Aisling Bea’s delight is contagious. Having lived in New York once before, the return to one of her favorite cities already feels like something to celebrate. “The thing I loved about living in New York was the forced information that wasn’t tailored to me,” she says. “You really don’t know who you’re going to bump into.”
As an actor and stand-up comic, Bea is internationally known and appreciated. This Way Up, the series about a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown she created and starred in, was released on Hulu in 2019 to positive reviews and obsessively binged-watched by many. “I just had a baby, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, your first baby,’” says Bea. “I don’t feel like it’s my first. I feel like This Way Up was my first baby. I know it’s just a comedy, but that is my art form. I feel like I’ve had a second child.”
Now, settled in a cozy armchair in the lobby of the Ace Hotel, Bea is skillful in transitioning her tone from silly to serious. And while we may never get a third season of This Way Up, she says she’s hard at work on a new pilot. Until then, she has lent her talents to fresh genres: Swede Caroline, a British mockumentary about a vegetable-growing scandal; an emotional PBS Masterpiece series called Alice & Jack; and, most recently, a comedy-horror about a family holiday gone wrong titled Get Away all came out this year. She shared her taste with the Cut.
How old is your baby now?
She’s 4 months. Everything fun happens at 4 months — their hair starts to fall out and their teeth start to come in.
What drew you to Get Away?
First of all, Nick Frost. We have a friend in common, so we’ve been at a wedding together and stuff like that. He sent me a message on Instagram, saying, “Do you like herring? Would you come and film with me in Finland?” I was like, “I do quite like herring.” I was in already, before he even sent me the script.
You haven’t done a ton of horror, have you?
I’ve done no horror, only looking-in-the mirror horror. The greatest horror of all is standing onstage realizing people don’t like your jokes. That’s truly gruesome. When this movie got really gory, I found it hard to watch, but not as hard as I find other things to watch — only because I knew that we were actually all covered in jam. The poster for Saw alone, I’m gone.
The family in Get Away is going on a very particular holiday. What would be your dream holiday?
I find it very hard to relax. You never totally feel like you’ve done enough to earn something. So my favorite type of holiday is when I’ve been paid to go somewhere for work. When you’re freelance, that’s the only time you can feel like you can take weekends — when you’re not looking for work or doing little bits and bobs. Even doing stand-up, I always feel like I’m wasting the day, even if I’m on a gig that night.
Imagine you’re having a dinner party. You can invite five celebrities, dead or alive. Who’s there?
I have a lot of dinner parties. I’m a big dinner-party fan, and tooting my own horn, I am exceptional at putting together a good dinner party. I’m going to put in Kadiff Kirwan. He always comes with piping-hot tea to the table, which is great, and his takes will be very measured and kind. I’m also going to throw Ben Whishaw in there. He’s a great rosé drinker and very fun when drunk. I’m going to put in my friend Nish Kumar, who’s a stand-up comic from the U.K. I know it’s weird to put my friends on, because I should be like, “Tom Hanks.” I’m going to put Colin Hanks in there, because Colin has come around for dinner at my house and has so many facts on absolutely everything. I’m going to assume my boyfriend is there, making the dinner, so he’s not included in the five.
I realize I’ve not invited any women yet, which is very unfeminist of me. Who will be my girl? Michelle Buteau is one of my favorite stand-ups in the world. I adore her. We first met doing our mini Netflix specials eight or nine years ago. Jessie Buckley is brilliant. She’s also very good friends with Ben and Kadiff as well. Ben would get on amazingly with Michelle and Nish. Olivia Colman, if she’ll come; she’s friends with all of those people as well. Olivia and Jessie are great craic. They are not afraid to have a few drinks. We’d all have a bit of a gossip and a laugh.
What’s the worst thing you can do at a dinner party?
You can be a listener, and that’s actively bringing something to the table. Not everyone has to be a big anecdote person. If you sit at a dinner table like an audience member, you will never come back to my house again. And bring a box of biscuits. If you’re very quiet, just bring a really nice bottle and offer to help with dishes. But if you just sit there, ask for a drink, then sit down and don’t ask a single question, don’t laugh, and then leave without having washed a dish, that is the most un-Irish behavior. You won’t be returning, even to the local area that I live in. Begone.
What’s the last meal you cooked for dinner?
Potato gratin. It’s gluten-free. It’s not dairy- or salt- or fat-free, as you can imagine. Even though it’s a French dish, I think of it as the Irish macaroni and cheese, and I make it really well. My mother only knows how to cook seven high-end French things, because when she got married, she couldn’t cook, and she was sent to French cookery school. They’re all quite 1980s dishes.
My friend Kadiff — I just listened to a voice note from him, and he’s always in my house — he traditionally, before I started going out with my boyfriend, Jack, who cooks a lot, brought hot sauce to every single one of my dinner parties. He said when Jack came into my life, I no longer required extra seasoning to be brought to my house, which was a high compliment and also a massive diss at the same time.
