Caroline Menton is going to take on the role of a lifetime.
She will be taking on Irish literary icon Rachel Walsh from Marian Keyes beloved Rachel’s Holiday in the upcoming series, The Walsh Sisters.
When speaking to VIP Magazine she admits that she felt the responsibility of such an important role on her shoulders.
“It did feel like a huge responsibility because she’s such a beloved character, obviously, Marian has so many devoted readers,” she confesses.
“I was using the book as the skeleton of fleshing her out. My essence of her is that she’s just kind of unpredictable and unapologetically herself when we meet her in the book and in our version too. If you’ve read the book you know, yes, she struggles and, you know, she makes mistakes, but you still absolutely love her and you still root for her.
“So hopefully people still have reaction to my interpretation.”
However, she warns viewers that the show is not a step by step reproduction of the books. In fact, it’s been transported from the nineties to 2025.
“It’s really important to have the books as references, but this is an adaptation of the books. I think it was really important to take the essence of each character and the world that Marian has created, because there’s so many devoted readers. You want to do those characters and Marian’s worlds justice.
“It does feel like a bit of a responsibility so you want to fulfill that as much as you possibly can. We wanted to maintain the core essence of the books and the world that she created, but also having our own interpretation of it as well.”
Of course, Rachel’s storyline deals with addiction and substance abuse, something that Caroline took seriously when taking on the role. From speaking to people in treatment centres to reading about the realities of addiction, Caroline spent hours preparing for this.
“It was really important to me to go away and do a lot of research and get as much insight as I possibly could. It’s such a vulnerable topic and I would never want to do a generalised interpretation of it. Everyone’s experience with addiction is so unique to the person and so personal to that person.
“This was my interpretation of her experience with addiction. Gabor Maté is a Canadian physician, he has this one line that was so profound and resonated so much with me. ‘Don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain.’
“I used that as my compass. Then I went off and I spoke to a psychologist who is an expert in addiction. He was amazing and so lovely. He was so insightful and he put me in touch with the lady who works with the Coolmine Centre, which is a drug and alcohol treatment centre.”
The Walsh Sisters starts on RTÉ One on Sunday night at 9:35pm
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