Latest news with #SharonHorgan
BBC News
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Sharon Horgan says she only found confidence after Bad Sisters series two
Bafta award-winning actor, writer, producer and director Sharon Horgan has told an audience at the Hay Festival she finally found confidence after the second series of her hit show Bad Sisters came out last star, whose back catalogue includes sitcoms Catastrophe, Pulling and Motherland, said she previously thought "there was a possibility I was just in the right place at the right time, or that I had the right people around. "But I think with Bad Sisters, even though there's a huge team of people, it felt like mine. That feeling I belonged in that room."Bad Sisters, an adaptation of Belgian series Clan on Apple TV+, is a revenge tale about sisters aiming to kill an abusive husband. Horgan also talked about how she first turned to writing because she couldn't land any acting roles, hence deciding to write parts for about penning her first pilot back in the early 2000s with Dennis Kelly for BBC Three show Pulling, about a group of 20-something women and their chaotic love lives, Horgan said: "Comedy was mainly written by men, writing the female parts. I was writing about myself and my friends - flawed women. No-one was really doing it at that point."She said she was concerned that because her female-led sitcom had been picked up, it might mean other women wouldn't get their shows made."It felt like a one-in, one-out kind of system. Like, we've had the female comedy [quota]."She then spent several years "waitressing and doing unsuccessful pilots" before eventually hooking up with Rob Delaney on X (then Twitter) and going on to create Channel 4 show was about a couple who ended up settling down together following an accidental pregnancy after only a week of dating. Horgan said: "We wanted to show how difficult it was to stay in love when you're a parent... and you've got terrible people running around under three foot!" Motherhood was a theme the Irish star returned to when she created the hit BBC series Motherland, alongside Holly Walsh and Graham Linehan. Following a pilot episode aired in 2016, it went on to spawn three hit series, two Christmas specials, and recent spin-off, dark comedy sees a group of mum friends - and one dad - navigate the challenges of middle class told fans at Hay: "I was living it. I would go to my daughter's primary school every day and just feel existential. You have to find your people. and that's what happened to me. I met these two really great women who are still in my life now."It's sort of just getting a group of misfits together. I felt like an outsider. It's a really great, fun show but it's also about how lonely it can be. I experienced that, walking through a park with my pushchair... and seeing a group of mums having a picnic and thinking, 'Why aren't I at that?'" Since then, her career has continued to thrive and she has juggled multiple roles on many of her shows ranging from executive producer to actor to writer and even she admitted her perfectionism had occasionally caused an issue on set."I'm trying to get better at it. It's also about having people around you that you really trust almost as much as you trust yourself. But I remember being pulled up on it by a big star in a show I did, just going: 'Don't you think all of these people can do their jobs? You think you can do your job better than all these people?'"And I remember at the time thinking, 'I can't say this out loud,' but 'yes'!" she laughed. More from the Hay Festival Succession creator Jesse Armstrong is writing about rich people againJacqueline Wilson says she wouldn't return to Tracy Beaker as an adult At the end of her discussion, Horgan is asked which of her characters she'd most like to be. She plumps for Sharon Morris from her obvious success and new-found confidence, Horgan's admiration for Morris, a funny, brave and strikingly honest woman just doing her best, is clear."Even though she's selfish and can be awful... she was just able to articulate how she was feeling," she said."I think that's the great thing about writing. You get to say all those conversations that you have in your head and you wish you'd said. She had all my thoughts, the thoughts I was afraid to say at the time."
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sharon Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Fiona Shaw, and every ‘Bad Sisters' Emmy acting submission
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Bad Sisters will submit 10 actors at the Emmys for Season 2, Gold Derby has learned. Sharon Horgan, who was nominated for Best Drama Actress Season 1 in 2023, will be the sole lead submission. More from GoldDerby The other nine actors will all be submitted in supporting. Owen McDonnell, Michael Smiley, and Barry Ward will enter in Best Drama Supporting Actor. Eva Birthistle, Anne-Marie Duff, Thaddea Graham, Sarah Greene, Eve Hewson, and Fiona Shaw will be in Best Drama Supporting Actress. McDonnell, Graham, and Shaw were Season 2 cast additions. The show will not enter any performers in either guest category. SEE Fiona Shaw was 'scared' to join tight-knit Bad Sisters cast, but 'they were so welcoming I never wanted to leave them' At the moment, Bad Sisters is in 16th place in Gold Derby's Best Drama Series odds. Horgan is in 12th place in the Best Drama Actress rankings. Besides Best Drama Actress, Season 1 of Bad Sisters received three other Emmy nominations. It was up for casting, directing, and writing, the last of which Horgan, who co-created the show, was a co-nominee alongside Dave Finkel and Brett Baer. These 10 are only Apple TV+'s submissions. Anyone can personally submit themselves, so other actors from the show could still appear on the Emmy ballot. Emmy nominations will be announced July 15. See Bad Sisters' acting submissions below. Drama Actress: Sharon Horgan Drama Supporting Actor: Owen McDonnell, Michael Smiley, Barry Ward Drama Supporting Actress: Eva Birthistle, Anne-Marie Duff, Thaddea Graham, Sarah Greene, Eve Hewson, Fiona Shaw Best of GoldDerby Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sharon Horgan opens up on mental health battle and pill that helps
