‘The family didn’t approve of acting’

Mary Wakefield meets Niamh Cusack and finds an actress full of contradictions

It’s oddly exciting, upstairs at the Old Vic: there are actresses rushing to rehearsal; the burble of PR ladies schmoozing the press; the sense of a curtain about to rise. A bright new play. I smile, look around hopefully for my interviewee-to-be, the actress Niamh Cusack, but instead a handsome bearded chap appears in front of me. ‘Oh, hi there, I’m Finbar Lynch [Niamh’s husband and co-star in Dancing at Lughnasa]. I’ll come back and take proper care of you in a second.’ What’s he talking about? Take care of me, how? I have no idea. I later find out that he thought I was an understudy, but though confused I feel also warm and included — a co-dancer at Lughnasa.

A few minutes later, Niamh appears — slight, blonde, friendly — and we sit on school-style wooden chairs as she gently dismantles my preconceptions.