Derry Girls star Louisa Harland has spoken about the pressure felt by female comedy actresses.
The Dubliner played kooky Orla McCool in the popular comedy, set in the 1990s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The success of Derry Girls has made household names of the actors who played the lead characters.
Harland revealed she has received plenty of positive messages from fans, applauding her for her portrayal of the popular Orla.
Harland said: “I’ve had a lot of letters from people with autism saying that it’s great to be represented on screen like that. It’s interesting that they relate to it in that way.
“Autism wasn’t a spoken-about thing in the 1990s. It wasn’t as amazingly open and well-researched as it is now.”
Orla won the hearts of viewers thanks to her whimsical and charming personality.
She was frequently unaware of the seriousness of the situation she and her friends found themselves in and continued with her positive outlook on life.
The 27-year-old star said: “I have thought about it a lot since that reaction and maybe in the second series I went in differently, thinking, why is Orla seen as odd to other people but not to herself?”
The viewers certainly warmed to Orla and the YouTube compilation of her ‘best bits’ has been the most popular of all the characters on the show.
Harland was pleased with the response and said: “I’m so afraid of the internet, that’s not even something that I was aware of. It is so terrifying being a woman and doing comedy because there’s this belief that women are not as funny. I think the fear of doing comedy as a woman is huge. So definitely if people find what you do funny, that is very gratifying.”
The likeable actress went on to speak about her latest project, The Boys From County Hell, which sees her character fighting for her life after an ancient Irish vampire is accidentally awoken by some road workers.
Harland revealed that a vampire movie offered too good an opportunity to miss and referenced Irish writer Bram Stoker and his famous Dracula character.
She laughed: “When vampires hit, obviously, the best thing to do is to take out the novel Dracula and go through it and it will tell us what to do. Unfortunately, it is a book of fiction… That’s where the comedy kind of comes into it.”
Take a look below at the YouTube video of the best moments of Orla McCool.
