[All Of It music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with us. This time tomorrow in the show, I'll be speaking with director Ava DuVernay and actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor about their new film Origin. The film is about the life of Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who explores caste systems. You might have read her book, amazing book. That is coming up tomorrow, but right now, this hour, let's get it started with The Woman in the Wall.

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The Woman in the Wall is a new limited series based on a dark part of Irish history. From the late 1800s until 1996, institutions called Magdalene Laundries existed in Ireland as residential homes described as training centers for "wayward girls." In 1993, 133 bodies were exhumed from a laundry graveyard, and an additional 22 bodies were discovered, and the extent of the neglect and abuse in these institutions was made public. In fact, singer Sinéad O'Connor was one of the thousands of women and girls sent to one of these facilities and spoke openly of her abuse there.

The series, The Woman in the Wall tells the fictional story of Lorna played by Ruth Wilson. Lorna is tormented by her experience in the laundry. She was sent away and worked there as a pregnant teen, and her baby was taken from her at birth. The trauma is so severe that Lorna has troubles as an adult. She's known around a tiny town for sleepwalking and violent outbursts and drinking. In fact, she wakes up after one of her episodes with a dead woman who she hides in a wall.

This happens just as a local priest who oversaw one of the laundries was found murdered. The same one who dragged Lorna from her home as a teen. Are the two related? Lorna soon becomes the focus of the investigation, led by a detective from Dublin who has his own anguish connection to the laundries played by my next guest, BAFTA-nominated actor, Daryl McCormack. You may have seen McCormack Opposite Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. Great movie, or Bad Sisters and Peaky Blinders. He's here with us today. Welcome, Daryl.

Daryl McCormack: Oh, thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Joining him is creator and showrunner, Joe Murtagh. Welcome, Joe.

Joe Murtagh: Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: The Woman in the Wall is on Showtime. By the way, it premieres this Friday. Joe, I'll ask you first, what did you know about these homes and these laundries?

Joe Murtagh: Well, I didn't know about them at all until I was in my early 20s. My whole family's Irish. My parents are Irish, their parents were Irish, but I hadn't known that this existed in our country until I watched the Peter Mullan film, The Magdalene Sisters. I've since gone on to learn that that is actually a lot of people's introduction to this, and I couldn't stop reading about it after this.

It's a really horrific part of Irish history but the thing that really struck me was this disparity between the amount of lives it touched and how long it went on for ending in the early 90s, versus how few people outside of Ireland seem to know about this. Even to this day, if you say Magdalene Laundry outside of Ireland, most people don't know what you're talking about. My desire to write about this came mostly to rectify that, to get this out there.

Alison Stewart: For people who don't know, Joe, what purpose did they serve? Why would a young girl or woman end up there?

Joe Murtagh: It could vary in reasons. Some of these girls were young. Women who had children outside of wedlock. Some of them could be girls who had mental health issues. Some of the girls had been sexually abused. In order to cover up the crimes, the girl was usually the one to receive punishment by being sent to one of these laundries. Some girls were even sent in for just being too good-looking and therefore considered a temptation to men. Really shocking, awful stuff.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, as this story is told, it is told in a really interesting way. It's also told in a very creative way, a very visually creative way. It's also somewhat spooky in places. I've seen reviews call it gothic, a mystery, a little bit of a ghost story. How do you describe the series and the story in genre and vibe?

Daryl McCormack: Well, it's very difficult to describe. That's thanks to Joe's very unique writing. It does encapsulate a lot of different genres and there is a very gothic horror element to the show but there is also a social realism genre to the piece as well. Then at times, it can be tragically funny. There's a lovely current of dark comedy running through the show. Then of course, the heartbeat of it is really the true events that inspired it, which is the Magdalene Laundries and The Mother and Baby Homes.

I do feel like this show will touch on so many different areas, and then at the same time really give you insight into a part of history that's not really been given its exposure or light, but yes, Joe has managed to write a script that I have not really come across for a long time, and that's really what made me want to be a part of it.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, when did you first learn about the Magdalene Laundries and the homes for these young women?

Daryl McCormack: Well, I actually have a similar story to Joe that my first exposure was through the film Magdalene Sisters as well. I was in school in Tipperary, that's where I grew up. I think in my fourth year of school, we had transition year with some classes. We wouldn't be actually doing academic work, and we would watch a film instead.

I remember one year that we watched The Magdalene Sisters, and it feels very apparent because you can see remnants of shame and remnants of the influence of the Catholic Church within Ireland still present within the Irish culture and the Irish people. I could really see a throughline from where Ireland is and how Irish people can be to this historic atrocity but it still is so shocking and almost unbelievable.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about Woman in the Wall. It premieres on Showtime this Friday. I am speaking with actor Daryl McCormack, and writer and creator Joe Murtagh. Joe, this is a fictional town that you've made. It's 2015. Even though it's not really spoken about initially, it's this idea of the laundries, not the idea of the reality of the laundries, hangs around the town. It's just in the air. In your research, did you find this to be the case in towns where real laundries were, that it was very much present?

