Written by 
WE KNOW her best as the star of shows including Ken Loach’s drama Ae Fond Kiss and the global smash hit that is Bad Sisters.
But actress Eva Birthistle turns director with Kathleen Is Here, a powerful new drama about a young woman who navigates life outside the foster-care system for the first time.
Not only does Birthistle show a knack for directing that she has long held a desire for – she also works with rising Irish star Hazel Doupe in what is a powerful leading performance.
Kathleen Is Here marks the latest role from Doupe, who is soon to feature in two major TV series as she develops a career that was honed while working in West Cork as a teenager.
Birthistle’s first feature film – and Doupe’s lead performance – benefit from the fact that both women previously made a short film based around the same story and characters.
“To get to go on to set with Eva, and to have that experience with her, someone who birthed this character, to have that first hand experience with her was just invaluable,” says Doupe of the 2020 short.
“She was like a duck to water. I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes that she was directing for the first time, she was like any other director I’ve ever worked with, and more.”
The plan, she says, was always to bring Kathleen’s story back to screen as a feature-length drama, even while filming the short.
“It was over a three-day period, and it was this really cool experience, almost like this dance.
To feel that in my bones for the years subsequent, hoping and then getting the news that It was going to be made a feature, and then just knowing that we had all of that backlog and all of that in the Rolodex – you can’t really ask for much more,” says Doupe, who turns 23 in November.
Kathleen Is Here stars Doupe as the title character, a young woman who returns to her deserted family home after reaching the age where she is no longer a part of the foster-care system.
There, she befriends a young mother (Clare Dunne) who has moved to the area with her husband and young son. As she bonds with the other woman, the cracks in her own facade start to show.
“There’s one particular scene where she’s dancing, and we see all that joy and the life rattling around inside of her waiting to be released,” says Doupe. “She’s a child of the foster care system, and she’s not been dealt a very easy hand at all. It’s deeply unfair that society doesn’t take care of the people that don’t get quite quite a good head start in life as the rest of us.”
For the role, Doupe did a lot of research into people’s experiences of care in Ireland and abroad. “There were some documentaries that I was able to watch to give me a greater insight, and the things that people go through in the care system with different foster families, because they often don’t find a first perfect fit.
“What I found really amazing and interesting about these stories, of the people who had put themselves forward onto the internet to tell their own stories, was that they were so strong and so resilient and so hopeful for their future.
“I really wanted to get it right. So we spoke to Martin Heaney and Des Boyle in HEAL, which is this holistic educational programme in Derry for people on the margins of society, and also, particularly people in care. People in care were really generous with their stories, and they don’t go further than myself or Eva’s ears but they stuck with us, and they made an imprint on us, and we carried that forward into the shooting as well, and really tried to do justice.”
Growing up in the seaside town of Lusk in North County Dublin, Doupe has harboured a love of acting for as long as she could remember. It was supported, she says, by Love/Hate actress Mary Murray, who also runs a drama school.
“I went to her class every Sunday and I think about it so fondly, they were really core childhood memories that I made in those classes.”
A big breakthrough came at the age of 15, when Doupe was cast in the lead role of West Cork filmmaker Carmel Winters’ 2018 film Float Like a Butterfly. The period story of a young Traveller who dreams of becoming a boxer like her sporting hero Muhammad Ali was an award winner on the festival circuit before becoming a critical and commercial hit.
She has fond memories of shooting in the county across locations including Ballyrisode Beach. “I think it’s very rare that you go on set on the first day, and everything feels like it’s a world already, like you can see everything as if you were within that world in the 1970s.
“It was so immersive, feeling that magic as a 15 year old coming onto the set and knowing that life was just a village away from becoming a deep dive into the past or into another person’s story that was actually tangible and palpable and could be done with the help of others.”
It was followed by a role in well-received Irish murder mystery series Smother and in the thriller You Are Not My Mother – and Doupe has two high-profile TV series on the way. She is currently filming a second series of the drama series Sanctuary for AMC. And she will soon be on our screens in Say Nothing, a historical drama series for Disney+ spanning four tumultuous decades during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
It’s the latest breakthrough in what is proving to be a big year in Doupe’s career. “I think about it all the time, how lucky I am and how lucky I was to get a leg in the door so early. It’s a really privileged position I’m in, and that’s never too far from my mind.”
- Kathleen Is Here opens in cinemas on Friday, October 18
A robot named Roz must learn to adapt to his surroundings after being shipwrecked on an uninhabited island in this animated movie. Cinemas from October 18.
Sebastian Stan plays a young Donald Trump in a drama set during a key period of Trump’s life in the 1970s. Cinemas from October 18.
Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut in a movie based on a true story of a serial killer. Netflix from October 18.
Saoirse Ronan’s gathering Oscar buzz for her role as a recovering alcoholic who returns to her Scottish island home. Triskel from October 20-23.
Naomi Scott plays a popstar experiencing disturbing events on tour in a sequel to the 2022 horror.