Bestselling novel Trespasses depicts a “forbidden love” story across the divide of Catholics and Protestants during the Troubles in Belfast. Now, Louise Kennedy’s gorgeous novel has been adapted into a four-part Channel 4 TV series, with Irish rising star Lola Petticrew playing protagonist Cushla and none other than screen queen, the ultimate Sex Education mother and Scoop star Gillian Anderson playing her “glorious wreck” of a mother, Gina.
Filmed in Belfast, we see young school teacher Cushla fall for married Protestant barrister Michael (Tom Cullen) and pursue a passionate extramarital affair with him across enemy lines. When she’s not risking her life for love, she cares for her alcoholic mother Gina (Anderson), who is grappling with grief and mental health issues.
Kennedy, who is also an executive producer, asked Gillian on board over dinner. “Louise actually asked me, she says, after she was ‘emboldened by a couple glasses of wine’, when I had a meal with her, whether I’d play Gina,” Gillian recalls.
Peter Marley / Channel 4
Lola (who identifies as non-binary) previously played real-life IRA volunteer Dolours Price in explosive TV series Say Nothingand can also be spotted in the opening scene of #MeToo movie She Said playing a terrified victim of sexual abuse. They are a perfect example of the “green wave” of acting talent coming from Ireland, a concept entering public discourse again after the success of Netflix’s House of Guinness.
Both Lola and Gillian clearly thrive in telling the most important of stories, and Trespasses is no exception – a torrid, compelling love story set during conflict that still exists in its own way today.
Glamour sat down with them to talk telling Irish stories, the importance of shame-free sex scenes and depicting a complex mother-daughter relationship on screen.
Glamour: Lola, this is your second big project telling a story during The Troubles after Say Nothing – tell me a bit about what this means to you?
Lola: It’s an incredible privilege for me as an Irish person to be able to do that. There was a time when I was in drama school and I panicked that I would never get work because of my accent. So anytime I get to do something in my own accent and something that’s about home, it feels like a privilege to me.
