Saoirse-Monica Jackson has said living in Liverpool has always felt like the "perfect fit", and she knew straight away she had made the right decision when she settled in Merseyside five years ago.
The 32-year-old, best known for playing Erin Quinn in Derry Girls, moved to Liverpool with her husband Hector Barbour, also known as DJ Denis Sulta, who is from Glasgow. Liverpool felt like a natural compromise, being roughly halfway between the two cities.
Why Liverpool felt like home
Speaking to the ECHO in an exclusive interview, Jackson said: "Scousers are such beautiful people and I can relate to them so much being Irish. There's so many similarities between the Irish and the Scouse and there is a real reason that it's called the 33rd county. It's the people. Nothing is a bother. Scousers are yes people. It's not on the negative and I'm a yes person as well. It was just a perfect fit."
She recalled moving during the covid pandemic, saying: "It was during covid that I moved here in a really isolating time. We were so blessed to have such good neighbours that formed this community. And I just thought, 'If this is just the people in the building, then what else is outside'."
Flying the flag in This City Is Ours
Jackson now plays Cheryl in the Liverpool-set crime drama This City Is Ours, and said she felt the same nerves as when Derry Girls first aired. She said: "I definitely had the same nerves as when Derry Girls came out because I thought, 'If people don't like it, then they're going to tell me to my face'. Obviously in Liverpool, I thought I've done it again [by acting in something set in her own city]. But luckily, it worked out well."
The show has become a cultural cornerstone of Liverpool representation, and Jackson said it is important for regional audiences to see themselves reflected on TV. She added: "I think it's so important for everybody to be reflected and the regions on TV, especially with the BBC. That's something I can relate to being from the North of Ireland myself. You want to see your own people depicted in a positive light and to see them being cool as well. This City Is Ours delivers on all things. It is written by a Scouser [Stephen Butchard] and it's so important for somebody from this city to be telling that story and not somebody telling a notion of what Scousers might be."
Mastering the Scouse accent
Jackson is one of few actors on the show without a Scouse accent in real life, but her portrayal has been praised. She credited her spin instructor for helping her crack the accent, saying: "Our dialect coach is brilliant, but the moment the penny dropped for me is when I was doing a spin class here in the city. One of the spin instructors would say, 'This is your time'. And that would be my hook into the accent every single time. Every time I would step onto set, I would be like, 'This is your time'."
She also noted an unexpected link between the Scouse accent and her native Irish one, saying "The Scouse accent is like my accent but backwards." She explained that Scousers roll the c sound at the end of words, whereas Irish speakers make this noise at the beginning. She added: "I go up at the end, but you go up at the start, so when I thought about it backwards [it made sense]. I seem to do everything in my life back to front so that seemed to work for me."
Embracing Liverpool culture and season two
Jackson joked that her internal monologue is now in Scouse and she has embraced local culture, saying: "I wouldn't have got this blow dry in London and I'm very proud to have it. There's often this notion that in regional places you're not going to get things of the quality that you do in London. But it's not true."
Cheryl, her character, is one of the figures with a strong moral compass in the show, repeatedly warning Diana, played by Hannah Onslow, against a relationship with gangster Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce). Jackson said the character taps into a classic Scouse archetype: "Scouse women have a gorgeous way about them and they just want to welcome you. There's a real mummy culture here in Liverpool that we have in Derry too, where it feels like everyone's mother is your mother. I feel that same way in Liverpool. I think the women here are so family orientated and it's lovely. Cheryl is like a big sister and she has this real mothering side of her. She really genuinely cares about [Diana] and she's genuinely trying to warn her. She's not trying to make her your best friend. She's not a people pleaser. She's a strong women and I love that."
With the show renewed for a third series, Jackson said she is hopeful the new season receives a similar reception to the debut. She said: "The city is so scenic and has so much emotion to it with the docks, and the beautiful architecture. I think our cinematographers and our directors have done such a beautiful job of painting Liverpool in its real light."
All eight episodes of This City Is Ours season two arrive on iPlayer on Sunday, October 25, with episode one broadcast on BBC One at 9pm.
