Oscar nominee Kerry Condon: ‘It’s not the sole purpose of my life to turn a man on’

NB. This interview first ran in February, and has been republished ahead of Kerry Condon's appearance at the 2023 Academy Awards on March 12

When Kerry Condon received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role as Colin Farrell’s sister, Siobhán, in Martin McDonagh’s tragicomedy The Banshees of Inisherin (she is also Bafta-nominated for the role), the internet went wild. Who was this brilliant, sweary woman, with long chestnut hair and deep-set eyes? Why hadn’t we seen her before?

In fact, Condon, 40, who grew up in Thurles, Tipperary, is an “overnight star” who has been working since she was 16. She started out in Angela’s Ashes (1999), based on Frank McCourt’s gruelling memoir, followed by the BBC’s Ballykissangel.

Her break came in the HBO series Rome. Fifteen years ago, she moved permanently to the US, where she has appeared in Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead, as well as voicing F.R.I.D.A.Y, Iron Man’s artificial intelligence unit, in five Marvel franchise films. But chameleon-like, she has slipped under the radar.

“I’ve always wanted to be a character actress with longevity. So it never really bothered me that people didn’t put two and two together,” she says. “But I suppose after a while it started to get a little bit like: ‘Are you f---ing joking me?’ I started on Rome, which seems like 20 billion years ago.”

Condon lives on a farm near the Santa Monica mountains in LA, with her beloved horses. But since Banshees became the awards darling, she has had to come out of her shell – appearing on chat shows, and walking the red carpet.

Today, dressed simply in black top and cream trousers, she tosses around that fabulous dip-dyed mane to emphasise a point. She is funny and honest, but also keen not to name-drop or appear a diva. Twice during our Zoom interview, there’s a ring at the door and she has to sign for flowers.

It’s no wonder that she feels “giddy”. The tale of a hilarious but painful break-up of a male friendship, Banshees is up for nine Oscars, including Best Actor for Farrell; Best Supporting Actor nods for Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, while McDonagh is nominated for Best Director.

Condon has known McDonagh for 20 years, having appeared, aged 19, in his play The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the RSC. Later, he gave her a small role in his 2017 Oscar-winning film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Although Banshees is set on an Irish island in 1923, you sense McDonagh based key elements of Siobhán’s character on Condon. A bookworm, in her brightly-coloured coats, she’s the moral heart of the film – sensitive to the loneliness of the men on the island, but capable of delivering a killer blow if needed.

“That’s kind of like me,” says Condon. “I liked that Siobhán didn’t have a husband who died, and that she wasn’t married. Martin had her single – and an older single woman at that time – and I loved that her narrative wasn’t really about a man, either. She’s very smart, but she doesn’t need everyone to know it.”

As Banshees’ message is essentially about a male friendship falling apart, she thinks it’s lovely to show that men can be hurt, too. “But then I think it resonates also with women, because well, we’ve all been dumb.”

You mean we’ve all been ghosted by lovers? “Oh my God, yeah. Which is actually feckin’ worse than what Brendan does to Colin in the film. I mean, it’s the lowest of the low. That feeling where you go… where you’re pathetic near the end? Oh my God!” she’s shouting in excitement. “So I think that resonated with me like when Colin’s character bursts in the door and tries some tough love with his friend. I was like: ‘Oh, Jesus, I think I have sunk this low before, desperately clinging to someone.’ You try every tactic.”

Condon is happily single at the present, but because her fame is so new, everyone is obsessed with her personal life. Back in 2018, she gave an interview saying, “I don’t really care if I never get married. I don’t really care if I never have kids.”

Now, she rolls her eyes. “I stand behind that to be honest with you. I would happily be monogamous for the rest of my life, but I don’t need to be married,” she admits. “I’ve never really felt the desire to have my own children. I’ve always been an animal person. I would be open to adoption, perhaps, or if somebody had a child of their own, I would be interested in that.

“But I think it’s really important for women to go: ‘It’s OK that I don’t feel this urge to have kids.’ Being a parent is a massive deal and you need to be really wanting to do it.”

Condon stresses that, at 40, her life is amazing. “Oh my God, I’m finally figuring things out. And then you’re like: Jesus, I’m only hitting my stride now. There’s so many things I want to do.”

Although she describes herself as a country girl, Condon has impressed on the red carpet with her sleek silhouettes, for which she credits her stylist Emma Jade Morrison. “My taste is simple, very Nineties. It’s not the sole purpose of my life to, God forgive me, turn a man on, you know what I mean? I feel like that’s for my boyfriend.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she qualifies, “but for your lover or whoever. Because there are so many more strings to my bow besides that.”

I ask about her breakthrough role in Rome where her character Octavia of the Julii was permanently naked. “I look back and laugh at how crazy it was. No, we did not have an intimacy coordinator,” she says. “And what you see on the take is the first time I took off my clothes in front of everybody, and then honestly, by the end of the season, I could have queued for lunch naked.” The Italian crew were gentlemen “not pervs”, she recalls. “It was good for me to learn very early on that I can compartmentalise my body as Kerry from my actor body.”

Condon tells me that she hates dressing in a clichéd, sexy way. “Being totally naked is easier. It’s not so suggestive. I don’t know if I could pull off something super-sexual. That would make me way more embarrassed than just being totally naked.”

She was working with a 12-year-old girl recently and chose a low-key outfit for an event that evening. “I don’t want her looking me up online and thinking: ‘Oh, is this what you do when you’re older? – you dress unbelievably provocatively’.”

Next, she will star alongside Liam Neeson in the thriller In The Land of Saints and Sinners, and she is desperate to do more theatre. “I was offered a play in New York a few years ago, but my dog of 15 years was dying and I just wanted to be with her for the last year of her life. She was like a child to me.”

She confides that if she earned “Tom Cruise money”, she’d take in “old-timers”, elderly pets who deserve a long goodbye or start a charity to help older people pay medical bills for their dogs.

Besides animals, Condon loves art and reading. She shows me books piled beside her bed – Tara Westover, Kazuo Ishiguro, Lisa Taddeo. She has kept a diary since she was 10. “My biggest fear is my house is gonna get broken into and they’ll steal my diaries. They’re locked in a bag, just in case any burglars are reading this article.”

So does she have any desire to direct or produce? No, she groans. “It’s like f---ing hell, lads. Do you know how hard it is to be an actress at this level? It’s exhausting. But I’m good at organising people and setting them up on dates. So maybe I’d be good at accumulating a crew,” she grins. I don’t doubt it.

The Banshees of Inisherin is on Disney+, Amazon, Apple and Sky