For our April Cover Story, we dive into the world of the TV show “Extraordinary” with Máiréad Tyers, the actress who brings the lead character, Jen, to life. From her earliest cinema memories to her reflections on character evolution, Máiréad offers insights into the show’s unique blend of comedy and drama.

In our lovely chat, we talked about what drew her to the project, explored the social and psychological themes within the series, and delved into the collaborative process that’s brought “Extraordinary” to the screen. With humor, humility, and a touch of Irish charm, Máiréad invites us all to join her on a journey that celebrates the extraordinary in the everyday.

First of all, congratulations on your BAFTA nomination for Best Female Performance in a Comedy Program! How does it feel?

Mental! I kept waking up in the morning repeating the same words: “Wow, I got a BAFTA nomination”.

You know, the BAFTAs is what I grew up watching on TV, and I think it’s the highest honor. So, I feel so grateful and honored to have been nominated, and for the show to have been nominated as well, and for Sofia [Oxenham], who plays Carrie in the show, to have been nominated in the same category. It feels like a really special and meaningful thing.

We’re spreading the word here in Italy.
So, what’s your first cinema memory?

I think going to see “Monsters Inc.” many years ago! Very specifically, I remember that my dad fell asleep throughout the whole film, which is still a constant, him falling asleep every trip to the cinema [laughs]. I remember that after we saw that film, we bought it on video and we used to watch it over and over. Anyway, I only started regularly going to the cinema in the last 5 or 6 years. I’m glad that going to the cinema to see that film is my first memory, though, because it still stands as such a good film!

What about TV series? What’s the first show you fell in love with?

It was “Breaking Bad” or “Orange is the New Black”, whichever came out on Netflix first. I remember watching those when I was 15-16, and it was the first time I experienced cliffhangers, the feeling of needing to watch the next episode right away. When I was younger, my parents used to switch off the Wi-Fi at night time because they knew that we would just spend all night watching things online, and the times when the Wi-Fi was left on by accident, I would stay up until 6 a.m., so they were right to turn it off.

I remember one time I was watching an episode of “Breaking Bad” and needed to know what happened next but the Wi-Fi had been turned off, so I turned on my data on my phone, and then of course within about 5 minutes I had spent 20£ worth of my data on watching only 5 minutes of the show, and still got the cliffhanger!

So, that’s perhaps the first drama show I really got into, and then I grew up watching “Friends”, coming home every day from school I would watch it, so that was the very first TV series I fell in love with.

“…it was the first time I experienced cliffhangers, the feeling of needing to watch the next episode right away.”

What makes you say yes to a project? What made you say yes to “Extraordinary”?

There was nothing I could have possibly said “no” to about it! [laughs] There were so many amazing factors, starting from the script. I only read the first script when I initially auditioned, and then I got more scripts as the audition process went on, and I thought it was so funny and aligned with my humor. Then, when I saw that it’s the same production company that’s done “Killing Eve”, for example, and has incredible executives, and considering all I heard about Emma Moran, the screenwriter, from the execs and directors, I thought, “This is something I really want to be part of”.

So, it was the scripts and the humor in this case. Generally speaking, I think it’s important to know who’s involved in a project and who’s attached. I often find that if there’s a producer, a writer, or a director attached, whose work I’ve seen before and loved, it makes me want it even more. Then, when you’re auditioning for something that a director whose work you’ve admired before is working on, I get a bit obsessed: I want to see everything they’ve ever done. Most of the time, the more you watch, the more you realize how much you want it.

I think the people play a big part in the process: what matters to me is if they’re good people and if they’ve done a lot of good stuff.

What’s your relationship with “Jen” like? Has your approach to her changed in the second season?

