Sharon Horgan, Autofiction Auteur
In Sharon Horgan’s new HBO comedy, “Youth,” Alex, a fiftysomething divorcée, struggles to adjust to her newly empty nest, only to find her son back at home after his first week at college, with nary an explanation. Midlife, in fact, bears little resemblance to what Alex, a literary agent in London, had expected. Her professional instincts are increasingly obsolete in a publishing world dominated by TikTok tastemakers and raunchy romantasy. Finding a partner feels impossible when she’s got “no new-dick energy” left. Menopause proves tricky, as does caring for her needy, ailing parents. For Alex, the time to sort out her life is running out, fast.
Horgan, the Irish-raised, London-based TV auteur, who tends to write and star in her shows, broke through Stateside in 2015 with “Catastrophe,” an unvarnished rom-com co-created by and co-starring Rob Delaney, in which an accidental pregnancy leads to two virtual strangers giving matrimony a shot. (Horgan, who is most often her own muse, based the premise on her own marriage, though, in real life, the rushed nuptials eventually led to a split.) Before “Catastrophe,” Horgan had become a critical darling on British television with her singles comedy “Pulling”; later, she went on to create “Divorce,” a sort of anti-rom-com about a couple that drags out their separation, and “Bad Sisters,” a quirky drama about a Dublin brood who decide to kill one of the siblings’ husbands.
“Youth” is a return to form for Horgan; reverting to the half-hour comedic format, she told me, was like “slipping into an old, cozy jumper.” The series, which is timely and droll, is exactly the kind of show you want from a beloved hitmaker—a project with its creator’s signature sensibility, applied to new subject matter. Horgan, who is best known for her laceratingly honest, female-centric stories, here tackles a distant mother-son relationship that her character has trouble bridging. Like so many teen-age boys, Alex’s only child, Ruari (played by Aran Murphy, son of the actor Cillian Murphy), is lost and in need of guidance, but feels he has no one to turn to, especially about sex and relationship issues. Horgan says that, watching her own daughters’ love lives, she “would spend a lot of time just being angry at boys.” But writing Ruari helped her become just as empathetic toward his phase of life as she is about her own. “Having a brain that isn’t yet ready for your emotions,” she tutted, “is always going to be a horror show.”
Horgan spoke to me over Zoom from her London home, where she lives with her dog and a couple of “chatty” cats; in keeping with her autobiographical style, she filmed scenes from “Youth” nearby. We spoke about how she got the show green-lit despite never officially pitching it, about growing older with her series, and about how her approach to autofiction has shifted throughout her career. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
How did “Youth” come about? I read that you went to HBO wanting to do something on the sandwich generation.
I don’t know that I pitched it, necessarily. I went in because we were looking for a deal for Merman, my production company. Casey [Bloys, the C.E.O. of HBO] said, “What are you thinking about at the moment? What are you working on?” I did talk about the sandwich generation, and I talked about a woman at this stage in her life—my stage. I might have mentioned a shit date I’d been on or another relationship that had ended, and I was talking about how hard it was to find yourself at a time when your kids are leaving home and you have time to focus on you, and then everything just falls apart. You realize time is ticking, but you seem to have less time than ever.
It’s a really stressful time. People are dying all around you, and you have to get on with things. And now we have to look after our kids for much longer, well into their twenties and beyond. I just said a few lines about that, and then he contacted my agent and said, “I think I know exactly what this is, so let’s do it.” And I’ve never had that experience before. It’s not how TV works, normally. It’s a lot of rigmarole, so it was kind of mad that that happened.
Did that make you feel more confident about making the show?
Yes and no, because [initially] there wasn’t anything there, really. I just knew that I wanted to write about this particular woman, and I wanted her to have one of those careers that women seem to be really good at, but also put way too much into. We work around the clock, into the night. Agenting, where you have to be a mother to so many people outside of your own children, felt like a good high-pressure job to put her into, and, the more I discovered about the literary world, the more I thought, Oh, this is singular.
Your budgets have gotten bigger since your first show, “Pulling,” which débuted in 2006, and you’ve become a bigger name. Given where you are in your career, have your visual ambitions for your shows changed as well?
That’s a good question. I suppose yes. The thing is, when you start out making anything, you have huge ambition. So, potentially, the first version of “Pulling” would have had everything on the page. And then you deliver it to the producer, and they go, None of that’s possible, and then you go, O.K., and you pare it back.
“We’re cutting this trip to China.”
Or, like, You can’t have a party [scene] because we’ve got three extras. “Divorce” [on HBO] had a big budget, certainly compared to what I was used to—that was a beautiful, ambitious show. But most of what I’ve done in the U.K. has had much smaller budgets. With this, I guess, I could have a bit more fun, with the literary world and beyond.
