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‘Women are still working subtly, carefully, discreetly to get what they want’ – Bafta-nominated Cork actor Máiréad Tyers on her latest role

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‘Women are still working subtly, carefully, discreetly to get what they want’ – Bafta-nominated Cork actor Máiréad Tyers on her latest role

Starring in the rom-com series My Lady Jane, in which the damsel in distress saves herself, Máiréad Tyers talks about the double standards for women in the film industry and how she went from the Feis Maitiú to Rada

“I mean to take more of a leaf out of some arrogant male’s books. Sometimes it’s important to do that.” Máiréad Tyers. Photo: Klara Waldberg

There’s a scene in the first episode of My Lady Jane, Prime Video’s new romantic comedy series set in an alt-fantasy Tudor world, in which Máiréad Tyers’s character, Susannah, shouts: “Get off me, you langer,” at the man trying to grab hold of her. The word is pure Cork, and as far as I can tell originates in the 1980s. Yet somehow it is perfectly in keeping with her character and with the tone of the series — funny and irreverent, blurring the edges between comedy, romance, historical drama and fantasy, yet managing to feel truthful and relevant about bigger issues around female agency, sexuality and power.

“You see how women were used as pawns for political gain,” Tyers says. “You see how innate that was in Tudor society. You see [protagonist] Jane using her position and lack of power very cleverly and subtly to get what she wants… something that women did then, but still have to do now. That’s still the way lots of women have to operate… women are still working subtly, carefully, discreetly to get what they want.”

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