You would think that her comeback to primetime television drama in Blackout, a three-part BBC One thriller starring Christopher Ecclestone, would cheer her up, but the 41-year-old actress is certain. âNo matter how highly others see your performance, or how far up this imaginary ladder of so-called success you climb, there is no security. âAs one of the most successful actresses on television, and with a husband who is generally regarded as one of Britain's most sought-after ânot to say most gorgeous âactors, Rupert Penry-Jones (star of Silk and Whitechapel), what precisely is worrying Kirwan? Is she concerned about being a fortysomething in a youth-oriented industry?
She tells me she began her career in the theatre as a teenager, after relocating from her home in the Dublin suburbs to London. 'Jesus, I was a child,' she explains. 'When I was 16, I was cast in a play at London's Bush Theatre, and so I left home and went here.' She described it as a really frightening period. 'I was alone; I knew no one. I was much too young to be alone in London. You would never obtain that today.' She was on the verge of returning home, but was fearful of the consequences.
Dervla was born the third child of her parents, with two older sisters called Blanaid and Paula. Despite their poverty, she had a pleasant upbringing. As is customary for younger children in middle-class households, she grew up wearing her sisters' attire. Dervla Kirwan was born in Churchtown, a suburban neighbourhood on Dublin's southside, on 24 October 1971. Peter Kirwan, her father, was an insurance salesman, and Maureen Collins, née O'Driscoll, her mother, was a language teacher. She instructed students in both English and Latin.
Penry-Jones has been on American television in the FX series âThe Strainâ and the Starz drama âBlack Sails.â In his home England, he appeared as Adam Carter in the BBC espionage thriller MI-5, as Clive Reader QC in the BBC legal drama Silk, and as police officer DI Joseph Chandler in the ITV murder mystery series Whitechapel. He has also appeared in television films such as âNorth Squareâ for C4, the BBC's four-part âCambridge Spies,â Russell T. Davies' âCasanova,â ITV's adaptation of âPersuasion,â âBurn Up opposite Bradley Whitford and Neve Campbell, and the BBC's adaptation of âThe 39 Steps.â He married actress Dervla Kirwan in August 2007, whom he met in 2001 while working on the stage show âDangerous Corner.â
