“Back in the day, I used to show up to auditions, and neither myself nor my team would tell the [casting directors] that I was in a wheelchair,” Irish actress Niamh Moriarty reveals. “The biggest thing on my mind would always be, ‘Do they want me here? Am I in the way?’”

Now Moriarty, who has a form of cerebral palsy in her legs, has just returned from the Bafta TV Awards where she has been celebrating a best limited drama nomination for Jack Thorne’s BBC series Best Interests. Starring alongside Sharon Horgan, Michael Sheen and fellow 2024 Star of Tomorrow Alison Oliver, Moriarty played the daughter whose life-threatening illness tears her parents apart when it comes to the best course of action.

“I have never felt so seen and valued as a fellow creator,” Moriarty says of the experience. “[The production] was completely on board to hear my thoughts on everything. I was fortunate to play a huge part in the curation of [my character’s] story.”

Moriarty turned to acting in her adolescence, growing up in County Dublin. “I was watching my friends start to excel in sports, and I couldn’t participate,” she says, instead filling her time with classes at the local performing arts school Take Two. She was quickly signed to its agency arm after booking a part in a short film.

Unlike the other children, Moriarty “actually enjoyed” the experience of being on her first set. “The director would just let me sit on the floor with a little blanket and watch everyone do their work,” she says. “I was in my element.”

The actress has several projects in the pipeline, including RTE comedy series Showkids and Ariane Labed’s Cannes premiere September Says, in the latter playing a character “outside” of her typecast. “I feel honoured the team on that didn’t put me in a box,” she says of the experience, working alongside fellow 2024 Star of Tomorrow Mia Tharia.

In her spare time, Moriarty has written a short film and is developing a feature screenplay, both of which are inspired by her experiences with disability. “I’m a firm believer that if the change isn’t there then you have to be the change,” she declares. “I want to write and perform the stories I wish I could have seen growing up.”

Contact: Jonathan Shankey, Lisa Richards

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