No Offence's Sharon Rooney: 'I wanted to be Victoria Wood or Dawn French or Elaine C Smith'

Or perhaps there’s a more prosaic reason for Libby’s appearance; maybe she simply can’t be bothered wandering the shops on her own?

For the moment, my curiosity is focused on Rooney’s latest television role. And it’s a cracker. While the face of the 29-year-old has most often been employed to throw out dry one-liners in comedies such as the Beeb’s Two Doors Down and E4’s My Big Fat Diary, she’s now playing a part that’s darker than the Devil’s underpants.

Rooney stars in Channel Four’s latest (and quite stunning) offering of cop drama No Offence as Faye, a white supremacist, a thug in a Le Coq tracksuit who would happily yank the wings off a peace dove.

“That’s what’s great about Paul Abbott’s work,” says the actress of the drama writer. “It’s so real, and even though my character Faye is who my granny would call “A wee madam,” you still fall in love so quickly with her. You wonder how Paul Abbott can do this.”

Libby nods in agreement. But Faye is not a “wee madam”, Sharon. She’s a big, lump of pernicious evil. “I know,” she says.

Rooney, however, comes across as gentle and easy going, so how hard was it to play your polar opposite?

“I don’t like confrontation. I either just walk away or I say ‘What do you need?’ I’m a problem solver. And even when I get angry I just laugh. I’m a bit cheeky, but never bad.”

Her mum cuts in to reinforce the notion: “The worst you ever get from Sharon is a look.”

To play this destroyer of lives, Rooney flashed back to school days in the west end of Glasgow and recalled a serious bully. “I worked out the things she had in common with Faye, the same sort of intolerance, the ‘It’s my way, or no way,’ attitude. But Faye isn’t only a bully. We learn she is clever, and could have done something with her life. What Paul Abbott makes us wonder is what has made her like this?”

What about the school bully you had to contend with, Sharon?

“If she said something horrible, I would spin it and say something funny. I think that’s the inner performer. I’d see the insult as a chance to turn it into a show.”

Ah, so you were a performer from your days as an embryo? Libby nods in agreement as daughter says, “Tea time at my granny’s house was the time I’d perform as a kid. I’d sing a song, a Michael Jackson thing... ” Mum cuts in again: “This began from a really early age, she never stopped,” which results in her daughter mock whispering; “I wish I’d left her in the cupboard.”

Rooney, an only child, reveals a little hint of early megalomania. “I’d stage little shows at home and I’d drag my cousins into them. But then aged eight or so they stopped joining in because I’d decided to put on Annie! where I’d play the lead, Miss Hannigan and Daddy Warbucks. I would let my cousin be Sandy the dog.”

Sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, Rooney was headed for drama college. But while she loved the experience, it wasn’t without challenge. “At the beginning you think ‘How come I didn’t get cast for that?’”

Rooney reckoned her size was a factor. “I knew I’d never play the typical lead. But I never wanted to. I wanted to be a comedy actor. I wanted to be Victoria Wood or Dawn French or Elaine C. Smith. I’d watch Dorothy Paul videos and see how she could hold an audience in the palm of her hand. I wasn’t interested in dramatic roles at all.

“But my lecturer explained it’s not always about shape or size. She was trying to say that I could play all sorts of roles and once had me play a Shakespearean lead. The thing was it caused such an issue with the other girls.” She giggles: “I wasn’t even bothered about landing it, which made them even more bothered.”

She adds: “I realised there are no rules. I can do everything in acting.” She throws in a wide grin: “But I do know I’ll never be a Cinderella. Although one day, maybe, I’ll play a Dame.”

If size denies the Cinders roles, has she thought to diet? “No, I’d never bleed into this way of thinking. And what I’ve realised is even if I were a size ten there would be someone on social media who would moan about my hair or the dress I’m wearing. The only person I listen to is me. And my doctor.”

Libby chips in: “And me.” “Yes, my mum as well,” says Rooney, grinning.

After drama college, Rooney says she became a stand-up comedian. Why? You need skin tougher than algebra to do that. “I did it with my best friend, so that was fun,” she explains. “But I don’t really have any fear of failure. You see, I’ve grown up completely covered in love. So when I go out and do stand-up and hear people say ‘She’s sh***!’ I just think ‘Oh, well.’”

She rewinds: “That comes from my first dance competition, aged seven, when I didn’t get a medal and was crying and my mum said to me, ‘We don’t cry when we don’t win. We applaud other people who win. And then sometime later we’ll get a shot.’ So even if I don’t get a job, I just think ‘that’s a shame’. I’m never jealous of friends who do well.”

After stand-up Rooney worked in Theatre In Education, which in many ways is the Vietnam tour of duty for young performers. “Every actor should do at least one tour,” she says, smiling. “Kids are harsh. If they don’t like the show they tell you. One time, when I had to go in and meet the teachers a little kid yelled out ‘Ah, naw, here’s Scary Mary coming.’ “I just thought two words to myself ‘Nursing School.’”

