“I’m looking forward to finding out what my children are in therapy complaining about me [for] in 30 years’ time,” says Laura Donnelly, with a wry laugh. Sitting, chin in hand, at the back of a rustic Primrose Hill café, on a crisp autumn afternoon, motherhood is on the 41-year-old’s mind—and not just because we’re surrounded by raucous tables of JoJo Maman Bébé-clad tots.
The Belfast-born actor is gearing up to play the lead in what’s already tipped to be the hottest West End ticket of 2024. The Hills of California, a firecracker of a new family drama, is showing at the Harold Pinter Theatre from January, written by Jez Butterworth, her longtime collaborator, romantic partner, “favorite writer,” and the father to her daughters, Radha, seven, and Ailbhe, six. It’s a show that has maternal relationships at its heart.
“Who do we want to be to our children when we’re dead and gone? How do we want them to remember us?” says Donnelly of the questions posed by the production, in which she’ll play a 1970s showbiz matriarch, holed up on her deathbed in Blackpool as her adult children gather to say goodbye. They’re an increasing preoccupation for the Esther Perel and Gabor Maté fan, “because of the way that children will reflect back to you yourself and, mainly, all your failings.”
For Donnelly, The Hills of California has the makings of a career crescendo. Roles in TV hits such as Starz’s time-travel crowd-pleaser Outlander and a turn in Marvel’s Werewolf by Night have gained the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland-trained actor fans around the world. So has a penchant for fabulous red-carpet gowns, such as the Giambattista Valli number she wore for the Met Gala in 2019. But it’s Donnelly’s extraordinary work on stage with Butterworth where she’s truly made her name. First, with her enchanting performances as “the other woman” in his 2012 anti-romance The River (the play the couple fell in love making). Taylor Swift, Frances McDormand, and Barbra Streisand were just a few of the stars who rushed to see her alongside Hugh Jackman in the Broadway transfer. Nothing compares, though, to the impact of her Olivier-winning, Tony-nominated run as young widow Caitlin in smash hit The Ferryman: a family drama inspired by the true story of the IRA’s disappearing of Donnelly’s uncle in the 1980s.
“I was having a whale of a time in a big Irish cast,” she says. “I never gave any thought to its reception. Had I, maybe we would never have done it, because somebody might’ve pointed out to us that this was an Englishman writing a Northern Irish play or that I was oversharing about my family history.”