For years, actors have asked me to write an episode of something that’s set somewhere hot. This is very reductive, but a lot of the time they want to be somewhere nice and warm and film somewhere beautiful. And I’ve never been able to do that, so [for “Youth”] getting to re-create Ibiza and film in Frankfurt and even re-creating the book fair, all of that was fun.
Your character has that beautiful apartment. I haven’t been that jealous of an apartment in quite a while.
We found the exterior first. It’s this beautiful block in North East London. Then our amazing designer re-created the interior in the studio. It’s funny, because when I went onto the set the first time, I was, like, This is too big. So we kind of chopped it. We were pushing walls together. It was ridiculous, because you want to have the freedom to film, to move around and use the lenses you want to use to create something that feels filmic. But in the end we ended up in a place where we thought, Well, it’s a lovely two-bedroom. Let’s just say she bought it when the East End was cheap, which it was, about twenty years ago.
It reminds me of an updated Pedro Almodóvar apartment—those brilliant, passionate reds.
I love the reds in it. I brought all this stuff from my house, little bits and pieces. I had so many vagina-related art and books that I was placing all around. If someone noticed it, they noticed it; if they didn’t, they didn’t.
It was very different to anything I’d filmed in before, because it felt like I lived there, but at the same time I was always marvelling at it. A lot of the time when we would finish filming, I would just sit there instead of going to the trailer. I would lie down on that sofa and think, I should get a sofa like this.
One thing I really love about the breadth of your work is that your shows have aged with you. Where does that impulse come from?
[Sarcastically.] I love aging onscreen. No, I don’t; it’s horrible. But it just makes sense. The women I write about are the women whom I know best—myself and my friends who are my age. “Pulling” is about that very specific period of time where you are still trying to find out who you are, but life is moving at a rate of knots. You haven’t got your shit sorted out, you’re in unsatisfying relationships, and you haven’t got the career you want. That’s where I was at that time. With “Catastrophe,” I was married and had young children. And, with “Motherland,” I was spending all my time picking up kids from school and getting this perspective on life as a parent. You’ve got to put yourself out there, and you’ve got to find your tribe, or you’re fucked. You rely on this network of women you don’t even really know that well, but suddenly they are with you all the time. And, with “Youth,” it was that step further along.
My kids are eighteen and twenty-two now, and one of them has left home, and the other one is just starting university. Five years ago, when I first started thinking about it, I was genuinely wondering what the hell was going to happen with my life—how I was going to turn it around, and how I was going to make myself happy. So there is a chronology to it. These are the people who are around me, and these are the situations that I have come to know.
When we were making “Vladimir” [in which Horgan was an executive producer], Julia May Jonas [the series creator] introduced me to the word “autofiction.” I don’t know why I’d never heard it before, considering I’ve been writing it all my life. There’s so much fiction in there, but everything has this autobiographical slant. I think I’d find it hard to not write like that.
“Youth” starts with this funny gag where your character, Alex, is watching an inspirational video about female aging, and then she decides she would rather watch a bird get a silly haircut. Is that sort of earnest approach toward midlife something that you are reacting against with the show?
No, not really. I feel like a lot of people are writing or talking about this particular time in a woman’s life at the moment, and I think that’s a really good thing. My character is in menopause, and I wanted to write about that. But she’s lots of other things—there’s lots of other things wrong with her. [Laughs.]
I guess I am overly preoccupied by how much time we all spend on our phones, and I’m ashamed of my relationship with my phone. There’s this battle in me all the time. I really want to educate myself; I want to watch Gloria Steinem reels. I don’t always want to watch face-lift videos. But both are in my life, and both are part of me. And I wanted to show a woman who’s struggling with that.
You have two daughters. What interested you in exploring what it’s like to raise a young man, especially in this particular era?
If I’m really honest, I didn’t want to write about having daughters, because it would have been almost impossible to not use my experiences as a mother of my girls and their experiences. I wouldn’t do that to them.
But I did have a strong feeling that a mother-son relationship would be one that people would want to watch. The difficulties of a young man finding his way into adulthood in this particular climate would be a really interesting one to explore, and I had younger men consulting in the writers’ room to get it right. There is something about the lack of communication where [the characters] have to sort of feel each other. And, when you do get communicated to [as a parent], it’s such a relief.
Did you find that there was more comedy potential in raising boys?
I knew it would be funny to see a single mother trying to deal with an often mute object that’s Frankensteining into a man before your very eyes, but I also knew that there would be good drama in it. It’s dealing with difficult scenarios that no one’s figured out how to talk about—what it feels like to be a boy in this age, how they navigate the world of relationships and dating without being scared.
I’m realizing now that Ruari is the first major character of yours that I’ve seen who isn’t this hyper-verbose type of person. That must have been interesting for you to write.
