Amy Huberman has opened up about the difference between starring in a show and working on one that she wrote and created.
Finding Joy is set to be released during RTE’s new season, and Amy said that the prospect of audience feedback on the humour does scare her.
“It’s terrifying, you spend a lot of hours in your own head. A comedy will either work or won’t it’s either going to be funny or it won’t – I know it’s objective and we all laugh at different things, like this is a comedy-drama, so there are beats of drama in it, but you still need jokes to land or they’ll just hang in the air forever, so there is pressure but I wanted to try it and do it, so once it’s out we’ll see what the public think.”
The actress explained that the feedback so far has been good, but that the biggest critic of all is the audience at home.
“I feel like the worst is yet to come, it was a closed little unit of people who have to tell me they think it’s good because its the producers and actors, so you’re in a bubble for a while.
“There is a part of it where you are baring your soul, you’re sending out scripts for people to read and seeing if people want to get on board but the true test is public consumption.”
While Amy has a long resume in terms of acting credits, this was the first time she was involved in other aspects such as writing for tv, casting and editing.
“I’ve really enjoyed every step of it, she’s lived in my head and on the page and on set so now I’m really protective of it and obviously nervous but it’s my first experience of writing for telly so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot but I had a ball and I’m really excited about it.”
The star admitted she felt like she was betraying fellow actors when watching audition tapes because she’s been in their position before.
“It was a really fun process to be involved in casting, it was really weird because I’ve been on the other side of it so when I saw other peoples audition tapes I felt really bad and like I was crossing a line or doing the dirt on actors by watching their tapes. There is a vulnerability to it and I was like ‘I don’t think I want to see them!’
“But I definitely knew who I wanted, I wanted Laura Whitmore and Steve White [who Amy worked with on Threesome] is a really good friend of mine,” she explained at the RTE New Season launch today.
The show is packed full of Irish stars including Aisling Bea, Laura Whitmore, Catherine Walker, Paul Reid, David O’Doherty, Hannah James-Scott and Mark Doherty, and Amy said she felt lucky to be able to showcase national talent.
“It’s an Irish show but it’s not quintessentially Irish, it’s an Irish story with a hopefully universal audience we have such talented people here so I felt really lucky to get the people we got. It’s based in Dublin so it made sense to have Irish talent,” she explained.
“A lot of them are friends that I admire a lot and who I think have amazing comedy chops, so they were obvious choices to go for, I got to work with Hannah James-Scott for the first time, so it was lovely to work with people I know really well and also meet new people along the way. ”
