Trending 8th March 2021 by Hannah Hillyer

Nicola Coughlan Has Written An Essay On The Importance Of ‘Messy’ Female Characters On Screen

“Where were the messy women? The loud women, the ones who were complete eejits?”

 

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Nicola Coughlan has penned a heartfelt essay of her thoughts on how women are portrayed on screen. We’ve seen her play the hilarious Clare, in Derry Girls and more recently Penelope, in Netflix’s Bridgerton.

The essay, which she wrote for The Guardian, begins with her discussing the love she and her friends had for HBO’s Sex and the City when they were in college. Of course, they did what we all did, which is to try and guess which one of the characters you represent most in the show; “when the reality was a bunch of university freshers who drank Buckfast from the bottle and lived in hoodies.”

This then prompted her to ask the question of where were the female characters on screen that best represented her. She asked; “Where were the messy women? The loud women, the ones who were complete eejits?”

 

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Speaking further about this, she revealed that this is why she loves playing the characters she has, especially Clare in Derry Girls as they don’t fit these typical stereotypes.

Nicola also thinks that this is why the show was such a success, stating that it’s Channel 4’s most successful comedy in 13 years which proved a point she’d long held; “there was a hunger for stories about women and girls.”

The characters in the show are loud, messy, sometimes annoying and hilarious, all bundled up into one, much like women in real life. As she says so well; “Women were able to see themselves in these characters.”


We love seeing Nicola on screen, and as well as being excited for the next seasons of both Bridgerton and Derry Girls, we’re also looking forward to which roles she chooses next.

She finished her essay with a powerful statement, that rings especially true on International Women’s Day.

“I, for one, am excited by all the difficult, brilliant, complex women to come, who have yet to grace our screens. Long may the sisterhood reign over us.”

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