I’d take it.
“I just want people to watch it and get from it what they need to get from it. I trust in the work that we’ve made. “
Channel 4
Davy McGeown, played by Daithí Ó Haragáin, and Cushla Lavery, played by Lola Petticrew
‘Immense sense of responsibility’
Welsh actor Tom Cullen, possibly best known to Downton Abbey audiences as Lord Gillingham, shared Petticrew’s “immense sense of responsibility”.
The actor, who was at times emotional while speaking to BBC News NI, said he did not take it lightly.
“I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to step into this world. It’s one of the biggest privileges of my life quite honestly.”
Cullen said it was very special to go to Northern Ireland, given his great grandfather came from Belfast and that he “feels so Irish”.
“I’ve been brought up that way.
“It was wonderful to be there and feel connected to my family.”
Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Cillian Murphy – being an Irish actor feels like particularly valuable currency right now, with a green wave of Irish talent splashing onto TV and film screens.
As far as Lola Petticrew is concerned, everyone’s welcome.
“For me, the only prerequisite to be Irish is wanting to be Irish and feeling a connection to it, and I think the more people that want to feel connected to and express their Irishness is just all the better for us.”