Rooney loves acting, but the years after drama school seriously tested her resolve. “I had been slogging it for ever, up and down to London, getting nothing. I was constantly getting to the last two or three. Meantime, I was working in three wee jobs and it was costing £90 a train fare.

“I said to my old agent that I didn’t want to go to any more auditions. And I actually got the forms for nursing and paramedics and filled them out. I reckoned I would do am-dram at nights, just to keep the acting thing going.” She adds, in soft voice; “Sometimes you have to reach the point of saying ‘Enough’.”

Just as the nursing forms were ready for posting the script came through for My Big Fat Diary. “I said to my agent I didn’t want to go up for it. I’d had enough of rejection. But she talked me into reading it and after the first page I was hooked.”

My Big Fat Diary and 2016 was a game-changer for Rooney. The nursing forms went into a drawer. But since that success have casting directors looked to match her in similar big girl roles? “No, in fact, there are only one or two parts I’ve played which refer to size in the description. The rest rely on what you can bring to the part. The thing is, nowadays you can look down a street and so many people are different, in terms of size, colour – and that’s reflected in TV. And there are no rules as to how I should look.”

She adds: “I cut off my hair a year and a half ago for the Little Princess [a charity which provides real hair wigs to children]. No one told me I shouldn’t.”

This suggests Rooney could land the female dramatic lead, playing, for example, the ordinary housewife who is having an affair? “I don’t see why not. But I wouldn’t take it just for the sake of it. In fact, there have been plenty of parts I have turned down.”

Since MBFD, Rooney hasn’t stopped working, mostly in sitcoms such as Mountain Goats or Two Doors Down. Interestingly, she reveals an almost teen angst when she says the night before going on set for Two Doors Down she couldn’t sleep. It suggests a schoolgirl innocence about Sharon Rooney that’s as obvious as the tattoo on her wrist of a “wee, fat pigeon.”

It’s a tribute to her late granny to whom she was devoted, seeing every day. “We were set to go on holiday to Dubai one year and I said I would only go if I could call my gran. My dad agreed and I called her at this old people’s club but I didn’t know that every time I called her from the hotel room it cost £5. That holiday, I called her at least 150 times.

“My dad went mental.”

Incidentally, what does her father do for a living? “Can’t say,” she says with pursed lips. Why? Is he a gangster? “If you write that you’ll find out,” she says laughing. And Libby laughs too.

If Rooney has now learned to be philosophical when it comes to landing work, this also applies to ill-fated series’, such as BBC Scotland’s cancelled Mountain Goats. “It’s sad but I had fun doing it,” she says of her crazed barmaid with a propensity for punching people. “Brief Encounters (the ITV Ann Summers party series) was the same. But wee women in Asda still talk to me about it.”

She adds, in serious tones: “Look, I’m already living the dream. But if it all ended tomorrow I’d think ‘Thank you.’ And go on to nursing training. ‘Nurse Rooney’ doesn’t sound too bad.”

What of life outside of acting? Rooney reveals she lives in Dumbarton. “That’s a conversation stopper, isn’t it?” she says, grinning. Well, yes. In a way, Sharon. Television stars tend not to live in Dumbarton. “Yes, and I don’t see myself as a star.”

Does she have a regular partner living with her in Dumbarton? She shakes her head. Does she plan to marry at some point? “I would love to, but staying in one place is hard and a lot of people you meet are in the industry.

“The worst thing is you meet someone and they say to you one day, ‘I was just thinking . . . ’And you reply ‘What? That you want to tell me how much you love me?’ And they think for a second and say ‘No, that maybe I’d like to be an actor.’ At that point I find myself saying ‘Oh, do you. Goodbye.’”

Rooney breaks into a wry grin: “I really want to meet a plumber or someone like that, who doesn’t really care what I do. Yet, while I love meeting people I’ve never been a clubber or a party animal. I’ve been 80 since I was 16. My Friday nights were all about going round to my gran’s, tea on, telly on. Perfect. Meanwhile, my pals were pretending to their parents they were coming to mine.”

She adds: “I’m really quite boring. I’m happy to admit it, but my friends accept me for who I am.”

Libby agrees: “As long as she’s happy.”

Rooney seems happy. She is certainly busy. She has a role in the upcoming live adaptation of Dumbo by Tim Burton. And now has management in America. Does this mean she will take off to Los Angeles in the New Year to tackle the pilot season? “I suppose so,” she mumbles, like a recalcitrant ten year-old.

Are you sure, Sharon? “No, I can’t be arsed.”

She thinks again. “Maybe I will. Yes, I will go.”

It’s not hard to see why Mum came along. Sharon Rooney is perfectly happy to remain Libby’s wee girl. There’s a real sensitivity about her, a vulnerability perhaps. She’s not a Scary Mary at all. Except when she’s playing one in a C4 drama.

No Offence: Thursday, September 13, Channel 4, 9pm