I feel like I really care about her. Someone asked me recently, “If you could say anything to her, what would it be?”; I think I would just love to have a sit down with her and try and give her some advice on what to do with her life [laughs]. Obviously, there’s a cliffhanger at the end of season 1 and I think Jen doesn’t know what’s happened but she knows that her life is about to change and take off and she thinks that everything is going to be simple: she’s going to go and do the power clinic, and she’s got a boyfriend and everything, so it feels like all these things are falling into place. For me, it made me quite sad to watch all that and realize that it was going to be a lot more complicated, and not as simple as it should have been.

I’ve been really happy to see that Jen, as a character, has grown up a lot in the second season: she’s figured out some shit that she needed to figure out. The relationships with Carrie, her mom, and her dad have developed in maturity and gone to a place that I don’t think she ever could have considered it could go; they speak about relationships and they’re quite aware of the relationships and that can only be positive for Jen. Hopefully, there will be season 3 to see what happens next! Because I think she’s becoming a better person and I want to see that happening.

Do you have a favorite relationship between the characters or a favorite self-growth process? Or was there something you were “disappointed” to see or some reaction that you would have hoped to be different? Or anything you could relate to?

I love the relationship between Jen and her dad. I think that kind of relationship does exist in a different world than “Extraordinary” and it feels very close to my heart. So many times in the series Jen feels like no one understands her and no one sees her properly or sees who she is, but her dad does. But she feels frustrated that that relationship isn’t real (because her father is dead). It is real but it’s not literal because he’s not really there and it’s also a bit dysfunctional how she’s relying on Carrie to continue speaking to her via her dad – it means that they have a co-dependent relationship. Anyway, it’s my favorite relationship that exists and is tested in season 2, and what happens happens for the best.

I, as me, Máiréad, was devastated to see what happened in season 2, and for Jen’s sake, I wish that she could just have her dad around, whether it’s in a real sense – if he’s still alive – or through this relationship with Carrie. The right thing does happen, but I think it’s going to be a real defining moment in her life, as something that she had to do in order to grow and move past.

The show features a lot of comparisons with our society, almost being a reflection of it: Jen for example feels the need to be like others, then there are social media issues, and so on. How do you think the audience can relate to all that? And what do the “powers” represent for you?

I think it’s such a good framework, that of everyone at the age of 18 getting a power on top of a stage of your life when you’re in your early/mid-20s, trying to navigate your career, relationships, housemates, friendships – it works really well. What makes it more exciting is that you have a character like Jen who hasn’t got any power, and that’s a metaphor for making comparisons with other people who seem to have everything you don’t have, and all shit figured out, like they know what’s going on, they’ve got their job prospects. All that in your mid-20s can feel so overwhelming and confusing, and you feel so lost. I think a lot of people can relate to that when watching the show and love it so much.

Jen is able to funnel all her feelings, that of being lost, of confusion, and also of inadequacy – that’s all funneled through her lack of power. If you were to take out that “lack of power”, you realize that’s something that a lot of people experience in that period of life anyway, so that makes the people relate to the show even more. In terms of the power, Emma has written it so well that a lot of the powers are hilarious and mental.

“Jen is able to funnel all her feelings, that of being lost, of confusion, and also of inadequacy – that’s all funneled through her lack of power.”

Do you have a favorite one?

I think the one of Carrie’s boss is so funny – he can tell when people’s periods are [laughs] I wish there were more scenes of him, it’s so ridiculous!

I love how the powers of the characters are an extension of their personalities. Kash and Carrie’s power for example are messing them up a bit – it enables Carrie to push over, while for Kash it means that he’ll never be able to admit any of his mistakes because he can just change them and he does not have to face any consequence.

So, Jen is looking for her power and she thinks that everything is going to be okay once she has it, while Kash has it and keeps being kind of a mess!

Yeah, absolutely! And you realize how it has completely fucked him up because he never gets to grow up, he’s in such an emotionally immature state that he’s allowed to maintain and stay in because he doesn’t have to deal with any of his problems, he just fixes it all.

Drama and comedy have a beautiful balance in the series. Preparation-wise, how do you work on yourself and with the cast to deliver well and also maintain this wonderfully written balance?

