Bad Sisters star Sharon Horgan has revealed that the second season of the comedy had to be "shut down" for a time, as she found it difficult to deal with the grief after the death of her father John in December 2023.
Horgan, who created Bafta winning comedies, Catastrophe and Bad Sisters, spoke about this on the podcast, How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, hosted by younger brother Mark Horgan.
Bad Sisters shows three sisters, played by Horgan, Sarah Greene, and Eva Birthistle, as they try to help their sister Grace, played by Anne-Marie Duff, who is in a controlling marriage to her husband, played by Dracula star Claes Bang.
Following a suspicious death of the husband, Horgan, Birthistle, and Greene are among suspects.
On this podcast, Sharon told Mark about how Bad Sisters dealt with "grief", as well as revealing to listeners that her brother sent her a message about a scene that was "filmed after dad died".
"Mark, he said that he loved the episode, but (I) found it really difficult to watch", she said. "And I was saying, well, because everything I was feeling went into those scenes, you know? So in some ways it’s great and it’s cathartic and you can connect with your feelings and you can express them".
"But in other ways, it feels so weird because essentially, you’re using your emotions and it feels strange and a bit wrong".
Elsewhere, Sharon Horgan also explained how as an actor, you can have this "weird muscle memory", where "you’re experiencing, you’re playing heart, heartache, grief, all these extreme emotions, and you’re living them in that moment, you’re putting your body under this incredible strain, and that’s what I was feeling at the funeral".
"I sat with an actor playing my dad’s dying before, and that really blew my mind," Horgan continued. "This can be a bit unhealthy this job. It was weird going back to work. In the end we had to shut down the production because I couldn’t".
Sharon Horgan also revealed that she has become more and more confident after reaching her 50s.
"I think hormones are driving me, I’m on everything so, but I hate the visual representation of aging, it really bothers me because of natural vanity, but also because I don’t feel like that, and I’m sure everyone says this, but it’s why the number feels weird because inside I have puppy dog levels of energy," she said.
"I would say scary as well, there’s a weird connection with your mortality when you lose a parent, and you start thinking about things in a different way, and that’s why I’m very kind of particular about what I work on and who I work with and how I spend my time".
Horgan also stated that she is "really is very, very recent that I’ve allowed myself to feel like I know what I’m doing".
Horgan added: "There’s a confidence there that I really appreciate actually, because it’s not great to be walking around feeling like you’ve sort of snuck in and no-one’s noticed so far that I’m winging it".
"It’s exhausting. It’s much better to feel like you should be in those rooms".
Sharon Horgan also revealed that she is dating someone, following the separation from her husband, business man Jeremy Rainbird in 2019.
