India Mullen: ‘People online think they are entitled to comment on actors’ bodies and lives. It made me more guarded’

The actress’s role in ‘Normal People’ made her a star, now she’s in Emma Donoghue's new play which is set in a previous pandemic

India Mullen at the Gate Theatre where she is starring in Emma Donoghue's new play 'The Pull of the Stars'. Photo: Frank McGrath

Ciara Dwyer

‘It feels almost like an accident that I’m an actress,” says ­India Mullen. “I didn’t do much acting growing up. Most of my friends were surprised when I studied drama. They thought I’d do art instead. I was into drawing and painting.”

It is a blustery Saturday afternoon and she arrives windswept. We’re in the Gresham Hotel, only a stone’s throw from the Gate Theatre, where Mullen is playing Della Garrett in Emma ­Donoghue’s adaptation of her novel The Pull of the Stars, directed by Louise Lowe.