Laura Donnelly and Ann Skelly – the stars of Sky and NOW TV’s new supernaturally feminist hit period drama The Nevers – join GLAMOUR Contributing Editor Josh Smith for the second edition of his new monthly interview column, Josh Smith Interviews…
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Period dramas have undergone quite the glow up, lately. Gone are the female leads with little agency over their own life, sat in the corner of ballrooms wailing and waiting for their Duke/Prince/Penniless peasant (delete as appropriate) to save them and validate their existence. Now we have a new generation of heroines including the likes of Daphne Bridgerton and introducing Laura Donnelly’s Amalia True and Ann Skelly’s Penance Adair in Sky’s The Nevers.
The new fantastical six part TV drama follows two pals, widowed Amalia and an inventor Penance in 1899 London, who, following a mysterious supernatural event discover they have a stunning new array of powers – Amalia can see patchly into the future and Penance can see energy leading to inventing self-propelled cars and portable voice recorders – along with a small percentage of the female population.
Labelled the ‘touched’ by society they are immediately persecuted and in order to protect their kind the pair take over St. Romaulda’s Orphanage, a safe home for ‘touched’ women. It’s a tale of supernatural feminism or rather magical feminism as literary theorists would call it (don’t worry you don’t need a degree in English) where the role of the ‘other’ is assumed by marginalised women who fight to overcome patriarchal structures. We haven’t seen this kind of magical feminism since Buffy The Vampire Slayer – and The Nevers has got the high kicks and fight scenes to match.
To say I am obsessed with the show is an understatement, but as I settle down to interview Laura and Ann, via the 2020 supernatural power of Zoom, they are the ones who are truly obsessed with each other. “Laura is the coolest girl in the room at any given time,” Ann fangirls minutes in, talking about the co-star she calls her Sundance Kid. “She doesn’t think that herself because she’s just there vaping in the corner – a cool girl surrounded by a cloud of smoke. Sorry, that’s probably not how you want me to describe you Laura. She also knows a lot about politics and she’s very smart, reads a lot and you know, loves a good punch up!”
Who doesn’t when patriarchy is the enemy? And with that in mind I ask them when they have doubted, like their characters, their own personal power the most? “Being a teenager,” Ann, now 24, who was born in Ireland but grew up in County Wexford before securing roles in The Vikings and Little Women, says instantly. “That whole time period felt pretty weird because being a young woman I found it quite a devoicing experience. Then when I started acting I had just gotten a job and they sent us to an acting workshop for free because it was a part of the programme. Me and four other actors went. I had a very horrible experience with this acting coach and he made me cry in front of the whole room of people.
He was like, ‘Why do you want to be an actor? You clearly got it (the job) because of how you look.’ I was 18 and I was absolutely humiliated in front of this room. I just got absolutely decimated in front of everyone. It was horrible.”
“I went home and there are a few times I’ve cried so hard in my life. I remember the snot reaching the floor. My mum came in and I was like ‘Get out!’”.
The pair have both used ‘devoicing’ experiences to fuel them forward. “I don’t think you ever forget the times that you felt devoiced,” Laura, now 38, originally from Northern Ireland and who made her TV debut in Sugar Rush before going on to win Best Actress at the 2018 Olivier Awards for The Ferryman, adds.
“They just form a little room in your mind and any time that I felt like I can’t do this or I’m not getting anywhere and I wanted to give up, I go to that little part of my brain and think, ‘no, I am not letting that win!’ You get to turn those experiences into something that is valuable rather than something that takes away from you. When I was in my 20s, there [was] just no chance that I could have imagined that it would get to this point. The difference between feeling completely out of your power and then very suddenly in it is amazing. A big part of that is the conversations that we’ve been having around #MeTooand women’s rights. It’s really the first time that these conversations have been had, certainly in the history of the acting. I felt like it was a very different world being in my 20s as an actress as it is being in my 30s.”
Stereotypes are the enemy in The Nevers and in the real world alike. I wonder what reductive stereotypes they have had to overcome? Laura answers. “Starting out [in acting] you get it in all directions like, ‘oh I don’t think that she is working class enough,’ or ‘I don’t think she’s posh enough.’ So much of the time, people see you in one particular box and they’ve just decided that’s what you are. They will not see beyond that, despite the fact that you’re an actor and you want to play things outside of yourself. You have to have a sense of how it is you want to be seen, fight for that and have the faith that some people somewhere will spot those things and will agree with you. If you follow other people’s ideas of who you are then you can find yourself in a box pretty quickly.”
“I actually had to Google what feminist meant,” Ann adds, “because I was like, ‘I don’t know if we should be taking advice from most of these characters. They can be quite messed up so what does it mean to be a feminist show?’ It’s equal opportunity to really extend beyond just being female or whoever you identify as.
“When we talk about strong female characters it’s not that you want that person to be able to withstand all difficulties in life while not succumbing to them,” Laura continues. “It’s about wanting complex female characters. We want the flawed ones and we want the ones who get it wrong. We want the ones who completely fail sometimes. We just want real life stuff represented.” Hear! Hear!
Speaking of ‘strong female characters,’ I remark how women are still being asked in interviews what it is like to play one, as if it’s not the norm that women have agency and power. And the male actors are of course, not being asked what’s it like to play a strong, powerful, male character. “Absolutely,” Laura shouts, before revealing the question that really gets under her skin? “How do you balance motherhood with your career?” Eye rolls all round.
Female solidarity is undeniably omni-present in The Nevers and it is a force the pair have leaned on in their own lives. “I have children and that just requires so many women to help,” Laura says. “The idea that children are best raised as part of a village is just so true in my life. I have so many people: my mother, my sisters, my friends, nannies who are there in such a supportive role in my life. That allows me to be a mother at the same time as having my career. Doing a show like this takes up huge amounts of time for months at a time. If I didn’t have my team of women around me I would just be at a complete loss.”
“Bloody COVID times because in lockdown I was on my own,” Ann sighs in reply. “FaceTimes with my mum and my cousin, who is also like my best friend, Laura sending me videos of her kids – things like that just really kept me going. It’s been so hard. It’s always the same though. If your house is full of people or if you’re alone it’s probably equally difficult in different ways. I’ve been really missing female family members and just female energy around me in general. I actually moved in with my cousin and it’s just been so nice. I’ve never drank so much tea in my life.”
For all our discussions around power and times they have doubted their own, it seems that The Nevers has empowered them like never before. “It feels quite amazing to be two Irish women at the head of such a massive scale HBO show,” Ann says proudly. “I never thought that would happen, even getting to work with so many women alongside us.”
“Nailing a fight scene is such a brilliant feeling,” Laura says referencing the times she has felt most within her power. “One of my favourites though is if I’ve got a date night with my partner and I’ve been upstairs getting ready and the moment that I appear down the stairs I’m like, ‘yeah, check me out!’ In fairness to him, he always reacts really well because I gave him pointers in the first week of our relationship,” Laura jokes. “She told the crew to do something similar when she comes on set,” Ann banters back, flashing the very real friendship behind the on-screen sisterhood we all need right now and that makes The Nevers so addictive.
All episodes of The Nevers will be available from 17th May on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW
For more from Glamour UK Contributing Entertainment Editor Josh Smith, follow him on Instagram @joshsmithhosts