Do you have a comfort rewatch?
My boyfriend loves rewatching things, but for me, the novelty goes out of something once it’s been watched. But that doesn’t happen with music, which drives my boyfriend mad because he’s a musician. I will listen to the same song over and over. I have comfort re-listens.
At the moment, I love the Fontaines D.C., they’re an Irish band. Their album Romance is amazing. Whether this makes me a basic bitch or not, I really don’t care. I love Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Spotify told me that I was in the top 14 percent of Beyoncé listeners. “Countdown” is a song I love listening to; it reminds me of the time I was young and hopeful, doing my first solo shows. There’s also a Sinéad O’Connor song called “Take Me to Church” that I just adore, adore, adore. It’s not the Hozier one, which I also adore. I love that song and the message in it. That’s a real comfort.
Best piece of gossip you’ve ever heard?
I mean, I’ll never tell you genuinely. There’s a phrase, “nobody likes a gossip,” and that is the biggest lie of society. What a delight when someone comes over spilling their giant kettle of tea. Delicious. But this is such vintage gossip that I think it’s okay. I started to watch Victoria on Netflix, and apparently Queen Victoria and her husband spread STDs all around the royal family at that time. So they had sex parties, or something like that. I love historical gossip. I think that’s why The Crown was really good at the start, because it was all the gossip.
Name a book you couldn’t put down?
I’d love to recommend Rob Delaney’s book, A Heart That Works. It was based on the loss of his son Henry, who was also my little friend, and I couldn’t put it down when he gave me an early copy. I had to get through it all, because I think at the time, maybe I didn’t totally process my grief for our beautiful friend, and reading Rob’s book, it felt like I needed to get to the end of my grief personally reading it, and get into Rob’s heart a little bit about it. I needed to finish it in a very visceral way. For something about such a tragic death that Rob experienced, it’s a lot more about holding onto life very tightly.
How would you describe your ideal film genre?
A historical political plot. It’s so far away from what I would write, and I find myself really getting lost. I’ll even go more specific: If Harrison Ford is in it, and he’s running around and there’s some kind of conspiracy within the police that he’s going to get to the bottom of, and there’s a police officer who has a good heart, but his first instinct is not totally right, and slowly but surely he’s able to, within his ego, know there’s something more to this case, and he’d rather justice be done than just get the case solved despite pressure from his governor.
The Devil’s Own — highly not recommended. That’s the only Harrison Ford movie I can’t do; we can’t get past the depiction of Northern Ireland. Patriot Games, similar vibe. So hilarious, their take on Northern Ireland in the current context; it’s actually almost like a comedy to watch. But The Fugitive is a perfect film for all that sort of stuff. Witness is also a perfect film.
For someone unaware of Irish artistic output, what’s the first thing you’d recommend?
A piece of Irish art that I would love people who are American to discover is the new Kneecap movie. Kneecap is a Northern Irish pair of rappers who rap in the Irish language. Already, you’re like, What? No. Someone sought them out to take the real story of their lives, which was the government trying to take down their Northern Irish rapping in our Irish language, and they turned into a massive success. It has subtitles, and it goes in and out of English and Irish.
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?
“Just send the text,” and “If you feel it, send it.” That’s a terrible bit of advice. When you’re emotional, what I’ve learned to do very late in my life is to completely write it out, but put in your notes and then hours later come back to it and read it with a fresh brain. Therein lies the problem with email. Back in the day, you’d have the thought, get your quill, write it down on a piece of manuscript, wait for the postman on his horse to come along, and even still you could run after the horse, like, “Stop, give me back that letter!”
What do you listen to in your car?
I tend to listen to voice notes from my friends. Here’s my rule on voice notes: Do not send them about something practical. Do not send a voice note about directions, times, dates, or things people need to see on paper or in text. Or if it’s time sensitive — for me, voice notes are letters; you keep them in your envelope and then when you have the time, you sit by the fire and open them. Voice notes are like personalized podcasts from my friends. The music of friendship, I suppose you could say.
I have to ask — will there ever be a season three of This Way Up?
The problem was that we made the series in the pandemic, and it was so rough making it. I loved making our first series, and making the second series in the pandemic became so serious and sort of awful. People got sick, people lost family members to COVID as we were filming. For something that was about mental health, it became so rough that it tainted my ability to go back there to write it. To me, it wouldn’t be healthy to go back. I’m so proud of the work and everyone who worked on it, but my memories of it are very heavy, and the show was always supposed to be about lightness and helping people. I still want as many people as I can get to watch it, but I couldn’t currently go back to that for that reason. Maybe at some point, I’ll do something about where Aine is now, that type of thing. Never say never.
I’m developing a new TV show, which I have to write the pilot script for, in January. It’s nerve-racking to go back in and start writing again at full commitment to a new series, but I’m excited about it, and I have hopefully put healthier things in place for myself to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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