‘Us Irish in the film industry gel together’: Alison Oliver on Paul Mescal and Wuthering Heights

Caroline LeaperTue, November 10, 2026 at 9:00 AM UTC

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Antonino Cafiero

Alison Oliver is clinging to the horns of a recumbent stone stag, having scrambled up on to its back wearing delicate floral heels. “This really is very Saltburn,” she laughs, adjusting her balance as the folds of her skirt are smoothed just so, making the whole thing look effortless. Oliver is well acquainted with the UK’s manor scene at this point in her career. She’s an Emerald Fennell protégée (having played the doomed socialite Venetia Catton in Saltburn, then an unhinged Isabella Linton in Fennell’s provocative adaptation of Wuthering Heights), so has had a taste of the British director’s juggernaut success as well as her penchant for eccentric estates.

Today, in an old rectory in Surrey, Oliver seems unfazed when asked to pose in rooms stacked high with dusty old lamp shades, or by the chewed-up armchairs that we sit in for our interview. She goes in for the home-baked crumble and custard served to the crew, in lieu of the typical Hollywood macrobiotic nibbles. She’s modelling Tiffany & Co diamonds, but changes back into a kitten-print T-shirt and Levi’s 501s once the shoot is over. “It’s exactly like playing dress-up,” she says of the fashion shoot and getting the chance to wear pieces such as an exquisite unenhanced purple sapphire and diamond necklace from the Tiffany & Co Blue Book collection. “I grew up with two older sisters, and we had a big dressing-up box. Now this is a part of the job that I’ve come to really enjoy. You just get to put on these amazing things and have fun.”

Oliver has a string of impressive performances under her belt already (pictured in Conversations with Friends, with Joe Alwyn) - Element Pictures/Enda Bowe

At 29, Oliver is one of cinema’s most compelling new talents. Her ascent has been rapid, her charisma has made her memorable (scene-stealing, in fact), even when cast alongside Hollywood heavyweights such as Margot Robbie, Mark Ruffalo and Rosamund Pike. Robbie has described her performances as “distinctive and perfect”. For Fennell, she’s “the most remarkable actor. Even the way she breathes is different”.

Oliver does not, however, want to act the part of “the celebrity”. Like her contemporaries Jessie Buckley and Saoirse Ronan, she is content with coming across as quite normal. This new generation of talent is showing that it is possible to be a critically acclaimed actor without courting paparazzi attention, or tipping off photographers as to where they’ll be heading for dinner. It makes them all the more endearing. “Sometimes I struggle with trying to share or explain who I am when I’m still figuring that out,” she says. “So when it comes to fame, I find that quite uncomfortable. I don’t know how to be, in that way, and I don’t like to feel too known.”

Oliver is absent from social media, and protective of her private life. She has reportedly been in a relationship with British actor Josh O’Connor, of The Crown acclaim, for about two years, but neither has spoken on-record about the other. “I definitely do think you can do this job without having to sacrifice everything and put everything out there,” she nods. “And it’s nice to see that’s OK.”

Oliver wears: Black silk floral coat, Givenchy, POA; Purple sapphire ring with diamonds, Tiffany & Co, POA - Antonino Cafiero

Red carpets are still a novelty. For the Wuthering Heights premiere, she brought her family along. “I think I’m still kind of finding my feet,” she says. “The more I’ve done this, the more I can see that the filming and the press are two very different jobs.” Becoming a Tiffany & Co ambassador, and having Jonathan Anderson, creative director at Dior, as a new friend in her corner, have certainly been helpful. She sat on the front row as Anderson presented Dior’s spring/summer 2027 collection at Paris Fashion Week. “I really do think that any Irish person in the industry just gels to the other,” she says. “He is a very cool person and I’ve learnt a lot from him.”

Oliver’s grounded attitude has its roots in Cork, where she grew up as the youngest of three sisters. Her mother was a social worker, her father worked in the motor trade. Her childhood bedroom has been kept as a Noughties time capsule, complete with a colourful mermaid mural painted by her sister’s friend in tribute to the 2006 film Aquamarine.

“Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging was another huge one for me,” she says of the 2008 adaptation of the Louise Rennison teen classic. “I was 12 or 13, watching it at sleepovers, and thinking that was the first time I had really identified with a character.” There were holidays to Magaluf, drinking cocktails from fishbowls (“no regrets”), an obsession with early Ed Sheeran and weekends spent at the Performers Academy in Cork, where she first “caught the bug” for being on stage. “We did a lot of pantos,” she says, “but they would really change it up. We did Maleficent as a musical, and I was singing Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life to Sleeping Beauty. It was sweet, but I never anticipated then that it would lead to films or television.” The shift came when she was offered a university place at The Lir Academy.