Joe Murtagh: Yes. It is just a sort of a spect that hangs over the town. It's just awful, it's the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge or talk about. It was very important to us that, in our world that we did create a fictional world in order to protect those communities, to protect the individuals and the survivors within them but it was also really important to fictionalize it for me, because the more research we did into this, the scale of this is unimaginable. It touched thousands upon thousands of lives. By fictionalizing our town and our characters, it allowed us to draw on as many of those stories and those experiences as possible.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, tell us a little bit about your character, Detective Colman Akande. Where is he in his life when we meet him?

Daryl McCormack: Colman is a young man. He's a detective based in Dublin. I think it's interesting, this case is a very personal one for him. For the sole reason that the victim was somewhat of a father figure for him and a mentor that's a priest named Father Percy. This really comes out of nowhere in Colman's life and really propels him on a journey that really causes him to have a reflection on his own involvement with the laundries, and because he was a child from The Mother and Baby Homes, he's forced to really address his own trauma and his own past.

That's definitely what gripped me as an actor, was, there was a duty to the case that he's trying to solve, and yet, as he goes throughout that case, he is forced to look into his own dark history and his own dark past.

Alison Stewart: He comes to this small town, your character, to investigate this priest's murder. He is from the big city. He's from Dublin, in fact, he's referred to as Dublin for a while.

[laughter]

Why is that such-- and Joe or Daryl, you can answer this. I'll throw it to Daryl first. Why is that such an important distinction that he is a city guy, and how does he feel about being referred to as Dublin?

Daryl McCormack: I think it's an interesting one. I think we spoke about this with Joe in that there is an element in which Colman would very much expect that coming from the outside of a small town and coming from the city, that there would be a snobberish attitude from the locals in Kilkinure. It's just part of something that he has to get past in order to try and find the truth of this case. It does really speak to Irish culture sometimes as well. What I loved mostly about it was that small-town mentalities can often want to get past serious topics like this because of gossip.

Gossip is such a thing in Ireland that feels very powerful. For Colman, he's very unattached to the local town. He's just really determined to find out the truth. I thought it was a good job of Joe writing that into the show because it really highlights what gossip can do and how shame can almost keep the truth from coming out.

Alison Stewart: I want to play a clip from this series. In the series, your character has this relationship with this older cop who's not so sure about him at first, Sergeant Massey. He calls him lad, he calls him Dublin. We're going to play this clip. Massey and Colman, when they first meet. Colman, your character's been waiting outside the police station, which was closed, killing time just kicking around a soccer ball. The first voice you'll hear is Sergeant Massey. This is from Woman in the Wall.

Aidan Massey: Can I help you there, son?

Colman Akande: The door's locked.

Aidan Massey: We've limited opening hours.

Colman Akande: Yes. Well, do you not know crime doesn't sleep?

Aidan Massey: Yes. Well, I do. I'm still waiting on a name for you, lad.

Colman Akande: It's Detective Sergeant Colman Akande from Dublin.

Aidan Massey: Sergeant Aidan Massey. Jesus. They said they were sending a lad from Dublin. Not one of the Backstreet Boys.

Colman Akande: What?

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Some of that comedy there. Joe, tell us about this dynamic between these two.

Joe Murtagh: I think what Daryl was just saying I think he articulated really well is exactly what I was trying to do with having Colman come from a big town, but also I think Massey personifies that the small town cop. What I really wanted to do was to use that as a vehicle to explore culturally, these small towns. I also thought it would be great playing into detective TV tropes was very important for this show and so I wanted to do a fish-out-the-water story for Colman, big city cop, small town country cop having to team up.

What really interests me about doing that though is everyone knows those characters. Everyone's seen them before, and I think there's a nice comfort and familiarity to that. Then once we have that, once you get into the second half of the series, we really start to subvert those genres. We give a character like Massey, who first appears to be this bumbling small-town cop, he actually has quite an unexpected arc in the series. It was two things. It was a chance to play with those tropes that we all know and love, but also a chance to subvert them too.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, there's a subtext of that Backstreet Boy clips. The subtext is that Colman's not white. In real life, your mom's Irish and your dad's African American. I'm curious if you had that experience as a kid or as an actor showing up with the name Daryl McCormack and then being a tall, handsome man of color.

Daryl McCormack: Yes. I grew up in the '90s, early '90s. I was born in '93, so my first 10 years were mostly in the '90s, and Ireland definitely then and I grew up in a small town in Ireland as well, and predominantly a white town. That is something that I've felt before, which is trying to find your place amongst your community, particularly when you look very different to your community. I've found that that really helped me get into Colman's skin as well because that's just a shared experience that I have with Colman.

I think if anything, it adds to his strength because I think when you're in adversity, particularly from a young age, and particularly from a place of trying to find your identity, it almost fortifies you even more and creates this zeal for you to be very strong about who you are. That's who you meet in Colman. He knows he has to have a sense of presence and a sense of authority within himself. Otherwise, he's going to drown.

Alison Stewart: My guests are actor Daryl McCormick and creator and showrunner, Joe Murtagh. We're talking about Woman in the Wall. It premieres on Showtime this Friday. I want to start talking about Ruth Wilson a little bit, Joe. She's in the character of Lorna. She brings such intensity to her roles, whether it's Alison from The Affair or Alice from Idris Elba's Luther. What made her the right choice for this troubled woman, Lorna?

