Irish actor Victoria Smurfit talks her riotous (and very sexy!) new series ‘Rivals’

“Set against the backdrop of the drama, excess, and shocking antics of the power-grabbing social elite of 1980s England, Rivals delves headfirst into the ruthless world of independent television in 1986” – so reads the synopsis for the new eight-part series which landed on Disney+ on Friday, October 18. 

Based on the iconic novel by Dame Jilly Cooper (part of her Rutshire Chronicles series), the eight-part blockbuster saga is set in the Cotswolds and is full of garish 80s charm. Funny, entertaining and incredibly sexy – think Sex Education with a dash of The White Lotus – it’s packed full of drama and many a famous face too with the likes of David Tennant, Bella McLean, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson amongst its many stars. 

The story follows the lives of the dangerously charismatic Rupert Campbell-Black, a dashing ex-Olympian, Member of Parliament and incorrigible rake, and the unscrupulous television magnate Lord Tony Baddingham. When journalist and TV presenter Declan O’Hara moves to the area to head up his own show on Corinium (Baddingham’s independent television franchise), he and his family get caught in the crossfire of a long-simmering feud. I won’t say any more lest I inadvertently spoil things but trust me, it’s scandalous.

For Irish actor Victoria Smurfit—who plays Declan’s wife, Maud O’Hara—it was a joy to be part of. A voracious reader and a big fan of Dame Jilly Cooper’s, Smurfit first read the novel when she was a teenager. Naturally, she took something different from the story this time around. “I forgot that every page, your eyes are on stalks. You’re laughing your head off, you’re gasping ‘Oh, please don’t do that. Don’t do that. No, God!’ You know? It’s a roller coaster! I’d forgotten just how much meat and love is in her books. The Cooper-verse is just the most aspirational magical world.”

At times, the series almost gives you whiplash it moves so quickly but it’s that quickfire tension that keeps you wanting more. Uprooted from a comfortable life in London to green fields in the middle of nowhere, Maud doesn’t take to country life—nor her husband’s newfound fame— easily. “She was so much fun to play,” Smurfit laughs. “She has massive swinging emotions – from the highs to the lows to shouting and roaring to you know, all the things. She does all the things; she’s melancholic, and she’s sort of quite Jacobean and nuts. I love her.”

Naturally, the role came with its challenges… though Smurfit seems to have enjoyed her prickly bits even more, if possible. “Getting to go to work and say and do all the things you’re not supposed to at home, great fun! She’s a terrible mother… I do a lot of scenes with Bella [McLean], who played Taggie, and I’m really mean to her, and I go at her, and then afterwards, I’m like, ‘Come here Bella’, because I just love her. I thought of Bella and Caitriona [Chandler] and Gabe [Gabriel Tierney] as my actual children when we were on set, so there had to be a lot of love after I was super mean.”

At its core, Rivals is really a show about power – something you see played out in many different ways, particularly in the relationship between Maud and Declan. He may be the new hot thing but there was a time when Maud was the superstar O’Hara. “She comes from a position of deep insecurity and a need for love, affection and attention. I had my own backstory for her in my head, but that’s what she needs to survive. That’s her fuel, that’s her sunlight, that’s her water,” Smurfit explains. “When she’s thrown in this country pile in the middle of nowhere, she gains her attention – because her husband’s now working, he’s now the big star and she doesn’t really like that. She’s not getting the water, the sunlight she needs – by acting out by flirting with other people and doing things she’s not supposed to.” 

All of that makes for excellent TV, but there’s more to Maud than meets the eye. Throughout the series, the female characters reclaim their power, each in their own way. For Maud, it’s about putting herself first. “She finds her way through the series to a place of real core strength and self-knowledge,” Smurfit continues. “I’m very proud of her. She starts spending time loving on herself, which, for a woman in the 80s is rare. You’ve just got to watch it all to find out why!”

Kitschy and camp and extremely 80s (there’s not one, but many musical numbers… which is only fitting really), the series is a flamboyant homage to the time but while there are many things to love about that period, there are also many things to be critical of. What was it like seeing things through a modern lens? “It was quite fascinating,” nods Smurfit. “The script and the show deal with it with a very light touch so that you can take as much from it as you want… Yes, that is how it was then, but all the women through the years have changed that narrative and turned the dial, and you’re welcome… The women before you changed it for you.”

Keen for audiences to enjoy themselves as much as possible, the actor says she hopes it’s an escape for people. “I really hope the audience gets freedom from the stress of their lives, and they sit and they laugh and they cry and they gasp and they go ‘No way!’, at least three times an episode. I want them to talk to each other about it. I want them to gobble it all up.” 

That, I assure her, is guaranteed. 

Rivals premiers on Disney+ on Friday, October 18.

Photography by Disney+.