Oliver in Saltburn - Amazon Content Services LLC

“Up until that point, I wanted to do acting, but I was still very much going out with my friends all the time,” she says. “Then I went to college and my nerd phase began. A part of me became quite introverted because I had never felt so passionate about something and put so much of my focus into it.” Even now, Oliver brings books full of notes and ideas with her to set. The Lir is a relatively young school, opened in 2011 and attached to Trinity College Dublin. With only 16 students per year, it has become an incubator for Irish talent – it’s here that Oliver became friends with Paul Mescal.

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“We would all go out together – it’s such a small college that you just knew everyone,” she says. “Because I was from Cork, going to Dublin was big enough. There was a time where I was trying to go to drama colleges in London, and I think I would have been completely overwhelmed. Moving to Dublin still felt like I was in the big smoke.” Just as Mescal was enjoying huge success with his breakout role in Normal People, auditions were announced for another Sally Rooney adaptation, Conversations with Friends. Oliver submitted a self-taped audition in mid-2020, which her parents had helped her to film during the Covid lockdown. She won the lead part of Frances on the day she graduated from The Lir.

Oliver wears: Black wool and silk double satin bustier dress, Hermes, POA; Grey lace faux fur collar top, Self Portrait, £350; Three leaves ear clips with diamonds, Tiffany & Co, £39,000 - Antonino Cafiero

“I really didn’t think I was going to get it, especially after Normal People had been so huge,” she says. “When they offered me the part, I was just in complete shock. I couldn’t believe that I had done it, and suddenly I was going on this journey.” Being offered the role of the unstable aristocratic Venetia Catton in 2023’s Saltburn, Oliver says, was another “huge moment” for her. This was her film debut, yet her bloodied bathtub monologue became one of the standout moments in the shock-and-awe thriller.

“Of course, no one knew what that film was going to be,” she reflects, “but as soon as I read that character, I had all of these ideas about her. I did four auditions and I really didn’t think I’d get it because I’m a brunette, Irish, quite shy person. So I gave myself the permission to be the complete opposite. When Emerald gave me that part, it did so much for my confidence as an actor. She basically said, ‘I think you can do this, and we’re just going to put loads of fake tan on you!’”

When it came to her next film, a hyper-stylised, carnal take on Wuthering Heights, Fennell knew exactly who she wanted as her Isabella Linton, alongside Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. She simply texted Oliver: “If you want Isabella, she’s yours.” “I just was like, Oh my God,” Oliver says of receiving the message. “I’m going to get to work with Emerald again and now with Margot. It was such a gift. I had read the book years ago, and then I read her script and thought, ‘Wow, what you’ve done with this character is… wonderful’. It felt like one of those parts that you could really kind of lose yourself in and I got to go to quite a deranged place.”

Oliver’s portrayal of Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights was described as ‘unsettling’ by The Telegraph - Alamy/LANDMARK MEDIA

Oliver’s darkly comedic un-corseting of Linton was praised by The Telegraph as “devilishly funny and unsettling”. Again, she proved her ability to turn a supporting role into a cultural talking point. Working with Fennell and Robbie has been quite an apprenticeship. Observing how they juggle acting, directing and producing the films they care about in a male-dominated industry has been eye opening. “I think they are both such talented people with incredible integrity and instincts,” Oliver says. “My takeaway was that you can find your people and you can really make it happen.”

Oliver wears: Leopard print faux fur coat, Ducie, £700; Black feather suede mule, Jimmy Choo, £775; Gold with pavé diamonds & sapphires earrings, Tiffany & Co, £20,800 - Antonino Cafiero

Oliver cites a green-room encounter on Saltburn, where Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike (who played Oliver’s on-screen mother), Fennell and Robbie were all together, as a pinch-me moment. “I was like, what am I doing here? This is insane,” she says. “All of those women are amazing, and most importantly, they are really nice.” Oliver has not one but three new films wrapped and ready for release in 2027, including To Make Ends Meat, opposite Naomi Ackie, and Dennis, directed by Emily Mortimer. Two days before we meet she has also finished Bad Bridgets – a story of women fleeing the Irish Famine, co-starring Colin Farrell and produced by Lucky Chap, Margot Robbie’s company. She says she would like to do theatre again “as that’s where it all began for me”, but otherwise, she is open to seeing where her career might take her next.

“A lot of the time I put it down to a feeling,” she says of what draws her to pick a project. “I can’t anticipate what I’m going to be lucky enough to get an audition for. But more and more I’m responding to the types of stories I’m interested in and want to explore. My own life has changed so much and I really do feel so grateful that I get to do this job – you get to experience another person’s perspective, and try on someone else’s shoes.”

Crucially, though, for Oliver, she gets to take them off and put her own back on at the end of the day.

Photographer: Antonino Cafiero. Style Director: Tona Stell. Makeup: Sara Hill @ The Wall Group. Hair: Paul Jones @ Forward Artists. Bookings Editor: George Raymond Stead. Fashion Assistant: Elena Garci.

Alison Oliver wears: Black silk floral coat, Givenchy, POA; Purple sapphire ring with diamonds, Tiffany & Co, POA.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”