Interview

Actor Charlene McKenna on playing a killer, resolving her anxiety and settling on Monaghan

For Monaghan actor Charlene McKenna, star and executive producer of RTÉ thriller series Clean Sweep, family is the focus both on and off the screen

Actor Charlene McKenna, who plays the lead in, and executive produced, Clean Sweep. ‘I would really look up to what [actor and producer Reese Witherspoon] has done and how she’s moved the dial’

Charlene McKenna has just wrapped on filming the upcoming RTÉ drama Clean Sweep when we meet at the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire. “[We finished] last night. Which is why I’m like, ‘Am I speaking English?’” she jokes.

Any exhaustion, however, is concealed by the actor’s warm and energetic demeanour. Miniscule in height, she moves in six-inch platform heels as if they’re runners. She speaks in a breezy Monaghan accent, and, ever the charmer, takes time to compliment my jumper. The 39-year-old has appeared in Ripper Street, Bloodlands and Peaky Blinders, to name but a few, but she has neither an air nor grace about her.