Oh, my God! It was. In fact, I was so nervous about that. I was, like, How the hell is this going to come off the page? How will we love him? How will we know what’s going on in his brain? There were lots of passes trying to give him moments where he could articulate better, where he could say who he was and open up. But, in all honesty, when we cast Aran, that’s when I stopped worrying, because from his casting tape I just immediately saw a real boy. I was, like, Everyone’s gonna understand that kid. We’re gonna see it in his face. We’re gonna feel it all.
We cast him quite early, so I had his voice in my head. I would send him early things to look at and valued his input, like, How would you say this? Does this seem like it was written by a fifty-six-year-old woman? What reels are you watching? We had a WhatsApp group with the mental stuff he watches, what he listens to. It’s a whole other world that I could never have captured without his help.
Has your approach to autofiction changed since your children have gotten older and they’re able to watch your shows and point to something and say, “Hey, that’s familiar”?
Yeah. Back in the day, like with “Pulling,” I didn’t really think about it. I was a bit ruthless; I wrote whatever I saw in front of me, and it was only after that I thought that the people who lived those stories might have an opinion about that. And then, the more I wrote, the more I realized that the decent thing to do is to give people a heads-up.
I feel like I’m worrying less about the content because [my daughters] are older. When they were younger and at school, I would feel a bit embarrassed for them. In “Catastrophe,” I had sex all the way through the show, with abandon, and they would get called out for it sometimes, and I would feel deeply guilty. I don’t have that anymore.
There’s also a freedom that just comes with getting older. You think, Fuck it, this is the thing I want to say and do. So I started off not caring, I cared a lot, and I care a bit less now. [But] the thing about writing about the girls is, that’s their story.
A through line of your work since “Pulling” is messy romantic relationships and couplings that fall apart, come together, and maybe fall apart again. What appeals to you about exploring that type of relationship?
I’m just naturally riveted by it. I want to hear everyone’s stories about love: how people operate within relationships, the breadth of suitors and the different kinds of people who come into your life, the romantic choices you make when you’re younger versus the ones you make when you’re older.
Heartbreak is such a big, strong feeling. It’s one of the greatest things to write about because it can be so sad and so funny at the same time. When we were writing “Pulling,” having Donna break up with Carl and for him to have the reaction that he had—his inarticulacy to the point of running into a door—how mindless it makes you! I just find it very extreme.
One thing I really enjoyed about the relationship between Alex and her love interest Patrick, played by Rupert Friend, is that there’s almost a wonderment on her part that she’s still able to feel this connection intensely. Is that something that you found when you started resuming dating after your divorce?
Yeah. I found it really easy to write that stuff because that’s what I was feeling—that giddy connection, that feeling of having known someone all your life, what your body tells you versus what your mind tells you. When you’re at the start of a relationship, it’s so devastating and confusing and gorgeous and addictive. I loved writing about it. I hoped that it would come across onscreen because I was giddy while writing.
What made you giddy about it?
Because I’ve never felt like I could capture love in that way before, even though it’s a love that’s tragic in a way. It’s very up and down for her—she opens herself up to it and closes herself down and opens herself up again, and I just don’t feel I’ve ever been able to write about love in that way. I’ve been able to write about sex, and I’ve been able to write about marital relationships, but I don’t know that I’ve had the need or desire to get that feeling down on the page.
Changing gears, where does your sense of style come from?
You think I’ve got a sense of style?
Yes!
Where does it come from? I don’t know. My mom was always someone who thought about clothes, but in a way that she would always want to look nice. My dad was really proud to have her on his arm. But she wasn’t really interested in fashion. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things; it’s innate.
It’s weird, because, on a day-to-day basis, I would be the mum that my daughters would be embarrassed of at the school gates. But, if there’s an event, I love dressing up and I really care about it. But all my clothes are—and this is no joke—from shows I’ve done. I don’t go shopping. It takes up too much time and there’s too much walking involved, so I keep what my characters wear. I’m hugely involved in what my characters wear, because it’s such a fun part of it. Dressing my character in “Catastrophe” was one of the reasons that the show was successful, the aesthetic of it and who she was through her clothes.
Like if Carrie Bradshaw were a teacher.
The whole thing with “Catastrophe” was, she doesn’t have much money, and so, when she sees a designer brand, it’s only when it’s on sale that she buys it. Which is why things were so mismatched all the time. She’d buy it because she’s, like, That’s a bloody Fendi, or That’s a bit of Vivienne Westwood. It’s fifteen quid, so she would buy it whether it suited or not, and that informed the character.
With Alex, it was real fun trying to find out who she was. She’s not prepared to go quietly into the dark night. She’s still wearing miniskirts. She’s, like, Fuck it, I’m gonna age the way I want to age. ♦