Cork actress relishing role in The Borrowers 

A 25-year-old actress playing the role of an 11-year-old is not an easy task.

But it is one Cork woman Claire O’Leary has taken on with relish in her role in a big production of The Borrowers, currently showing at Dublin’s Gate Theatre.

O’Leary plays Arrietty, a member of a tiny family who lives in the world alongside human-sized people.

The Rathcormac actress was not familiar with the novel by Mary Norton, on which the show is based, but had watched the film version when she was younger.

“I had seen the film when I was younger but hadn’t read the book until I heard that I was auditioning for it,” she said.

“The story is a big part of people’s childhood, especially the film.

“It is a universal story of different kinds of classes and different groups, and finding acceptance within that.

“It feels really special to be in this play and to share the message.”

Arrietty is just 11 years old, so how did O’Leary adapt to playing someone so young?

“Initially, I found it tricky. The physicality of seeing the world through an 11-year-old’s eyes is very different from seeing it through a 25-year-old’s eyes.

“I had to think back to what I was like at that age. I was so fearless and curious, and I was like a sponge, soaking up everything everyone said to me all the time.

“I always had a wide-eye lens, so I have approached Arrietty with that spirit of curiosity I used to have.”

O’Leary has already had almost a decade of professional acting experience, and credits her parents for allowing her to leave Cork to study theatre in London when she was just 15 years old.

“I got the acting bug from my mom, who is an actor. I wasn’t great in secondary school, so I decided I should go straight into acting.

“I printed off the application form for a performing school in London and screen-shot the cheapest flight I could find and gave them both to my parents, and asked if I could audition.

“Thankfully, they said yes, and when I auditioned, I very luckily got a scholarship, so I started my new life in London aged 15.”

O’Leary says leaving home so young wasn’t daunting, and the experience was an adventure.

“I think if I had moved when I was 18, I would have been a bit more tentative. Now, if I am home in Cork for a while, I feel more emotional when I leave, whereas when I was 15, I flew out the door.

“I think it is something of what I was saying earlier about being young; you don’t see fear.”

O’Leary comes from a family of seven children; four are actors, but she says her mum never pushed them to follow in her footsteps.

“She was never a pushy stage mother or anything like that. I went to rehearsals with her when she was working, and I just thought it was amazing. I couldn’t believe people got to do this for a living.

“As soon as I could, I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

O’Leary is a singer as well as an actor and got her big break when she was cast in Les Misérables at The Sondheim Theatre on London’s West End. “I was in my third year in drama school, and the producers and the casting team of Les Mis came into our year at the school to do a workshop. They called it a workshop, but everyone knew it was an audition.

“I got a part, which was incredible. It is a bucket list show, and I was kind of spoiled getting to work on it as my first big gig.”

The actor, who also starred in The Wizard Of Oz at The London Palladium, returned home earlier this year to take part in The Cork Proms 2024 at Cork Opera House. She recalls seeing Oz for the first time at that venue.

“I remember seeing The Wizard of Oz in the Cork Opera House. It was such a beautiful production. When I did it in the Palladium, Andrew Lloyd Webber sat in for a lot of the rehearsal. It was such a pinch-me moment.”

As a child, she appeared in several pantomimes at the Opera House before making her big appearance in Annie. She says she would come back every year if she could.

“The show (at The Cork Proms 2024) was called No Place Like Home; it felt like such a special night. The Opera House had a huge impact on me. I did Annie there when I was 11; it was a full-circle moment.

“I love the Cork Opera so much. They are so welcoming. Whether it is your first time on the stage or your 100th time on that stage, they take such good care of everyone.

“My mom did a few shows there when I was small. I used to beg her to take me to rehearsals. I would go back to the Opera House every year if I could. It feels like home.”

O’Leary hopes Cork people will come to Dublin to see the show in the coming weeks and celebrate the magic of The Borrowers.

“The music is beautiful. The journeys that the characters go on are gorgeous, and there is a lot of heart in the show, which I think is very special for families.

“Cork people have so much heart and a great sense of acceptance and welcoming so The Borrowers will resonate with them.”

The Borrowers runs in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, until January 12, see www.gatetheatre.ie