Aoife Hinds has starred in the likes of Derry Girls, Normal People and now the latest HBO epic Dune: Prophecy, but she has revealed it was in fact acting alongside her Northern Irish father Ciarán that recently left her most “nervous”.
It comes as she opened up about representation and stereotyping in the world of film and television, given her heritage as a London-born woman, whose mother is the Vietnamese-born French actress Hélène Patarot.
She recently took to the screen alongside her Belfast dad in the Japanese-English drama Cottontail which was released in the summer, the pair playing the characters of John and Mary respectively.
Speaking to The Times about that first moment the pair acted together, Hinds said it was very “fulfilling”. “We were both nervous about it. We were going from father and daughter to colleagues, which meant we saw how the other carried themselves on set, and how we were as actors,” she explained.
“Of course, I’m still his child, but it’s so fulfilling to bring things to the relationship now I’m an adult. I’ve been learning from him for so long; suddenly it felt like he was also learning from me.”
Her 71-year-old father is well known to audiences here, having memorably starred in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning film Belfast, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and a raft of other TV shows and films.
For Aoife though, her career is going from strength to strength in the latest big-budget HBO blockbuster, following her role as the wild child Mae in Derry Girls and Connell’s girlfriend in the BBC’s adaptation of Normal People.
Living in Barcelona with her partner, Hinds explained to the newspaper that she embraces her mixed heritage and highlights her father’s Irishness as something that is “a huge part of me”.
“I’m extremely proud to be Irish,” Hinds said.
“We’re on the right path, but it still has quite a bit of way to go. The conversation about representation is never-ending, and will always be, until you feel completely represented. It’s something that I think about quite a lot.
“For ages there was a part of me that felt like I was failing at my identity because I couldn’t answer it.
“Society asks you to decide if you’re one thing or another, and which one you’re more of, and which one you’re less of. And what you might project of me — what I look like and what my accent is — isn’t actually my identity.
“These days I try and not define myself in a single way. It’s all a construct anyway, right? You can’t reduce the entirety of yourself to feeling, say, more Irish than Vietnamese. It’s so much more complex than that. I have lots of different parts that are influenced by my different cultural heritage, and now I want to embrace the whole of it, and the whole of me, rather than trying to unpick it.”
Ciarán Hinds. Photo: Getty
Far removed from the comedy of Derry Girls, Hinds’ latest project in the universe of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi smash Dune sees her playing the character of Sister Emeline in the TV spin-off prequel set 10,000 years before the events of Denis Villeneuve’s first film.
“I’ve never been on a production that huge,” Hinds added.
“The sets were built from nothing, and created with the most minute details, considered and real artistry behind it all. I stepped on set on the first day and it felt incredible that it was going to be our place to play for the next five months.”
“[Sister Emiline] comes to the sisterhood to become a Reverend Mother and Truthsayer. As the story develops you realise maybe she has an agenda of her own.
“That was interesting because you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re doing it. You really feel like a kid in the playground.”