Kin star Clare Dunne says she is told gangland violence is ‘worse’ in real life

The actress, who plays crime boss Amanda Kinsella in the hit TV show, explains she has had lots of feedback about the portrayal of crime onscreen.

She said: “I find it interesting when people are slagging off Kin as well, in terms of ‘they’re glamorising violence’ and I’m here ‘listen, the amount of people in Dublin that have said to me ‘you’re not even showing it real, it should be way worse’.

“A lot of people are saying things to me ‘the drugs or the violence, it’s actually f**king worse in real life, to be honest,” Claire told RTE’s Katie Hannon.

She added: “At the end of the day we are all human beings trying to tell stories to each other and I think Kin is exploring gangland stuff and certainly the thing with young lads exploring violence…”.

She said she was “so happy” when writer Peter McKenna told her he was going to do a long sequence of Eric ‘Viking’ killing Kem.

“There’s a whole long sequence of where Viking has to kill somebody, but he finds it really hard to do it and him and the victim (Kem) have a standoff and it’s really emotional, and it’s really bloody hard, and it’s two men that are emotionally attached,” she says.”

He said: “That’s what I like about Kin, it’s not as simple as ‘bang, bang, bang’, let’s make it look good with the sequences.”

Clare reveals how she “couch-surfed” before becoming famous. She opened up about being one of Ireland’s “invisible homeless” while working on her first film, Herself, which was released in 2021.

The debut feature, which tells the tale of a Dublin woman who seeks to build her own home after fleeing an abusive relationship, and she received a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival upon its initial release in 2020.