The Last Person Standing At The Aftershow Party not yet being an official category, Siobhán Cullen had to make do with just the one IFTA Award last month.

It was a biggie, though, with the Dubliner honoured by the Academy and Screen Ireland as their 2024 Rising Star, an accolade that has previously hailed the impending superstardom of Saoirse Ronan, Michael Fassbender, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie Dornan, Domhnall and countless others.

“I got the fright of my life when I looked at my watch thinking it was half-eleven and it was actually gone three,” laughs the Rathfarnham native who looks remarkably fresh for someone who was doing the dog 48 hours ago. “I was desperately trying to keep the party going but sadly…

“The IFTAs this year felt like such an exciting moment,” she continues. “We’ve always had amazing actors, storytellers, creators and crews but now they’re getting the international acclaim they deserve. I don’t know if it’s down to a particular show or production, but industry attention seems to have turned to Ireland, which is brilliant.” Has the emergence of writers like Aisling Bea, Sharon Horgan and Lisa McGee improved the quality of the female roles on offer?

“Yeah, 100%,” Siobhán nods. “So many of the scripts that are coming my way are really pithy. It’s amazing to have so many female characters at the helm who are complex and layered. The trope of them having to be likeable and nice doesn’t seem to exist anymore, which I’m delighted about.”

In a major role reversal, it was the boys’ outfits that received the most media attention at the IFTAs, although it has to be said that Siobhán comprehensively rocked her black ruched Hermes number.

“Well, Cillian (Murphy) – who looked fabulous – is the new face of Versace!” she laughs. “The IFTAs felt like my first foray into that sort of designer fashion world and it’s a really lovely and fun thing to do. If people are happy for you to wear their clothes it’s a cool perk. You just need to enjoy it for what it is and not let it stress you out.”

Did it feel a bit odd getting a Rising Star award when she’s been at this acting lark for close to thirty years? “Sometime you get someone young whose first job is a total success, but most of us actors are chipping away at it for years and years until something clicks,” reflects Siobhán who made her professional debut in The Abbey aged just eight. “There’ll be a bit more noise around a film or show and it’s comes to people’s attention. To have the slog that got you to that point acknowledged is really nice.”

Asked whether she had pushy stage parents, Siobhán laughs and says, “Not at all. Both of my parents were in an amateur theatre group, so I loved going to shows and rehearsals with them. When I got my first Abbey role in Marina Carr’s By The Bog Of Cats, I had no idea or concept of the weight of it. I’d get to leave school early and maybe get a McDonald’s on the way home, so it was always a positive, fun thing for me. There was never any stress or pressure. I didn’t have to get the job, which has sort of been my attitude towards auditions and work since.”

Despite subsequently appearing in the likes of The Split, Paula, Dalgleish and big budget YouTube sci-fi yarn, Origin, it’s Siobhán’s recent turns in The Dry and Obituary which have sent her career into overdrive.

The latter finds her starring as Elvira Clancy, a smalltown newspaper obituarist who resorts to murder when work starts drying up.

“Kilraven: population 5,000 and falling. Underneath that veneer of nothingness there’s a tonne of weird shit going on,” Elvira proclaims in the opening episode and, well, she’s spot on with a cast of characters that makes The League Of Gentlemen seem like Fair City in comparison.

“When I got the ‘An obituarist who resorts to killing people’ logline, I thought, ‘This is the perfect elevator pitch; I can’t believe it’s never been written before.’ It’s such a smart, fresh idea from Ray Lawlor. I was like, ‘I hope this script lives up to the premise.’ And it did!”

What’s Siobhán’s favourite Obituary murder so far?

“Oh, that’s a good one… they were all so fun to shoot. Pushing Barry McGovern off a cliff was particularly enjoyable. There’s a second season starting in September so I’m sure Ray will be coming up with ever more ingenious ways to boost Elvira’s income!”

Bodkin. (L to R) Will Forte as Gilbert Power, Siobhán Cullen as Dove, Robyn Cara as Emmy Sizergh in episode 102 of Bodkin. Cr. Enda Bowe/Netflix © 2024

If Obituary was great, Siobhán’s latest series, Bodkin, which switches the action from Galway to West Cork is even better.

A dark – actually, make that pitch black – comedy, it’s the first scripted TV series from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company. I know they weren’t on set shouting “cut!” but it must be pretty mind-blowing knowing that Bodkin is going to be watched by the 44th President of the USA and the former First Lady.

“Yeah, that’s a mad thought,” she laughs. “I hope they enjoy it! It’s a really big deal – but no surprise to me – that Netflix are now making shows in Ireland. In terms of the locations and the sophistication of our crews, it felt like a little bit of an untapped market for a while. Now, though, you’ve got all these new studios dotted around the country which is amazing for the industry.”

The Bodkin action focuses on a motley crew of podcasters who set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of three strangers in the titular coastal town. Despite being stonewalled by the locals, they discover a story much darker and crazier than they ever could have imagined.

Siobhán plays Dove, a by turns funny, brave and beligerant investigative journalist – there’s a theme developing here – with an arsenal of profane putdowns. In other words, our kind of woman.

“The Dry and Obituary are pretty sweary but Bodkin has the most F-bombs I’ve ever said,” she enthuses. “I had to Google what they meant, but all those four letter words are very cathartic! I’m extremely lucky with the dialogue I have and getting to play the antagonist, which isn’t the kind of part I’ve been cast in before.”

There’s a Walter White vibe to Dove who, for all of her spectacular rudeness, is the Bodkin character you’re always rooting for.