As you say, it’s comedy and drama; the director we had for the first four episodes of both seasons, Toby MacDonald, I don’t think he ever once viewed this as a comedy: he thought, “This is a drama, these people are real, and they’re going through hasty circumstances and we need to treat them as such”. I’m so glad we did that because I think that’s what makes the characters feel real and makes the relationships feel real.

We had a two-week rehearsal process before the first season, in which we’d do amazing exercises – for example, Jizzlord [Luke Rollason] and I would be told to go out to London and buy something for the Flash, and we’d do that for no one other than the characters and for our own exploration, and I think it made us ground the whole story in complete truth. Then, you can put the comedy on top of that, but first of all, what we needed to focus on was believing that these characters were real and figuring out the world we were all living in, and the Flash and how we got there, and the back story and the relationships with the parents, the story of how Kash and Carrie got together (they improvised their first date) – all that is so important to ground. In terms of comedy, a lot of it comes almost naturally because the chemistry between all of us is so good and I think that, comedically, we all match up very well.

What’s also amazing is that for the second season, Emma began writing for us, now that she knows us and knows what our strengths are as actors – she was able to write to our strengths.
There’s a lot of physical comedy and I love physical comedy so much – I grew up watching Mr. Bean – and to be able to do a scene like the one in which Carrie gets her hair cut is just amazing!

“In terms of comedy, a lot of it comes almost naturally because the chemistry between all of us is so good”

You mentioned that Emma started writing for you. Is it something that you felt as you read the script or she told you about it?

To make an example, for the first series my character, Jen, wasn’t specifically written Irish, so, when I was cast, Emma was able to change that and add in different Irishisms. It was amazing, I think we benefit so much from that. Then, Siobhán [McSweeney] was cast as my mom in it, and that Irish mother-daughter relationship feels very specific to Irish being Irish, so she was able to play more on that.

In the second season, I think we could feel it, and it was funny because if you’d tell Emma something, like that we were hanging out at the pub, before you know it you get something in the script about that [laughs]. For the last episode, we were all joking with her that we wanted a musical episode, and Chris [Lew Kum Hoi], who plays Gregor, and Olivia [Marcus] who plays Megan, said that they could do the drop splits, and Emma said, “Well, I’ll write something where you’ll both have to do the drop splits and so in the musical episode, you can see both of them doing the drops splits in one shot.

So, Emma’s very clever in picking up on things we say and writing according to our styles.

Costumes are wonderfully crafted for show and they also play an important role (see Kash’s holed-pants), do you have a favorite one? And how much, if any, did Jen’s style help you shape your character?

The costumes are such a huge part of the show. Buki [Ebiesuwa], who’s our costume designer, is remarkable and so talented. You go into the costume-fitting and it’s a whirlwind of color and clothes and different textures and fabrics. Booki is amazing because she can just look at you and know immediately what needs to change about the outfit in order to make it perfect. When you think the outfit is done and created, she’d add something more that elevates it to another level.

For me, as an actor, it’s always an interesting moment when you get cast in a job and, either you have rehearsals or don’t have rehearsals, or speak to the director and stuff, you realize what your character is meant to look like or what world you’re in – that happens when you try on the outfits for the first time and you have the fitting. It’s such a defining moment for me. My first fitting was probably two hours long – I knew that Buki worked in a costume shop and that she’d be working wearing princess outfits, but she got me princess outfits x10! I’ve got an overcoat, a tiara, gloves… It’s elevated to another level!

My favorite costume… I really love the one I wore on episode 8, the one with a green top underneath, a jumpsuit and amazing boots, it was really cool. On that note, the London that we created, with the amazing production designer, Melanie Allen, it’s East London but it’s heightened and more colorful and more interesting, with superpower elements as well. Oh, and another of my favorite pieces of clothing, not that I wear but that someone else wears, is Kash’s trousers – a pair of weird orange padded trousers, which were perfect! [laughs]

How would you imagine your physical mind?

