Smother's Gemma-Leah Devereux has said she was turned down to star in Love/Hate because of how she looked.
The actress played a heroin addict in Rte’s Striking Out, which also starred Amy Huberman and Neil Morrissey.
But Gemma said she was turned down for a role in Love/Hate when it was first commissioned - simply based on how she looked and spoke.
She said: “When Love/Hate started, I wasn’t put up for it because it was seen as so different from me. You’re pigeon-holed simply based on how you look and speak.
“I played a heroin addict in the Rte drama Striking Out, but I don’t think they believed I was right for the part.
“Fortunately, the director pushed for me. If you look a certain way or your hair is a certain way or you come from a certain place, then you’re put in that box.
“But the thing about being an actor is that you can do, and be, different things.
“The whole point of what I’m doing is to keep pushing myself, to scare myself,” she told the Rte Guide.
But she admitted playing Liza Minnelli in Judy was “probably one of the scariest things I’ve done”.
“People already have this iconic image in their head. I was also on this big set with a massive actor (Renee Zellweger) who was amazing.”
She said doing the stand-up scenes in The Bright Side was also “quite scary”, adding: “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t”.
Gemma plays the role of Anna Ahern in Rte’s thriller Smother, and she said it was great to see more female-led roles.
“It’s great that’s happening more and more. So often it was a case of playing the girlfriend, which I’ve done, just to be there for the boy’s story.”
