As one of five siblings, celebrated Irish actress and writer Sharon Horgan, was immediately drawn to popular Belgian TV series, Clan, about five sisters.
Growing up on a turkey farm in County Meath, her own sibling dynamic was a huge factor in deciding to adapt Clan, setting it squarely in Dublin.
In translating it into ten-part series Bad Sisters, Horgan has brilliantly reimagined the Goethal sisters as the Garveys, taking the role of eldest sister Eva for herself, with popular actresses Anne-Marie Duff as Grace; Eva Birthistle as Ursula; Sarah Greene as Bibi, and Eve Hewson as Becka.
If every good comedy needs a villain, then Horgan found her perfect baddie in Claes Bang who plays Grace’s husband, JP – a man so loathsome that the sisters literally want to kill him.
“Coming from a large family was really helpful because I know what that looks like and how infectious it is to be part of that,” says Horgan who insists none of her own real-life siblings will recognise themselves in the series.
“It’s sort of inspired by my own family a little bit – but there’s definitely nothing in it that they could sue me for,” she laughs.
“Adapting this was just a bit intimidating because I haven’t adapted anything before and you kind of have to work out what stays and what goes and it’s a much bigger job than I thought.
“But I love the passion of these sisters, how they would do anything for each other. And, in fact, they do – they would kill for each other.
“Coming from a big family myself, there’s a real, raw energy that comes with that, that feeling that if anyone messes with your family they better watch out. I love that. I am both protected and protective, and I rely on my family more than they know,” adds Horgan, best known for Brit comedy TV series Pulling and Catastrophe.
While the Garvey sisters are a wonderful, riotous group who love nothing more than a good party, then JP is a racist, sexist, selfish, sociopath of a man.
In casting JP, Horgan looked no further than Danish actor Bang, most recently seen in the The Northman, The Affair and the Palme d’Or winning and Oscar-nominated Scandinavian The Square.
As Grace’s husband, JP has made it his life’s mission to keep her isolated from her sisters as much as possible.
“For some reason, he just cannot deal with the fact that Grace is part of this very strong group,” says Bang. “He’s always accusing Grace of thinking that he’s not good enough and saying that her sisters mean more to her than he does. It’s spiraling out of control and the more he tries to pull Grace away from the sisters, the more they try to get her back.”
Ask Bang how he got into the mindset of a man whose every thought and deed is so cruel, the actor can’t help but chuckle. “I’m sorry to say I am sort of playing myself here! I only hope there are other sides to me than that. But I don’t think I could go about these things in any other way because that wouldn’t be truthful, and I think that then we would alienate ourselves from the scenes that we’re doing,” he tells us.
“So, I think for this, it’s a question of allowing all those dark sides that we all have – perhaps the sides of myself that I’m perhaps not too proud of – to come out. So, to let all the jealousy or your shortcomings or your hatred or your inferiority complexes, all your narcissism; let it all be there, and allow that to be exposed,” reasons the actor who couldn’t be more delightful in real life.
“So, in order for me to do something that you can identify with, the only thing I can do is be truthful, and find out: How does this resonate with what is in there?”
While Bad Sisters is an uproarious comedy, then Duff – in her role as JP’s long-suffering wife Grace – hopes it might also offer a lifeline to other women who find themselves stuck in an unhappy marriage with a bully for a husband.
“I’ve worked on projects around domestic abuse before, and so I’ve been connected with a British charity called https://www.womensaid.org.uk/about-us/”>Women’s Aid, visiting refuges and speaking to women who had been in relationships that weren’t just violent – because we’re used to seeing physical violence inside of that scenario on screen. But coercion and silent control is a story that’s less told and one that we’re becoming more familiar with,” argues the actress who starred in popular Brit TV series, Shameless (where she met her future husband, James McAvoy) and portrayed Queen Elizabeth in mini-series, The Virgin Queen.
“So, it was so useful to me because it really reminded me of the reasons why we don’t react or can’t stand up or feel voiceless. Anybody who has ever been bullied in the school playground knows that feeling of ‘I’m incapable of changing this. Why can nobody see I have no power here?’ And to be rendered powerless is very quick to happen, surprisingly. So that knowledge was so useful to me although, yes, I did get infuriated with Grace at times,” she says.
Filmed in numerous areas around Ireland, the location which plays the biggest role in the series is, without doubt, the Forty Foot, a legendary swimming area in Dublin Bay, located about eight miles south of the city centre.
Boasting a friendly community of regulars who take a dip every day, no matter what time of year, the Forty Foot is also the location of a longstanding tradition for thousands of Dubliners: a Christmas Day swim.
And so it is for the Garvey sisters, who have vowed to each other that no matter what life throws in their way, their Christmas dip at the Forty Foot is sacrosanct.
Bono’s daughter, Eve Hewson, a revelation in her charming role as the youngest Garvey sister Becka, is a Dublin native who grew up just minutes from the Forty Foot.
“Christmas Day is a big day at the Forty Foot, as everyone goes out the night before, on Christmas Eve, and gets drunk at the pub,” she laughs.
“You go to church and then you go and swim off your hangover at the Forty Foot. You shock it out of your system. It’s a very, very Irish thing,” adds Hewson, 31, who has quickly become one of her generation’s brightest talents, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Steven Soderbergh’s TV series The Knick and, as Maid Marian in Otto Bathurst’s Robin Hood with Taron Egerton and Jamie Dornan.
Rounding out the cast as Becka’s love interest is Daryl McCormack – whose previous love interest was Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande – and Brian Gleeson (brother of Domhnall Gleeson, sons of celebrated Irish actor Brendan Gleeson) who play the Claffin brothers, insurance agents who have a vested interest in bringing down the Garvey sisters.
But for Bang, most of his scenes involved just the women, where he quickly found himself ostracised – just as he is on screen.
“Quite fast and quite early on, they found this connection that made them sisters, which was very useful for me, because it had the whole thing of that bond and perhaps a kind of mystery, and I feel that JP has this feeling that he can’t find his feet within that. So that was very useful for me, that they all found that thing and it was palpable in the room that you were with these people that had found that connection.”
If it was useful, then he also cautions, “It always made me feel really alone or trying to get in there and not being able to, but it was also sometimes tough, because I was always the most hated person in the room,” he says drolly.
“And I knew that the minute I turned my back, all they were talking about was ways of killing me. There were actually days where I’d come home from work and be like, ‘Well, they really don’t like me on this production’.
“Our job is sometimes called ‘playing’, so even for really tough scenes, as an actor, it’s still fun to do, because the material and the scenes are so rich, and there’s really something there to play with. And that’s always something that, in a way, sets off a tiny giggle within you. Which is weird, I know. When you’re saying the most horrendous things to your partner but still – in a perverse way – it’s also very satisfying,” he says.
Just to show that there are no hard feelings in real life, Duff gives him an encouraging squeeze and smile – something you will rarely see this couple do in Bad Sisters.
Bad Sisters premieres on Friday, August 19, 2022 exclusively on Apple TV+
https://www.filmink.com.au/sharon-horgans-dysfunctional-clan/”>