Dearbhla Walsh isn’t resting on her laurels – she’s back to work, before she even knows where to put her Emmy
LAST SUNDAY night, Dearbhla Walsh, director of the BBC's Little Dorritseries, was nervously seated at the Emmy awards in Los Angeles. Across the Atlantic, various factions of her family were watching the ceremony. In Sligo, her parents popped into a neighbour to avail of their cable TV. Her siblings in Dublin also stayed up and proof of their loyalty – if she needed it – came in the form of picture messages texted to her mobile of them huddling under blankets on the couch, trying to stay awake. At around 2am Irish time, Best Director in a Miniseries or Movie was about to be announced. Walsh had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next.
“I had zero expectation about the directing category because the competition was so fierce. My plan was to just enjoy the weekend and the glamour of it all. When my name was announced, I genuinely thought that Patricia Arquette had made a mistake.”
Amid palpitations and shock, Walsh had just one thought. "There was only one camera and it wasn't even on me, it was on the category favourite [Michael Sucsy, director of Grey Gardens] and all I could think was 'oh my God, my Mum and Dad won't even see a shot of my face'."
Walsh's long career and varied experience are central to her win. Upon graduation from DCU, Walsh's big break into television was working on TG4's Ros na Rún in the mid-1990s. She directed several programmes for RTÉ, including The Irish Empire, The Big Bow Wowand Hide and Seek, before landing a job on Eastenders. In 2005, she directed cult Channel 4 series, Shameless, but last year was her most successful to date, working on both The Tudorsand Little Dorrit.The latter involved a weekly commute to London and the series has been critically acclaimed both in the UK and US, picking up seven Emmy awards last weekend, including one for the Dublin-based director.
Convinced she hadn’t got a chance of winning, Walsh didn’t prepare a speech, despite the urging of her partner, TV presenter Anna Nolan. “I didn’t write anything because that in itself sets up an expectation – there was definitely no standing in front of the mirror rehearsing.”
Her mother had wanted to make the trip to LA, but Walsh persuaded her that she wouldn’t win and it would be a waste of time. When she arrived back in Dublin on Tuesday afternoon, her parents travelled from Sligo to welcome her home.
"My family in Dublin took half days off work to greet me at the airport with flowers and balloons. That night they arranged a surprise dinner in a restaurant in town. The owner kept whisking the Emmy off to the kitchen to get a photograph of it with the chef." By Wednesday, Walsh was back to work checking out Dublin locations for a new BBC project called The Silence. A four-part thriller, it tells the story of a deaf girl who witnesses a murder. Although it's set in Bristol, much of the location work is being filmed around Dublin and shooting starts in seven weeks.
When we speak, she has just landed in London and faces a day of casting for the same series. “Being in LA is so surreal. People see you with the award and ask if they can be photographed with you. It’s lovely to be acknowledged but then it’s straight back to work.”
Awards undoubtedly raise profile and they can knock firmly on previously unopened doors. Apart from the hundreds of e-mails and texts sent in congratulations, Walsh admits her agent has been busier and people she previously met regarding film scripts are even keener to meet her now. This contrasts hugely with the difficulties she faced when first working in the UK.
"Initially, it was so hard to get a break in drama over there. At meetings people didn't know what to make of my CV. It was so varied, and there is an attempt to pigeonhole you. I used to get asked if I knew what sort of director I wanted to be. One of the advantages of being from somewhere like Ireland is that the industry here is so small that there just isn't the room to specialise." She would be happy to move to the US for work, with the prerequisite that it would have to be for a project she was passionate about. Like any industry, film and television have suffered due to the current economic climate. "Ironically, Little Dorritpaid less than the work I'd done in the previous six or seven years. The reality of a lot of productions now is that they're co-produced."
BBC and WGBH in Boston made Little Dorrit, and Company Pictures (which made Shameless) collaborated with HBO on Generation Kill, whose director was nominated in the same category as Walsh. Also nominated alongside her was fellow Irish director Thaddeus O'Sullivan for Into the Storm, for which Brendan Gleeson won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie Emmy.
For the moment, Walsh is committed to television, with The Silencekeeping her busy until next April, but her ambition lies in film. "I love television drama and, if you look at recent standards in the US [she mentions The Wireand Mad Men], the quality trumps a lot of what's being released on the big screen. A lot of film people are also crossing over to work in television and I think that cross-fertilisation is a really good thing." She has a number of different scripts in varying stages of development and is pragmatic about how long these things take to come to fruition. "I'll keep various projects bubbling away while working in television and paying the mortgage."
Her parents Joe and Maeve are “so proud” and, after joking in her acceptance speech about the award sharing her bed, Walsh is still trying to figure out where to display it. “I’ve tried the kitchen table, the hallway and a few other places, but I won’t do an Emma Thompson – I’d need a bigger bathroom.”