Actor Sharon Horgan has revealed she had to have therapy and now takes medication for anxiety, as she was left sweating and her heart was 'going like crazy'. The writer has spoken to Louis Theroux for the latest episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast. Sharon Horgan is the Irish actress, writer, producer, and comedian who co-created and starred in the critically acclaimed TV shows Catastrophe, with Rob Delaney, and Bad Sisters, which she also executive produced. She has also worked on Motherland, Divorce, and This Way Up alongside Aisling Bea. In the latest episode of Louis's podcast, Sharon discusses pre-award show anxiety, writers' rooms and winding career paths - as well as nits. READ MORE: Family's DNA plea over taxi driver murdered with cheesewire READ MORE: Inventor of food we all have in our cupboards dies, aged 97 Sharon told Louis she had had therapy to tackle anxiety, and went on to use medication. She said: "When you have an increased heart rate, and when all those things start happening to you physically, that's when you kind of step outside of yourself, because you're telling yourself to calm down, you're telling yourself to be less nervous, and you're kind of like admonishing yourself. And all that is making you feel a bit disembodied. So they [beta blockers] do something very practical physically, but I think the sort of mental stuff that goes with it. It has had a real calming effect on me and in situations that would normally kind of terrify me. "When we were at the Critics' Choice Awards last year, me and [Eve Hewson] were going out to present an award and that place is insane. It's like Cate Blanchett's there, there's Nicole Kidman, there's Steven Spielberg and it's insane and you're going out to present an award and you need to be funny and you need to also feel relaxed. And I took it and I went out on stage and I was like, 'I'm actually fine, happy to be here'. Whereas before I swear to God, I couldn't, it was the worst. I would hear my voice, my heart would be going crazy. I'd be sweating. I'd be, my, my voice would wobble, but also get higher like I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my brain. "And, yeah, it was nothing. It wasn't like I was flat, it was just like, I'm absolutely fine. So from then on, I kind of take them in any sort of situation that would create some kind of anxiety." Sharon also spoke about her first break - and having nits - adding: "I was putting on plays above pubs and that, but I was just too sort of scared to, you know, have a proper go. Like I remember getting my first break, getting a radio pilot when I hadn't been at the job centre that long. "And I turned up to make the pilot with my yellow job centre folder with all my scripts in it. At the time I had nits. I don't know who I got them from, but I was squatting in a manor house in North London while I was working the job and I got nits off some, like, skank. And then, I remember being in the reception for the BBC, I'm like, what am I doing here? "And Joanna Lumley was there, and I was so nervous I'd given her nits. And it was just sort of a weird two worlds colliding kind of thing." Sharon said she also had to go to 'a dark place' while writing Bad Sisters. She said: "When I was making Bad Sisters, I got really into true crime and I allowed it because I was like, this is research, you know, I'd never written a thriller before or anything around a murder or any kind of cop story. And so I felt I was fully justified in watching and listening to terrible stories about women killing their husbands. "It kind of took me to a really dark place and it was kind of like I could only be sated by, by that kind of content and I could only fall asleep if I was listening to, you know, a story about some brutal murder in my ears and I had to get out of it. So, at the moment I'm developing this thing, which is much more, kind of grounded and to do with relationships and stuff. I'm more sort of like, I want to watch love stories and I want to read about, you know, breakdowns of relationships. And anytime I find myself going online to watch anything that's, you know, not connected to that, I know it's just like salacious kind of, I'm just like feeding my beast. So like the, the Depp and Heard thing, like, what did I? get from that. Like, nothing, you know? " The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
The Guardian
08-02-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Mushroom magic? M&S introduces ‘shots' said to bring you up
First they gave us the meal deal. Now they're trying to help boost our brains. Marks & Spencer's new range of drinks containing adaptogenic mushrooms make it the first major supermarket to sell 'functional juices'. From this year, you can now find 'lion's mane latte' and 'reishi shots' next to Lucozade and lemonade on the soft drinks shelf. Distilled into little shots and combined with juice, or added to cold brew coffee, the products were born out of what Claire Richardson, the product development manager for health at M&S Food, describes as overwhelming concern from 80% of its customer base over 'cognitive/brain health'. Described as adaptogens, these mushrooms supposedly help manage stress, fatigue and anxiety. In true Carrollian fashion, lion's mane is meant to wake you up – and reishi, to calm you down. What's more, they're all completely legal. As with most 'supplements', there is a spectrum. Magic mushrooms contain psychoactive constituents, and are considered class A drugs under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. While harvesting functional mushrooms such as lion's mane is illegal because of its