Amy Huberman has admitted that she feared she’d never work again, as you never know when “it’s going to go quiet”.
The mum-of-two has become well-known in Ireland over the past few years, not only as rugby star Brian O’Driscoll’s wife, but as a respected actress and writer – having starred in numerous film and TV productions, as well as publishing two of her own fiction novels.
Speaking at the launch of her jewellery collection, Luna, with Newbridge Silverware, the 37-year-old told how she’s faced a lot of rejection in the past, especially as an actor, and her road to success was far from easy – despite what you see in the press.
“I have this thing where I think you should always be honest about the process, and I have had a lot of rejection, and that’s the stuff that you don’t see,” she said.
Uncertainty: Amy has feared she’d never work again | ROBBIE REYNOLDS
“The stuff that you see is, ‘Oh, she’s busy doing that’, and this year has been incredibly busy, and it’s been great, but sometimes then it all comes at once and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, when am I going to sleep?’.
“But we’ve got a really good support and it’s great, and I think you just have to throw yourself into it – because you never know when it’s going to go quiet again.”
The actress admitted that the fear of things ‘going quiet again’ has always loomed in the back of her mind, especially around the time when she had her two kids, Sadie and Billy.
“It’s busy now but I was quiet for a while, and it was, in a way, I look back and I go, ‘It was actually good’, because I got time at home when the babies were little – but it was also scary because I didn’t know where I was going to go next.
“When you wrap on something, you’re like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll get a job again’.
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“I guess people only talk about the stuff that’s going well but I’ve, especially as an actor, I’ve definitely struggled and around the time when I had the two kids quite close together.
“I mean I’d be lying if I said that it all slotted in perfectly, there was times when I was frustrated, there was times when I missed being home when I was away.
“And I don’t think there’s any answer to it apart from just moving with it and enjoying where you are in that moment,” she explained.
Amy also told how living in a basement flat in London when she was unemployed led to her writing her first book, Hello Heartbreak, in 2009.
Tough times: Amy says writing kept her sane when living unemployed in London | ROBBIE REYNOLDS
“I don’t like not having things that I can express myself through, and the writing came out of being unemployed and living in a basement flat in London and not working,” she said.
“It was around the time I was doing The Clinic back here and, I mean, to all intensive purposes, that’s busy and that’s great – but there’s months where you’re not.
“And I found, in a way, doing these things gave me control in my own life, because with acting you have absolutely no control. But at the same time I didn’t have a book deal at that stage, so I could have just spent two years writing in my basement for nothing.
“But I actually did say that to myself, you know, if nothing happened with it, it kept me sane in a time where there was no certainty – and it can be a bit grim when you’re just facing rejection,” she admitted.
