Irish star Aisling Bea has revealed that she often feels lonely in the entertainment industry and the feeling can intensify when she is the lead of a show.
The Co Kildare born comedian and actress is currently starring alongside Paul Rudd in the acclaimed Netflix comedy Living With Yourself.
Bea rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and also wrote and starred in the hit TV series This Way Up.
She said that she is currently enjoying ‘just acting’ rather than also undertaking the emotionally draining process of writing.
Bea told Grazia: “It’s like having a one-hour baby compared to a 17-hour birth. It’s like, ‘Oh, that one was fine. It just fell out’.”
Living With Yourself sees Bea play the wife of Rudd, whose character returns home one day with a clone of himself after a failed procedure that was intended to replace his original self with a new and improved version.
Bea said: “It connects with stuff we’re thinking about in terms of finding yourself and what will fix… well, not fix, but help this [heart].”
Bea says This Way Up deals with how it is possible for loneliness to become a self-fulfilling prophecy with members of the public going out of their way to avoid lonely people
She said: “If you talk about being lonely, people don’t want to be near you, like they might catch it. But it is the element of the show that connected most with people.”
“I can’t keep up with the Instagram messages I get from people telling me how lonely they feel. And they are not people of a certain age, colour, personality or view on Brexit. It’s so human.”
Bea also feels that the increased reliance on technology is making people more and more lonely.
She said: “Sometimes, I feel like I’ve spoken to so many people but I’ve been on my own all day, replying to Whats-Apps. It’s like having a salad but they’ve taken all the vitamins out.”
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling