Ella Lily Hyland: ‘I think we’re often taught not to trust our instincts as women’

With the sublime grass court spectacle that is Wimbledon about to come to a conclusion, the timing couldn’t be better for new series Fifteen-Love, a six-parter set in the high-drama world of elite tennis. The star of the show is 24-year-old Carlow woman Ella Lily Hyland, yet another talented graduate of the Lir Academy in Dublin. Fifteen-Love is a breakout moment for Hyland. The Prime Video series was made by the producers of hit shows such as Line of Duty and also stars fellow Irish actor Aidan Turner or, as many of us will forever know the dark-haired Dubliner: Poldark.

On a Zoom call from her home in Crystal Palace, London, Hyland speaks with a soft, distinct Carlow burr. She’s a fair-haired, charismatic young woman with striking blue eyes and a thoughtful gaze. It took months of physical training to prepare for her role in the drama as young tennis prodigy Justine. A sporty family background helped – she comes from a long line of Irish pole vaulters. Her grandfather Dinny Hyland was a record-breaking Irish pole vaulting champion. Last month her younger cousin Jamie Hyland won gold in the All-Ireland schools championships. “I was trained by my dad and my uncle in pole vaulting and long jump up until the age of around 16,” she says. “That’s why I loved filming Fifteen-Love ... Anything physical that gets you out of your brain, anything that feels more instinctive as an actor, is my favourite place to be. Once I’m thinking too much about anything, I freeze.”

She started the physical preparation during the audition process last year, “which was dangerous because I might not have got the part. But I just really wanted to do it.” After winning the role, a cousin gave her tennis lessons, and she began weight and conditioning training while workshopping in Dublin last year with Louise Lowe and the theatre collective Anu. Did she actually become good at tennis? “I wasn’t terrible,” she says. “I wanted to play loads and I don’t think I’d want to play if I was, like, absolutely shocking. Although I rented tennis rackets recently from a shop around the corner and went to a tennis court and I was like: ‘Oh my god, I’ve really lost it’. The ball was going everywhere. I was really embarrassed considering I’d trained for this.”

Shortly afterwards she moved to London to prepare properly for the role, spending a lot of time with former professional player Naomi Cavaday. The two would train and then spend hours talking about Cavaday’s experiences in the tennis world. “I did not know anything about that world before, but by osmosis you just start to understand the landscape ... The tennis court is like a kind of stage. It’s a performative sport. It’s so passionate and full bodied and dramatic. The people who we love to watch have all that. It’s just so beautiful, watching Serena [Williams] there’s so much emotion.” She worked with coaches who had trained young professionals such as Emma Raducanu. “It was amazing ... When you pick up a sport you get to understand it from a psychological perspective, because that is what they are trying to do as coaches, and also from a physical perspective. As an actor, that’s just gold dust.”

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The psychological angle was important, because Fifteen-Love is a darkly delicate exploration of abuse in elite sport, a topical subject that brings to mind convicted sexual abuser Larry Nassar who coached the US gymnastics team. Her character Justine is an upcoming tennis star being coached by Glenn, played by a brooding Turner. Together they almost reach the semi-final of the French Open, only for Justine to suffer a career-ending injury when her wrist is shattered. She eventually rebuilds, taking a job as a physiotherapist at Longwood, the elite tennis academy where she once trained before making a serious allegation of abuse against her former coach. “The shocking thing was during my research [for the role] finding out how many stories there are ... it gets quite dark. It definitely gave me greater purpose in telling this story.” Hyland serves up an outstanding performance. Physically, she moves like an athlete both on and off the court. The provocative he said/she said storyline and her own nuanced performance work as a deliberate obfuscation ploy.

At the heart of the story is a loophole in British law – since closed – whereby, although it had been illegal for doctors or teachers to have a relationship with patients or students under the age of 18, this rule did not apply to sports coaches. “It instils a belief in the culture that women that age don’t need to be protected, that it’s up to them to protect themselves,” says Hyland. “When athletes are playing to that high standard at such a young age, they are in an incredibly vulnerable position because they are isolated from a normal upbringing. So the people in their team are in their immediate circle of trust. Then for the law to say, ‘No, you’re not protected’, is dangerous.”

She thinks viewers will have conflicting opinions on what happens in the series, especially around the “grey and confusing” area of consent. Is this abuse or is this a love story, you might find yourself wondering in the first couple of episodes. “Justine is cognitively playing catch-up with herself. She was in this very physical landscape when she had this relationship with Glenn and was working off the instincts of her body, those primal instincts that he teaches her to have as an athlete ... I hope it resonates with people, because I think we’re often taught not to trust our instincts as women.”

Working with Turner was “amazing”, she says. “He was so supportive. There were a lot of difficult dynamics to discover with Glenn and Justine’s relationship and we tried our best to take care of each other. He was a really amazing scene partner, just really generous. We also had a laugh. It was great that he was Irish as well.”

Growing up in Carlow as an only child, she wasn’t keen on the academic side of things, and remembers finding it difficult to focus, something that was understood by her principal, Mr Murray, who she says “had loads of empathy”.

In her drama classes, which she began attending locally from the age of five, it was different. “None of my friends were doing it, so it was very much my own thing. It was always very special to me.” She remembers the Shakespeare monologues they would do each year, how performing them felt entirely natural and separate from her struggles to concentrate in school.

“I think it was because I found school kind of difficult, I didn’t feel very intelligent there,” she says. She was excited by how she understood and could interpret Shakespeare. “I didn’t have language for that when I was younger but I had this thrill at understanding something so ancient, that felt like poetry.” She remembers lying in her bed, aged about 11, thinking about her Lady Macbeth monologue. “I believed I was her,” she laughs.

“I think as you get older, especially entering into the industry, you have more restrictions: ‘I’m too young for this, or I’m too old for this, or I’m too blond for this’ or whatever it is, you know, and I think when you’re younger, it’s just so pure. That’s what my drama teacher instilled in me: the magic of play. And that it’s limitless. You can do anything ... You’re kind of free with it in that way. And I feel like all artists are trying to get back to that sacred place.”

After a stint in the National Youth Theatre with a role in Carmel Winter’s Salt Mountain at Project Arts Centre, she auditioned and won a place at the Lir Academy with her trusty Lady Macbeth monologue. She describes Lir as “like Hogwarts, insane, just magic”. That first foundation year was a theatrical awakening. Having skipped transition year, she was the youngest in her class. She had only ever seen one play in Dublin, Wuthering Heights at The Gate when she was 14. Now she was getting a crash course with regular trips to the Abbey and learning from her teachers and older students. Paul Mescal was in third year when she joined: “That’s who we were looking up to.” Her friend Alison Oliver, who starred in Conversations with Friends, was in her own year. “We all have each other’s back.”

Hyland graduated after three years right at the beginning of the pandemic, moving into a place with two of her best friends in Dublin. With the world in lockdown, there was little work for a newly graduated actor. She got a gig with the Carlow Arts Festival, writing and performing a powerful short film, Big Mouth, about a young schoolgirl, brimming with personality, with a dark story to tell. Then she landed a role in Johnny Barrington’s feature film Silent Roar, and spent two months filming on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. “It captured the essence of the island. It was really special ... I made friends for life on that film”.

After finishing on Fifteen-Love last November, there was “a long winter” without any jobs, which gave her a chance to work on the screenplay she’s writing with Irish director Juanita Wilson. “It’s about small-town life and drug culture, from a female protagonist lens, an ode to where I grew up.” She is working on Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows for Disney+.

Hyland might not have completely licked the acting thing off a stone: her mum, a hairdresser and yoga teacher, previously dabbled in amateur dramatics. Her sporty father, meanwhile, works in a brewery. “They both helped me believe I could do anything I set my mind to ... I think they’re quite proud and it’s lovely to see that. I’m mutually proud of them and who they are. We’re very close.”

She’s under no illusions about the sporadic nature of her chosen industry and is philosophical about how she’ll navigate her path. “Everyone wants to work, it’s difficult not to work, you want to be constantly in that beautiful flow,” she says. “But everything else around that flow, that sacred space, is just smoke and mirrors ... You have to be okay with failing and falling down. It’s easier said than done. But, yeah, it’s play at the end of the day. I’m happy once I’m having a little play.”

Is she also ready for the fame and attention this role in Fifteen-Love will undoubtedly bring? “I’m just taking every day as it comes. As long as I’m working and being creative, I’m happy. Everything else is just a plus, you know?”

Fifteen-Love is available on Prime Video from July 21st

Photography: Pip; styling: Aimee Croysdill; hair: Sven Bayerbach; make-up: Karin Darnell