Dancing around the studio to the 80s soundtrack which is providing the background music at this exclusive HELLO! shoot, Victoria Smurfit looks to be having the time of her life. And it's no wonder.
The Irish actress is one of the biggest stars in perhaps the most popular television show of the year, Rivals, while she is about to celebrate her first wedding anniversary with husband Steve Jacobs. Life for this effervescent star is good.
"The past year has been great fun," she tells us during this exclusive interview. "It's been chaotically brilliant: there's been a lot of travel, I'm newly married and I couldn't be happier."
The runaway success of Rivals is, she says, down to one thing. "The show is just full of joy. We brought in some fun, which everybody needs in their lives, and I think the younger generation are loving it because they're getting to find out what the 80s look like and secretly want to go back."
And while the stars of the Disney+ show, including Victoria, David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack, have been lauded for their comically brilliant performances, the attention to vintage details has also been praised.
"The costumes are so extraordinarily authentic: the hair, the makeup, the set decoration were all like being immersed in the 80s. You would open up a drawer and there would be books from that time in there."
Based on the 1998 book by Dame Jilly Cooper, Rivals focuses on the raucous, promiscuous and calculating country set in the fictional county of Rutshire. Landing the part of Maud O'Hara, the wife of television presenter Declan – portrayed by Aidan Turner - was a dream come true for the actress, 50, who grew up loving the book.
"I moved to England with my family when I was 14 and my mum was reading all the Jilly books and I remember her just laughing her head off," she recalls. "Reading Jilly's words was my first understanding of what it was like living in England and I was so attached to Maud and [her onscreen daughter] Taggie because they were the Irish characters. I wanted to call my kid Declan!"
She 'screamed my head off with joy' when she found out she had won the role and was delighted to have the author herself visit the set, describing her as a 'twinkly Paddington Bear'.
Does she share any characteristics with vain, selfish and lonely Maud? Referring to one of the most infamous scenes in the series, when she makes a very attention-seeking arrival at a party on a camel, she says: "My friends say I would lean into being over-dramatic occasionally. But I have never entered a party on a camel and I feel I have really let myself down that I haven't."
Working with such a stellar cast was '100 per cent' as much fun as it looked, with everyone bonding on set. "If I found myself knocked over on the road and my family weren't available, I'd happily call any of them to come pick me up and take me for a glass," she cheerfully explains.
"The tricky things were playing the scenes with Taggie where I am so cruel to her and at the end of every scene, I'd have to give Bella [Maclean, who plays Taggie] the biggest hug in the world. In a funny kind of way, doing the stuff that you don't do in real life is kind of delicious to play. Because it wouldn't occur to me to ever think of my daughters as my rivals."
This was not the first time she was on the same show as her on-screen husband, with both her and Aidan – who she calls a 'divine gent' - working on early 2000s show The Clinic, although they never shared a scene together.
However, she spotted his obvious talent straight away. "I remember seeing him and going 'Would you look at that fella, he's going to go far'. And I remember having the same thought when I worked with Colin Farrell. I've got a bit of a radar for this stuff. Was I wrong? No, I wasn't!'
So close was she to the Rivals cast and crew that, after her adored mother Caroline Smurfit died before shooting began, she entrusted some of her belongings to the show's costume designer Ray Holman, so her memory could continue forever on screen.
"During the filming breaks, I had to clear out my mother's things," she explains. "And I found a whole bunch of '80s belts and jewellery and clothes, and I gave them to Ray for his store because she would love the idea that some of her things are still being worn by someone extraordinary on screen."
Born into a prominent Irish family – her grandfather Jefferson Smurfit founded one of the leading paper packing companies in the world – Victoria was advised to change her surname before pursuing an acting career. She refused but says coming from such a unique background gave her the qualities she needed to succeed.
© Sanne Gualt"I think it influenced me from the point that I look at my family and they're such incredible hard workers and have a relentless pursuit for doing the best they always can," she tells HELLO!
"They're very clear that the only thing you can't buy in life is your reputation and that money doesn't make you. It's that achievement which gives you your drive and belonging in the world. I grew up at the time where you would be teased for being part of this successful family. But I would say then that I hadn't achieved any of these things, so I very much wanted to achieve my own path, my own way, and never let the family down."
And she didn't. After first finding fame as Orla O'Connell in BBC drama Ballykissangel in 1998 she starred in shows like ITV's Trial and Retribution and landed roles in Hollywood movies The Beach and About A Boy before moving to Los Angeles. In 2019, she and her three children from her first marriage – Evie, 20, Ridley, 17, and Flynn, 16 – moved back to London, where she still lives with her husband Steve Jacobs and her two youngest.
Evie has temporarily moved out to attend university and Victoria starts to cry as she talks to Hello about her eldest child, who was diagnosed with Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy, which leads to reduced vision, in 2017. Evie, 20, is now thriving and, incredibly, studies fine art at college in Dublin.
"She's amazing, phenomenal," she says. "She's living with her best friend Violet, who she grew up with in Los Angeles. Aged 12, Evie would say: 'Violet, one day you're going to go to Trinity College to be a writer and I'm going to go to art school, and we're going to live together in a house in Dublin.' And guess what? They are doing it. I am so grateful and proud."
The two, she says, 'have a really open way of communicating with each other, because my job as her mum was to remind her that she was not victim of any of this. We all have our thing and this is rubbish, but it will not stop you. I think there's nothing in the world I couldn't say to her and nothing in the world she couldn't say to me. And the same goes for my other two kids."
She and Steve married in the Royal Crescent hotel in Bath 12 months ago and plan to return there to mark their first anniversary. Their wedding day, she says was full of love and laughter.
"I walked down the aisle to a beautiful Waterboys song," she recalls.
"My dad brought me halfway down the aisle but then I told him to sit down and I nodded to the guy doing the music, and he changed to the Stormtrooopers song from Star Wars. Steve collapsed laughing; I had thought it would either work or totally fail but it set the tone. Because when you get married at this age, you get married for yourself. I wanted it to be fun, because he's so fun, and we spend a lot of time laughing. Our first year of marriage has been just hilarious."
She is looking forward to spending Christmas with all the children and Steve at their home in London. Victoria does all the cooking 'with a glass of champagne in my hand' while the evening's entertainment includes board games.
And after the festive season is over, she is looking forward to starting work on the second series of Rivals, which has just been confirmed. In the meantime, she is writing and developing scripts and seeing what the future brings. "I'm a big fan of never say never - because as my granddad used to say, 'Make a plan and give God a laugh'."
Series 1 of Rivals is available to stream on Disney +
To read the full exclusive interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
