When Victoria Smurfit says she rubs a cool raw potato over her face as part of her skincare routine, she couldn't sound more Irish if she tried.
Her accent is delectable, even if she's only referring to her potato beauty regime and saying, 'it may explain the state of me but it's nice. Tightening. An Irish upgrade to a cucumber.'
Close your eyes and you're listening to the lovely but crackers Maud O'Hara from Rivals. To a planetful of Jilly Cooper fans old and new, Victoria is now Maud.
At 51, Victoria is experiencing a career renaissance many would envy. Already preparing to film series two of Jilly Cooper's brilliant bonkathon (1980s-set Rivals was one of the television events of 2024), The Dubliner even had a starring role as the grand marshal at last month's St Patrick's Day Parade in the capital.
And now Victoria is heading back to the stage - as the tragic Helena in a reimagining of Ibsen's classic Ghosts - for the first time in 17 years.
Astonishingly, Victoria hasn't done a play since her youngest child was born. 'It's the most terrifying job ever,' she says of her return. 'But if the idea of doing something immediately makes me go into a flop-sweat, then I know it's exactly what I should do.'
She'll be at London's Lyric Theatre for a month. 'The responsibility is enormous but that's precisely why I'm doing it. I think you have a choice, as the decades pass, to slide into your cosy slippers or to keep trying to jam your feet into awkward, fashionable shoes.'
In that, she sounds rather like fire-haired, bosom-hoiking, party-loving actress Maud. Wonderful company but a woeful wife and mother, she was last seen in Rivals running away from the comforts of Rutshire to appear in a play in London.
'An ageing actress was weirdly super-easy to play,' Victoria joked shortly after the series started streaming, except the role of 'ageing actress' only went and catapulted her to a level of stardom she hadn't previously known.
'Without a shadow of a doubt, it's the most globally successful thing I've ever been part of, a nugget of gold, and that magic has given me more of a launch pad in life. I'm disgustingly grateful. 'Even Ibsen's Ghosts, I'm sure, has come from me doing Rivals,' she reflects.
So what can she tell us about the upcoming series? 'It's going to be a riot of fabulosity. Filming kicks off in the summer. I'll get some idea before then but, of course, if I told you any- thing, I'd be shot.' What we can safely say is there'll be more of Maud, more of her TV journalist husband Declan (Poldark's Aidan Turner) and more of the three
O'Hara children, including daughter Taggie (Bella Maclean), who's hopping into bed with scoundrel-in-chief Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell). 'Throw in an Irish family and carnage happens,' she says gleefully. 'All that Chekhovian madness, I think it's a love letter to Ireland.'
Victoria has been around a long time - you can read gossip columns predicting a 'glittering career' way back in the mid-90s when she appeared in a film with Albert Finney. She went on to star in the BBC's Ballykissangel and ITV's Trial And Retribution.
She's had roles in Hollywood films (with Hugh Grant in About A Boy) and multiple highly rated TV dramas (including recent police thriller Bloodlands). But from here on in she'll always be remembered for Maud's scene-stealing arrival - mounted on a camel - at her own son's 21st birthday party.
'When you play somebody, you cannot judge them,' says Victoria, herself a mother of three. 'I've played lots of baddies, lots of morally questionable humans. 'And I love Maud. I feel for her. She may not be societally correct, but you know what, she's absolutely honest. She shoots from the hip, she shoots from the heart, she's passionately real. A lot of women my age are thrilled there's this outrageous, outspoken character out there.'
Although part of the wealthy Smurfit family, Victoria never wanted to go into the paper packaging business.
'It wasn't really an option, as I'm not sure I'd have passed the necessary exams,' she says. 'I'm very proud of the family I come from. I feel like I've taken the name and achieved things in a different sector.'
It was her mum Caroline, who died in 2022, who was adamant she should follow her own path. Now, there's a tribute to her on screen in Rivals. 'There was lots of stuff in mum's wardrobe that was so in keeping with the time period that I asked the costume department if they could use it. I knew my mum would love the idea that some of her belts and jackets, coats and accessories would go on in life.'
Has she worn any herself? 'No. There was one day when a couple of my mum's belts ended up in my dressing room, and I just had to go to the costume department and say, "Sorry. I can't. I might fall apart."
At home in London, she's a wife to banker Steve Jacobs and mum to Evie, Ridley and Flynn from her previous marriage. After a hard day she thinks she'll take a long nap and drink a lot of wine. What's her preference?
'If I'm paying, Pinot Grigio, and if someone fancy is paying, then I'll have a nice glass of Sancerre,' she laughs. You can just hear Maud in there, can't you?
