'Making People Laugh Is The Greatest Love Of My Life'

Actress and comedian Aisling Bea talks to Sophie Goddard about love, loss and why she’s definitely not the new Fleabag

- Sophie Goddard

Aisling Bea is, in her words, ‘living a circus life’. The writer/actor/comedian is currently in Rome filming Netflix rom-com Love. Wedding. Repeat, starring Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jack Farthing and Freida Pinto (Bea plays Rebecca, a friend of Eleanor Tomlinson’s character). Apparently, six weeks filming away from home is a doddle. ‘This year has been nuts,’ she explains. ‘I have a house in London – that’s “home” – but a year ago I was in LA. Then I moved back to London, then New York in September. Then I came back in January and now I’m in Rome.’ Most of us would be flagging by this point, but Bea, 35, is impressively chirpy. ‘It definitely feels normal now – when I was 18, I moved to Dublin for four years, then to London. I suppose I haven’t been near the house I was brought up in for 17 years. It’s sort of in my bones.’

Within seconds of talking to Bea, you realise why she’s so good at what she does – storytelling is in her blood (quite literally. Her grandfather was novelist and poet Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and her great-aunt was playwright Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin). ‘Making people laugh is the greatest love of my life, and it has been my favourite thing to do since I was a kid,’ she tells me. ‘My cousin showed me a video of me hosting “the cousins talent show”. I swear to God I was nine, stood on a chair in this hotel function room, with 40 aunties, cousins and uncles. My granddad used to love it when we’d get up and sing – it’s not too far off my persona now.’