‘Trespasses’ Sneak Peek: See Gillian Anderson & ‘Furious’ Star Lola Petticrew in Troubles Drama
What To Know
- Trespasses is a TV adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s novel set during the Troubles in 1975 Belfast, following Catholic schoolteacher Cushla Lavery (Lola Petticrew) as she navigates a forbidden affair and family tensions.
- Gillian Anderson plays Cushla’s troubled, alcoholic mother Gina, a casting choice that came about after Kennedy boldly asked Anderson at a dinner celebrating the book’s release.
- The series premieres in the U.S. on PBS on September 20, with all episodes available to stream on PBS Passport and Masterpiece on Prime Video.
The Troubles era in Northern Ireland is dramatized in a TV adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s novel Trespasses. It tells the fictional story of a Catholic schoolteacher, Cushla Lavery (Furious star Lola Petticrew), who becomes involved in an illicit affair with an older Protestant married man, Michael Agnew (Tom Cullen), a barrister who often defends IRA suspects and is friends with cultured Bohemians who enrage and intrigue her. As their forbidden love deepens, Cushla is pulled between duty and desire, family and freedom. Cushla’s mother, Gina, is played by Gillian Anderson, whose casting Kennedy tells TV Insider was pitched on a bold whim that ended up working out great.
Trespasses premieres this Sunday, September 20, on PBS, with all episodes available to stream on PBS Passport and with PBS Masterpiece on Prime Video. The series will broadcast, Sundays, September 20 through October 11, at 10/9c on PBS (check local listings), PBS.org, and the PBS app. It first aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and is now making its American debut.
Trespasses was Kennedy’s breakout novel. It’s completely fictional, but the world of the story, set in 1975 Belfast, is rooted in Kennedy’s memories of her own childhood in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. “Cushla is a primary school teacher,” Kennedy says, “I could have been one of her pupils in 1975 because that’s the year that I turned 8.”
Lola Petticrew as Cushla, Gillian Anderson as Gina in Trespasses (Wildgaze Films/All3Media International)
The idea for the story came to Kennedy during a difficult time in her life in 2019, after she underwent surgery to treat melanoma. “I knew I was going to have about three months off work and I spent three days sitting in an armchair on the very strong painkillers they’d sent me home from hospital with,” Kennedy tells TV Insider. “I watched all three series of Call My Agent in three days just in the chair, slightly out of it. After, by the time I got through all those episodes, I thought, ‘Get out of the chair and do something else.'”
“Really, to take my mind off whether I might be dying or not, I decided to try and write 1,000 words a day. Just keep going,” she continues. “The other deal I made with myself was not to look at the mad nonsense I’ve written the previous day, just to keep pushing forward. And by the time I went back to work, I had something that could charitably be called a novel in that it was long. It was quite a mess. I had the courage to open the document again about six months later. I spent a couple of years fixing it.” Kennedy says the cancer “came back again at Stage 4, and then they put me on mad drugs that miraculously worked.” So today, she’s “right as rain.”
Trespasses was published in 2022, and the book was optioned in a flash. Kennedy met Anderson at a dinner in London celebrating the book’s release. At that time, the novel had already been optioned. “At one point during dinner, Gillian told me that she really loved the book and that she particularly loved the character, Gina,” Kennedy says. Gina is Cushla’s mother who struggles with alcoholism. You can see her troubled dynamic with Cushla in the exclusive sneak peek into Trespasses Episode 1 in the video above.
“Possibly because there was wine on board, I felt it was entirely reasonable for me to ask Gillian if she’d like to play Gina in the adaptation,” Kennedy reveals, “which was just bonkers on so many levels because things get optioned all the time, but very few of them get made.
Gillian Anderson as Gina in Trespasses (Wildgaze Films/All3Media International)
“Gillian said yes, that she would be interested, and I thought, ‘This is marvelous,’ at the time, but I woke up the next door morning going, ‘My God, what have you done?'” Kennedy teases. “And I couldn’t take it back. But actually, somehow Gillian meant it, and Gillian is an extremely hard worker, is always busy doing all kinds of things, but somehow managed to fit it into her schedule.” The rest is history.
Trespasses is Petticrew’s second series about The Troubles. The Irish actor starred in the critically acclaimed Say Nothing on FX/Hulu, but Say Nothing had not been released when Petticrew was auditioning for Cushla, according to Kennedy, who believes Petticrew’s casting was kismet.
“Lola even looked like Cushla. That was really freaky to me,” Kennedy tells us, adding, “When Lola was fully made up [in costume], they looked like Cushla did in my imagination.”
Cushla “is a really, really hard part” Kennedy explains, “because I wrote the novel from a really, really close third-person point of view. So basically, Lola is in every single scene because everything that unfolds in the book, is what Cushla sees and hears. And I cannot even tell you how professional, just utterly brilliant at Lola was from start to finish…. I couldn’t speak highly enough about Lola, as a professional, but also they’re just sublimely talented. It’s kind of staggering.” Viewers have seen that in Furious, a crime drama about sex trafficking starring Petticrew, Emmy Rossum, and Quincy Tyler Bernstine.
Petticrew and Anderson are a fierce onscreen pair as the toxic mother-daughter duo in Trespasses. Kennedy provides some context for the scene above to help viewers understand their dynamic.
Tom Cullen as Michael, Lola Petticrew as Cushla in Trespasses (Wildgaze Films/All3Media International)
“Gina is still a young woman. She’s probably in her early 50s, Cush’s in her 20s, and Gina is recently widowed, maybe in the previous couple of years. She’s not dealing very well with that,” Kennedy explains. “In fact, how she’s dealing with it is the way that a lot of Irish people deal with emotion, which is by having a drink, except she’s drinking all the time. Because [Cushla] is teaching at a primary school, she’s trying to help her brother who’s running the family business. It’s a bar, and there are lots of tensions with that. And then she meets this man [Michael] and also makes a friend at work. She starts to pull away from her mother and isn’t at home with her all the time. Gina finds that very difficult. There’s a lot of frustration on both their parts actually, because Cushla wants to get the hell out of there as much as she can, and Gina’s feeling abandoned and threatened.”
As the season evolves, Gina tries to “pull herself together,” says Kennedy, but “it’s very difficult” and there’s “a lot of mistrust” between the mother and daughter because “Cushla is sneaking around” trying to keep her illicit affair a secret. But “[Gina] isn’t as green as she’s cabbage looking,” Kennedy says.
“What Lola and Gillian did with us in the show is kind of beautiful when you can see that there is tremendous love there,” Kennedy continues. “I think that even in relationships that are difficult because of things like addiction and other kinds of friction and tensions, there’s still love there. That’s what makes them very frustrating.” But there’s hope for the love to become more clear by the season’s end.
Trespasses, Series Premiere, Sunday, September 20, 10/9c, PBS; Full Season Streaming, Sunday, September 20, PBS Passport
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