I was born raised and still living in the big smoke of Dublin! I got in to acting through my mom and dad, both My parents were actors, my father was a well-known actor back in his day, Pat Layde, he was in the likes of Philadelphia here I come, and he had small part in Ryan’s Daughter as well as being a regular at the abbey, my mother Joyce Layde was an actress too so you could say that acting was in the blood.
Last year, a good friend of mine, Pauline Good, who is living with MS saw the ad looking for a role on MS Ireland’s Facebook page, she tagged me in the comments as she knows I am into the acting. I had a look at the post and thought that it looked interesting, and said to myself, “I am going to give this a go”, and that was it.
MS Ireland was my first contact, I reached out to Tom at MS Ireland an he put me in touch with Eleven films ( the shows production company), there was a small bit of back and forth, some screening questions about my MS and how I was doing. I sent them over a C.V of my work and they seemed pretty pleased with everything I told them about my career and my life with MS.
They invited me to make a self-tape, which is usually the first stage of an audition process. Most of the time this is the just a simple selfie video of someone’s face and a white background, but my girlfriend and I decided to give it a real go and re-enacted the full scene. My girlfriend was great, she is not an actress but took part in the full scene for me, she made me wear a leopard skin dressing gown for the tape which she claims swung it for me!
I sent the audition tape to my agent, and she mailed back saying it was great and she sent it off to Netflix, within a day they got back saying they loved it and they will get back to me. This all took place in July in the Summer of 2020, and one day I got a mail saying that I had the part, and before I knew it, I was booked in for filming on the 4th of November.
I flew over on the first week of November, I didn’t meet anyone until I went on to set and I was put up in a hotel. First, I had to travel to London to get my wardrobe sorted and what I was going to wear on set and the next day I was driven to Wales put up in a hotel and the following morning I was on set.
It was all a bit surreal, walking on to set and filming with two big stars like Asa Butterfield and Mimi Keene. They who were both absolutely amazing and friendly with me, they really helped me with my nerves by playing some word games in the dressing room beforehand. We shot the scenes all in sequence and it took almost one day to complete the scenes in full, the director was a real pro and went into everything into great detail. Joe Wilkinson, who was also in the scene playing Jeff, he is someone that I am a huge fan of so was bit of a dream to work with him.
I was playing a character called Roland Matthews, who was the father of Ruby Matthews, who revealed in the second season that her father was living with MS. It was interesting because usually I must imagine the world the role is in, but I was diagnosed with MS and have been living with it the last 11 years, so I kind of knew how it might affect the world and people around you. I used my own experiences and learnings to show how that would affect Ruby, and his wife – so it was unique in terms of my preparation for it.
I think Roland had more physical ailments, with restricted movements, which I don’t, so there is a bit of research into the different types of MS, it can be so different to different people. A friend of mine is a physio in Galway so I spoke to him about lack of spasticity in the muscles and how that might impact my movement. Roland obviously has challenges, and he is a warm character at heart and someone who loves his daughter dearly
In terms of my own MS story, it all started about 12 years ago, I was diagnosed with optic neuritis completely out of the blue. I had some strange vision going on in my eyes and I decided to get some tests in the Eye and Ear. Initially they couldn’t really find what was wrong, and I thought nothing off it. Later, a doctor called me and encouraged me to go back for another scan and that was when I was diagnosed with Optic Neuritis. It was at the eye and ear hospital that they mentioned that it might be MS and referred me to St Vincent’s.
I can remember it clearly being told it might be MS, I left in complete shock, I walked up Dame Street, in my head it was thinking this was Motor Neuron Disease- I was in a state of absolute shock it felt like the bottom has fallen out of things.
The team at St Vincent’s were amazing, once I was diagnosed, they referred to a neuroglist who helped me get me head around the diagnosis. The MS nurse I had at the time was wonderful about speaking sense to me and keeping me grounded, she would tell me facts, and would tell them to me very straight but in a nice way, she told me that many people can live a very happy life with MS.
Although it came as a shock, and has impacted my life, there has been some positives to my diagnosis. I gave up smoking after 16 years and I started to make some positive life changes, I got fitter and became committed to leading a healthier life. Looking back at my diagnosis now, what seemed at the time was a scary thing, there was a lot of positive outcomes as a reaction and my choices.
I have challenges, my life has changed- but making positive changes in my life I find that I can help me manage the difficult times. My advice would be to anyone who has been diagnosed, is to keep at it and keep going. I could have taken the news worse, if you told me two years ago, I would be in a Netflix hit doing scenes with A-list celebrities, I wouldn’t have believed you! I was thinking of giving up acting prior to the role, but so happy I didn’t- my message might be clichéd, but it is simple, NEVER GIVE UP!