We chat to the Irish star of Channel 4's gritty new police drama The Ghost Squad...
Elaine Cassidy is no ordinary actress. At the age of 25, she's played a pregnant abuse victim, a mute ghost, Hitler's sexually-abused niece, a violent girl who kills her best friend, and a lesbian who grew up in an asylum. On paper, the Irish actress sounds about as much fun as trying to cut your toenails with a chainsaw.
It's a pleasant surprise, then, to meet her in person. Elfin and unconventionally beautiful, she also turns out to be warm, intelligent and articulate, and blessedly free of the neuroses and psychosis that normally plague her characters. While still a teenager, Cassidy was cast opposite Bob Hoskins in the critically acclaimed film Felicia’s Journey, about a naïve Irish girl and a serial sexual abuser. "It was a brilliant role to get," she says, "I was very lucky to be a part of that."
Was she not put off by the dark subject matter? "See, I never saw that. I thought it was a love story. You can imagine the shock I got when I saw the film. My job was to become Felicia, so all I saw was her story, her search for her lover. She never saw Hilditch's bad side. She never saw all 360 degrees of him the way the audience did, so I never saw it either. I just concentrated on my own scenes, not on what was going on in the rest of the film. And then when I saw the end product, I thought 'The bastard! Oh my God, the evilness!'"
Next up in Cassidy's unrelenting march to stardom was The Others, Alejandro Amenabar's spine-chilling thriller starring none other than Nicole Kidman. But for Cassidy, the thrill was not so much working with one of the world's biggest stars as with a hugely talented director. "I'd seen Open Your Eyes, Alejandro's previous film, and I thought 'Oh my God, I'll sweep the set just to work with this guy'.
Continued >
It's a pleasant surprise, then, to meet her in person. Elfin and unconventionally beautiful, she also turns out to be warm, intelligent and articulate, and blessedly free of the neuroses and psychosis that normally plague her characters. While still a teenager, Cassidy was cast opposite Bob Hoskins in the critically acclaimed film Felicia’s Journey, about a naïve Irish girl and a serial sexual abuser. "It was a brilliant role to get," she says, "I was very lucky to be a part of that."
Was she not put off by the dark subject matter? "See, I never saw that. I thought it was a love story. You can imagine the shock I got when I saw the film. My job was to become Felicia, so all I saw was her story, her search for her lover. She never saw Hilditch's bad side. She never saw all 360 degrees of him the way the audience did, so I never saw it either. I just concentrated on my own scenes, not on what was going on in the rest of the film. And then when I saw the end product, I thought 'The bastard! Oh my God, the evilness!'"
Next up in Cassidy's unrelenting march to stardom was The Others, Alejandro Amenabar's spine-chilling thriller starring none other than Nicole Kidman. But for Cassidy, the thrill was not so much working with one of the world's biggest stars as with a hugely talented director. "I'd seen Open Your Eyes, Alejandro's previous film, and I thought 'Oh my God, I'll sweep the set just to work with this guy'.
Continued >