Interview: Derry Girls Star Saoirse-Monica Jackson on Making Her Off-Broadway Debut in Irishtown

Saoirse-Monica Jackson, best known for her scene-stealing turn as Erin Quinn in Netflix’s Derry Girls, is bringing her sharp timing to the New York stage. She stars in Irishtown, a new play by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth now running at Irish Repertory Theatre, in what marks her Off-Broadway debut. The show—a fast-paced, meta-theatrical comedy—explores the commercialization of Irish identity as the members of a Dublin-based theater company decide that their latest production isn’t Irish enough.

Jackson, who hasn’t been on stage since her West End appearance in The Ferryman seven years ago, spoke to TheaterMania about reconnecting with live performance, the joys of ensemble chaos, and why comedy matters more than ever.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How is New York treating you so far?
New York’s great. I love it here. It’s been an amazing experience so far. It’s chaos, but that’s really what the play needs. And the Irish Rep is a special theater. Ciaran O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore have done a fantastic job of championing a hub of culture for Irish people in New York to have. They put on plays that are well known and revered from famous Irish playwrights, and it’s fantastic to see a relatively new writer come in with something that’s very different.

What interested you in the play?
It was so bang on and accurate. I remember sitting beside my partner on the sofa and I couldn’t stop laughing at the script. I think, sometimes, comedy can be forgotten. But the world is in such a complicated place, especially America, so it’s good to make people laugh. When one person laughs, it gives other people freedom to do the same.

Ciara is a genius, and she depicts the commercialization of Irish culture so well. We’re a small company—we’re doing all the transitions and everything ourselves—which adds to the camaraderie and chaos. We’ve got each other’s back and none of us leave the stage for the full hour and a half. It’s the fastest hour and a half of my life each night. I hope the audience feels the same.

It’s certainly shorter than The Ferryman, which was the last show you did.
You could do this play twice and The Ferryman would still be going on.

Were you a theater kid growing up?
Yeah. My grandmother and my parents would take me to see a lot of theater that was happening in Derry or passing through Derry. We got an amazing theater in 2001 called the Millennium Forum, so a lot more started to come, which was exciting. There’s no better feeling than a group of people in an audience enjoying something together. I think we all have a lot more appreciation for that now.

How is it adjusting to live performance again after doing television for so many years?
You would think that some of the skills from the recent TV work I’ve done would be more transferable, but they’re not. None of that really matters. You just need to be out there and feel the audience and feel that adrenaline rush. I’m trying to look after my voice and remember all those techniques again. It’s liberating when something goes wrong, and you have to fix it on the spot. And humbling, as well, because there’s nowhere to hide. No one’s going to edit it out for you. I feel super present on stage, which is not the same vibe as on television.

Are you getting out of this experience what you hoped to get as an actor?
Yeah, I am. I’m really enjoying it. It’s been intense. Given the nature of the show, and the fact that it’s a play within a play within a play, you’re switching tones and physicality a lot. And we’ve been rehearsing all day and doing shows in the nighttime because we’re still just trying to get it perfect. It’s very close. We want to do best by our writer. She’s put so much into this. I think she had the idea five years ago, and it means a lot to her.

Although it’s funny, it’s also making a statement. There’s a very prominent line that rang true with me. The only male character is talking about getting his big break, and he says to my character “It’s different for me. I could actually make it in America. You will always be passed up to play an Irish part for an English girl doing a terrible accent.” That is so true.

It does seem like there are more famous Irish male actors in the cultural consciousness now.
It’s incredible to see the success of Irish men at the moment. Cillian Murphy and Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan shine in those ways, but Irish women are always forgotten about.

It’s so easy to romanticize an Irish male actor as being this sort of mysterious, aloof, tortured poet, but it’s slightly less palatable for women, and I feel like that’s because we’re strong and funny and independent, and that’s not always the depiction of what they want from a leading lady.

That’s sort of the beauty of Derry Girls, too, wasn’t it? It allowed you and your costars to shine in all your glory.
Yeah, and it’s amazing to see all the different things that everybody went on to do. Lisa McGee is incredible. She really set us up for success.

It’s funny, when I’m doing interviews now, people always say, “I hope you don’t mind me asking about Derry Girls now, because it was a few years ago,” and I’m like “nobody loves talking about Derry Girls more than me.” Derry Girls will always be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t think anything will ever top that. It’s done so much for me. I’m so grateful to Lisa, still, because everything I’ve done since is a by-product of that first big break.