“They’re the kind of characters that are brilliant to get your teeth into. They’re despicable and reprehensible but there’s always a nub as to what damaged them.

“Dove,” she continues, “is very complicated and hard-nosed. When we first meet her, she’s in the midst of a career crisis and kind of laying low on this case in West Cork. Throughout the season you’ll come to understand why Dove is the way she is.”

Is Siobhán a podcast fan herself?

“Massive one,” she stresses. “I’m loving Sarah Koenig’s Serial which is now on its fourth season and just gets better and better. I’m also a huge fan of The West Cork Podcast, American Life, Heavyweights… any kind of personal stories and crime-y ones as well.”

Siobhán is thrilled that Bodkin, which also strays into The Wicker Man territory, has given her the opportunity to work for the first time with Pat Shortt (“What a joy. He’s such a gorgeous man”) and to renew acquaintances with that doyen of Irish theatre, Fionnula Flanagan (“We worked together on a sci-series in Cape Town called Origin, which was my first long shoot”).

The Bodkin cast also includes Chris Walley who Siobhán got to know, er, intimately when they appeared together in Emily Pine’s Good Sex at the Samuel Beckett Centre in Trinity College, which just happens to be her alma mater.

“Oh, it was so brilliant!” she enthuses.

“The play is really unusual in that it depends on the two actors not knowing anything about it until the day of the show. You can’t take part if you’ve already been an audience member because the whole thing is meant to be fresh and a surprise. You meet in the morning, have a session with an intimacy coordinator to talk you through a few key moments and choreograph them, but you don’t know the context or what’s going to happen. Come the evening you’re pushed out on stage with an earpiece in your ear and have lines and directions fed to you. At certain points you’ll be like, ‘Oh, this is the moment we sort of rehearsed earlier,’ but otherwise you’re flying blind. Because of that they have a different pair of actors in it every night.”

Siobhán only found out she was going to be in Good Sex mere days beforehand.

“It came to me really last minute courtesy of my friend Cillian Coyle who was producing it,” she explains. “Chris – who I was shooting Bodkin with at the time – was already meant to be doing the play and I’d bought a ticket to see him in it. When the actor who was appearing opposite him got Covid, Cillian pinned me down and said, ‘Would you please step in?’ I was like, ‘I can’t imagine anything more terrifying than going on stage not knowing what’s happening!’ but, honestly, it was so thrilling and freeing – and I got to do it with my pal Chris as well!” Thanks to Normal People, Trinity is regarded by a goodly part of the western world as an institute of further sex education. “I can’t say my Trinity experience was quite that exciting but I did love doing drama and theatre there,” Siobhán reminisces. “I went into my course thinking, ‘Maybe next year I’ll audition for drama schools.’ I kept threatening to leave but was having too much of a great time and stayed for four years.”

Prior to Good Sex and shooting Bodkin, Siobhán had “the really special experience” of starring with Ralph Fiennes in the London West End premiere of Straight Line Crazy, a Succession-style drama about the builder of modern New York City, Robert Moses.

“It was my first time playing a leading role on stage in London with a brilliant script and combination of people. Being led by Ralph was amazing. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t an audience member because you’d just be watching him. People of that kind of calibre, you can’t help but be in awe of their craft and skill.”

Siobhán is currently getting ready to tread the boards again with Mr. Whalley.

“Yeah, it’s a play by Elizabeth Kuti called The Sugar Wife which is starting in The Abbey in June,” she reveals. “We go into rehearsals for that in a couple of weeks, so Chris and myself are going to be seeing a lot of each other!”

Unless she’s somehow managed to acquire Padre Pio-like powers of bilocation, Siobhán must have to be super-organised to appear in that many TV shows and plays in quick succession.

“How anything gets made is a total miracle – and why I’m not in charge of my own diary,” she smiles again. “You need a really good team of people around you in that regard. I remember that Straight Line Crazy came down on a Saturday and I flew to Dublin on the Sunday to start shooting Bodkin. Clearing your head of one character and going straight into the next one can be a bit of challenge.”

And one which Siobhán rose to supremely well. Bodkin, which seems guaranteed to get a second season, premiered on Netflix just six days before The Dry commenced its sophomore run on RTÉ One. Siobhán loved reprising her role as Caroline Sheridan whose previous straight laced-ness goes out the window when she discovers the joys of Tinder.

“The poor thing’s having a tough time, but convincing herself that she’s okay and everything is going to plan,” she says of Ms. Sheridan. “And she’s certainly making up for lost time dating her way around Dublin.”

In the last issue of Hot Press, her The Dry co-star Róisín Gallagher told us about the irresistible urge she has to laugh during sex scenes. Is Siobhán similarly afflicted?

“It’s funny, the majority of the intimate scenes I’ve shot for TV have been in the comedy world,” she notes. “My scenes in The Dry wouldn’t be as steamy or heated as some of Róisín’s… well, that’s not entirely true.

“You’re put in this really vulnerable space with a colleague or, if you’re lucky enough, a friend which makes it a lot easier. You’re surrounded by a room of your other colleagues who you’ve been working with for months. You might not have many clothes on. So it’s bizarre situation with plenty of room for giggling!”

One of the great pleasures of being in The Dry, Siobhán says, is getting to hang out with Ciaran Hands who plays her long-suffering screen dad, Tom.

“Working with Ciaran is a walking masterclass,” she concludes. “It’s so lovely to be in the presence of one of the kindest, most generous men. He puts a smile on everybody’s face when he walks on set. He’s just a special, special human.”

If only somebody spoke about me that way…