I feel it would be something to do with food, lots of different flavors of crisps or something like that [laughs]. It would be something like a crisp factory with amazing, gourmet crisps on one side, and then rotten potatoes and menus that are all my ideas and thoughts that I don’t want to think about in the corner.

I’ve always imagined it being similar to a mind library… but just because it’s Jen’s, it doesn’t mean it can be everyone’s, you’ve got many different ones. Or mine could be a giant field, although I don’t think I’m ever in such a calm mood [laughs].

Would you use the Void? If so, what would you throw in it?

I guess I would! For example, if you go through a breakup and you want to burn stuff… there’s release in doing it; I think if I was in a situation where I wanted to have a cathartic release and get rid of something, I would use it. It would be nice to know it’s always there.

What’s the latest thing you discovered about yourself through your job? Or while playing Jen?

When people ask me what kind of job I want to do, I find it a hard question to answer sometimes because I feel overwhelmed with all the possibilities and things I want to do. In recent times, I’ve thought about what I like watching, reading, and listening to, and investigated that – if you like what you’re consuming, then that’s probably what you would like to make.

I had a very busy year while filming “Extraordinary”; when it came out, we’d do all the promo and then went straight into filming, and after filming season 2, I went through a period that was really quiet, work-wise – in that period, I realized that if you’re working 365 days a year, it doesn’t mean you’re any more fulfilled or successful than if you’re working one day of the year; I think you can find your fulfillment in other ways. If you’re feeling inspired and encouraged to carry on doing what you’re doing, then that’s enough. If you feel that and haven’t worked one day of the year, that’s fine. The whole idea of success is a complete myth in this industry, I think. Getting up in the morning is a success, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got 50 shows on Netflix or one, success is different for every person, and this whole idea of chasing success is quite dangerous. Especially in art, it’s about making stuff that makes you feel fulfilled and feels important to you. If you carry on chasing success of what success might be in other people’s eyes, then it’ll crumble you and I don’t think you’ll ever achieve it.

I think Jen, although very insecure, doesn’t care much about what other people think of her, and that’s encouraged me to be like her. Everyone’s too busy to live in their own world and care about what they’re up to, to actually even consider or notice what you’re up to and what things you’re doing, even though you might be very concerned about that.

“success is different for every person”

Your biggest act of rebellion?

I think there’s an act of rebellion in moving away from Ireland. Coming to London, I felt like I was putting in a box this shy, young Irish girl whom I underestimated a lot. In the last year, leading “Extraordinary”, I feel like I’ve become less shy and much more confident and the parts of me that I was encouraged to quieten down even further, the limitations I was put on when I moved to London, I’ve kicked them all and broken through all those, pushing against stereotypes.

The biggest act of rebellion is to do the things that people least expect of you. It’s always nice to have that drive and determination – often when people underestimate you and want to put you down, it’s easier to find determination within you to battle it.

What makes you laugh?

Physical comedy cracks me up, like Mr. Bean, Jamie Demetriou, “Staths Lets Flats”. I also love comedy that’s everyday humor, on everyday situations and circumstances, the laughter of every day, where there’s nothing much happening or extreme circumstances, but it’s quite boring. There’s a lot of humor in Irish culture in that way, like someone telling a story at a pub, perhaps a story of someone coming home drunk or whatever, that’s the kind of humor that makes me laugh.

What’s your happy place?

Home in Ireland, in my childhood bedroom. It’s nice to come back there when I’ve been in London for a while and I can feel busy; there, you might lose sight of where you came from and the people who supported you, so, I always love to go back home to my family home and seeing everyone there.

Photos & Video by Johnny Carrano.

Makeup by Karin Darnell.

Hair by Ben Cooke.

Styling by David Daley.

Thanks to Brown’s Hotel.

Thanks to CLD Communications.