Joe Murtagh: She just completely understood the character from the moment she read her. More than that, she understood what we were trying to do with the show. That what we were trying to try and tackle quite a heavy subject matter that touched so many lives but to really humanize it, to really focus on the individuals at the heart of it. She just got it. Then on top of that, as you said, she's just a phenomenal actress. She's incredible.

The other great thing was she came on board relatively early in the process as an exec producer on the show as well. It was just an absolute joy to be able to write the character around her and have her there feeding in as a producer and as the person who's going to play the part as well. It was invaluable having Ruth on board.

Alison Stewart: Joe, what was something that she brought to the role that maybe wasn't on the page?

Joe Murtagh: Oh, there's so many things. To be honest, it's mostly all the minutia of Lorna. Her accent, the work that she did on her Irish accent was incredible. The way that she moves. One of the main things in the series is that Lorna, after the events of Episode 1, decides to keep herself awake until the very end of the series. We're watching a woman getting progressively more and more physically exhausted. That was incredible to watch the work that Ruth did around that.

We also have a couple of sleepwalking scenes in the first episode. Ruth did a real deep dive into sleepwalking and did something really interesting there that I think people are going to enjoy watching.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, when you think about how your character when he first suspects that Lorna is not being truthful, what is he thinking about her especially in the first two episodes?

Daryl McCormack: I think he is gung-ho about finding the truth about what happened to Father Percy. Particularly because Father Percy reminds him of that part of his own life that he's not really fully looked at. It's almost as if the quicker he solves the case, the quicker he doesn't have to look at his own trauma and his history. Then when he meets Lorna, there's something fascinating about working with Ruth the first time, because what we were trying to explore was that when people are wounded or people share a similar type of pain or trauma, it's as if they can almost recognize it in each other without saying anything.

That was a lot of fun because there was a sense as if Colman and Lorna knew about each other's life before they really even got to know each other. knowing where the show goes, it's interesting to play that from the beginning together on set.

Alison Stewart: Joe, as I mentioned, Sinéad O'Connor was sent to one of these laundries. Later spoke about the abuse that she experienced there. There's an unreleased song about-- that is included in the series. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened?

Joe Murtagh: To be honest, our composer, David Holmes, is really responsible for that. He produced Sinéad's final album and he got together with her and before she passed away, she gave us that song to use in our series. I can't say too much about how we use it because it's going to reveal some spoilers, but it was the perfect song to play where we play it. I am being very obscure because I don't want to give anything away, but it was just momentous. It was incredible to have that song from Sinéad O'Connor herself as a survivor of the laundries and as Sinéad O'Connor, the singer to provide us with that song.

Alison Stewart: Here's a question for both of you and Joe. I'll ask you to go first. With Woman in the Wall, what did you want to explore about trauma?

Joe Murtagh: I wanted to explore the lasting impact of it. I wanted to explore what it does to communities as a whole. I think we obviously explored what it does to the individual person, but I think collective trauma and what it can do to entire communities is fascinating and important. Especially when you're talking about a piece of history like this that is so unbelievably recent, that kind of trauma doesn't go away. Certainly not this quickly. I wanted to look at more the collective aspects of trauma.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, how about for you?

Daryl McCormack: For me, one thing that I'm really proud that the show explores is the duality of both being strong and vulnerable. I thought Colman is such an interesting examination of that masculinity that puts everything on their shoulders and decides to trudge forward. Yet at the same time, there's such a massive part of his life that he hasn't really healed from and a trauma that he hasn't really allowed himself to explore. Then you see the consequences of someone who's trying to just shoulder everything and push through the pain. I just love that duality of him being both a man who's in the midst of solving a murder case and then at the same time a boy who has been damaged by a wider corrupt system.

Alison Stewart: Daryl, before we go, you've had some really amazing colleagues you've worked with recently. Emma Thompson, you've had Richard E. Grant, Sharon Horgan, Ruth Wilson. When you think about the past few years of your career which has been really going, what is a piece of advice or an observation you've made working with some folks who've been in the business for a minute that you've taken with you?

Daryl McCormack: Wow. I've noticed that there's a great freedom that a lot of those amazing actors that you've just mentioned have and that does come from experience. I think one of the things that I've noticed in a lot of them is the sense of playfulness. A lot of them can have the ability to really be playful and explorative in very intense and pressured environments.

When you get on a set, it can feel like that because you want to do a good job, you want the product to be really well received, and often that can build a sense of pressure. I guess you have to remind yourself that art is there for you to enjoy as well. It does have an amazing vehicle to share and tell stories but at the same time, to be involved in it is a pleasure. I just noticed that amongst those great actors, they just continue to enjoy the work that they do and they're just super playful.

Alison Stewart: The Woman in the Wall premieres on Showtime this Friday. I've been speaking with its creator and showrunner, Joe Murtagh, and actor Daryl McCormack. Thanks so much for the time today.

Daryl McCormack: Thank you so much.

Joe Murtagh: Thank you for having us.

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