Irish star Daryl McCormack said he wanted to work with British actress Ruth Wilson for a “long time” and “even had her on a mood board” as they both star in a BBC One drama.
The Tipperary actor, 30, is in a new BBC psychological thriller after being in last year’s drama Good Luck To You, Leo Grande opposite Dame Emma Thompson and Irish black comedy Bad Sisters.
The Woman In The Wall takes a look at mysterious deaths and the wake of the Magdalene Laundries scandal, which saw women talk about being detained against their will and forced to give up their children.
McCormack plays Detective Colman Akande in the series as Wilson takes on the role of Lorna Brady, a woman who has suffered from bouts of sleepwalking after being put in the Catholic institution as a teenager.
He said: “I’ve wanted to work with Ruth for a long time, actually. Ever since I saw her in Luther years back I wanted to work with her, and I think I even had her on like a mood board of mine like someone I wanted to work with.”
McCormack said he does not do mood boards anymore after starting them in his mid-20s, around the time he would have been playing Pierce Devlin in Fair City and before he starred in period crime drama Peaky Blinders and 2020 comedy film Pixie.
He added: “I think (Ruth’s) just an exceptional talent but, on top of that, I love how she’s navigated her career, like even just to point to the show that she did in the Young Vic recently where she did a play for 24 hours. Who’s doing that? Like, I just think that is astonishing.
“And also just a testament to how much of an artist she is. So yeah, just to work with her, it was a full on joy.”
Laundries run by nuns operated across Ireland from the 18th century until the final institution in Sean McDermott Street in Dublin closed in 1996.
The laundries were opened for “fallen women” but many survivors have since revealed that many of those who worked in the laundries had committed no sin.
A number of former inmates have given accounts of suffering sexual, psychological and physical abuse in the laundries, where they provided free labour.
Nenagh-raised McCormack said he was “nervous” about how the show would resonate because it “carries a lot of weight and because it’s not been spoken about, or kind of exposed to such a wider audience”.
He said survivors the show spoke to were “very happy” for the BBC to tell the story.
McCormack added: “I think with that, it gives me confidence that its (reception) is a bit of a win-win either way because I think any story that’s been tried to be (swept) under the rug deserves the spotlight, deserves exposure.
“Particularly when there’s been injustice done and this is injustice to just such a high degree.”
This year, McCormack earned a Bafta film nomination for playing a male sex worker in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande along with a rising star award nod at the ceremony.
Wilson, 41, known for BBC show His Dark Materials and 2006’s Jane Eyre series, said the importance of the subject matter partly informed her decision to take on the role of Lorna.
She said: “There’s a great character at the heart of it (the series) and when I read the script I thought, ‘Wow, this is really swimming on something fascinating’.
“Not only revealing a subject matter that needs to be told but (creator) Joe (Murtagh) is doing it through a really interesting guise.
“I thought, ‘It’s not only this crime thriller, but it’s a psychological horror. What Lorna goes through is a psychological horror’.”
The Woman In The Wall is a six-part series and the fifth episode is set to air on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm.
The last part is slated for broadcast on September 24.