rarity, it is non-psychedelic and legal to buy from a shop. The popularity of functional mushrooms as a wellness product has only, well, mushroomed in the past few years. The global adaptogenic mushrooms market was worth £8.7bn in 2022 and is expected to net a 10% return in the next decade, according to Global Market Insights, quoted in the Grocer. So why all the buzz? Combined with changing attitudes towards health and wellness, mushroom-laced products are occasionally referred to as 'third way' products – alternatives to coffee or alcohol, which can reproduce a similar effect. Three Spirit, a British drinks company sells bottles of Social, which contains 'mood-maker' lion's mane. The health app Lifesum predicts the global mushroom coffee market will grow at an annual rate of 5.5% from 2024 to 2030. But there is an argument that this overlaps with shifting attitudes over the illegal kind too. This week, magic mushrooms played a starring role in Sharon Horgan's new spin-off, Amandaland, in which the antagonist Amanda finds herself consuming mushroom chocolates in a hot tub while trying to ingratiate herself with Harlesden's hippest parents. In 2023, it was reported that one in 100 people had taken hallucinogenic drugs in England and Wales within the past year, most of them older than Gen Z – with 'functional chocolates' taking off among a certain type of middle-aged, middle-class consumer run ragged by modern life. David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and the author of Psychedelics, thinks this taps into a 'growing recognition of the emotional value and traditional use of magic mushrooms plus acceptance of their safety compared with most other recreational drugs including alcohol'. Citing a paper in the Lancet from 2010, which looks at drugs ordered by their overall harm scores, it shows mushrooms are at the lower end of the scale compared with alcohol. This 'desire to escape from the commercial exploitation and toxic effects of alcohol' is particularly prevalent among older, time-poor professionals looking for manageable escape. One east London woman, who is 48 and requested to remain anonymous, said she regularly took mushroom chocolate when on holiday with her children. 'You get that kick like you would with a first drink but you don't have the hangover the next day,' she said. 'It's ideal when you have to be up at 6am.' The consumption of both legal and illegal mushrooms is as old as society itself, but finding evidence to back up the former's health benefits remains the issue. Richardson, who created the drinks with scientists from Kew's Royal Botanic Gardens, describes the benefits as 'numerous', although it is unclear as to what these benefits actually are. Under UK law, food labelling cannot 'attribute to any foodstuff the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease'. Concrete research based on human trials is scant, although various companies claim it can help with brain health, alleviating inflammatory bowel disease and even ADHD symptoms. It remains to be seen as to whether these drinks will make it to Tesco or Waitrose. According to YouGov, while one in four people are interested in functional mushroom drinks, almost half have never heard of them – much less tried them. Bring the Zing AM shot (contains lion's mane) Taste: sweet, citrussy, perfectly palatable. Does it work?: packs a punch, although hard to know if that is caused by the mushrooms or raw ginger juice. Absolutely Dreamy PM shot (contains reishi) Taste: bitter cherry, with a slightly earthy undertone. Not unpleasant. Does it work?: ask me tomorrow morning.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
TV tonight: the hilarious spin-off from Sharon Horgan's Motherland
9pm, BBC One It is the hilarious Motherland spin-off fans have been waiting for from Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Bad Sisters). The comedy follows the unbearable snob Amanda (Lucy Punch), who has had to downsize after her divorce. She is struggling to fit in with the mums at her kids' new school, but luckily her mother, Felicity (Joanna Lumley), won't leave her house and her old minion, Anne (Philippa Dunne), is still around. What a hoot! Hollie Richardson 9pm, ITV1 Are the longsuffering women of Grantchester about to rise up against the patriarchy? Maybe not quite yet, but Geordie's latest murder case forces a reckoning at the new workplace of Esme (Skye Lucia Degruttola), while Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth) reassesses her relationship with their eldest daughter, and Mrs C (Tessa Peake-Jones) has some sharp words for Rev Alph. Ellen E Jones 9pm, Channel 4 A heartstring-tugging addition to Channel 4's already extensive property empire, this series sees George Clarke following builds and conversions with hefty emotional resonance. We begin with Chris and Ellie, who are attempting to construct a new home in the Ribble Valley after Chris's diagnosis with stage-four cancer. Phil Harrison 9.30pm, BBC One Daisy May Cooper's dark comedy returns (with the wonderful Lenny Rush) and, although there is still too much happening at once, it is even funnier than before. The story picks up with the messy aftermath of Nic (Cooper) revealing her affair with her dead brother-in-law – the one she also, erm, killed. But will she get away with murder? HR 10pm, Channel 4 Money may not be able to buy you taste but it can certainly secure you a needlessly extravagant mansion with a roof shaped like a Viking helmet. This gaudy but addictive new reality series follows the zealous sales staff of deluxe Dubai property specialists Betterhomes as they try to flog jaw-dropping villas. Graeme Virtue 12.05am, Channel 4 With the rental market in such a desperate state, it is no surprise that a growing number of young renters are being conned into putting down deposits on places that don't even exist. Harleen Nottay investigates these scams and how social media plays its part. HR
