The Ratoath Christmas Witch who set off for a blizzard in Oz!

A PERSON often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it" is a saying that could not be more true for an actor from Ratoath who, frustrated with a lag in her career, packed her bags and headed to Australia only to be cast in a major TV drama just weeks after arriving Down Under.

Maria Branagan says her earliest memories are of performing in her primary school play. It was these experiences along with a stint in Ratoath Musical Society and the short-lived Meath Youth Musical Society that cemented her passion for the arts that would see her go on to perform alongside Paul Mescal and iconic US actor, Jane Seymour in the TV series ‘Harry Wild’, something she describes as "surreal."

"Jane’s such a lovely woman. When you consider her age (74), and you consider the amount of lines she has to know, and she sits there and she's just bashing out line after line after line with no issue at all. And then as soon as post (production) was called, she's straight down to the table that we all kind of gathered around and she was teaching us all to paint because she is an amazing artist. We were all handed these white blank canvases and she had a load of watercolors in the middle of the table and she was teaching us how to paint.

"I was sweating, not because we were about to film, but because I can't paint to save my life! I begged one of the guys who had two paintings if I could claim one as my own!"

Maria also played the supporting role of Martha in Jack Armstrong’s feature, ‘Made in Dublin’, which received three awards at the Cannes World Film Festival, including Best Independent Feature.

Despite some fantastic opportunities it was in late 2023 and after ten years of trying to crack the industry, that Maria felt she wasn't in the place she had hoped to be and throwing caution to the wind, decided to embark on her other calling - travelling. However after "making peace" with putting acting to the side and flying Down Under, the Ratoath actor got the call of her dreams confirming that she had been cast in a major TV crime drama, ‘Scrublands’.

"My earliest memories of performing was when I was six years old in Ratoath National School and I was cast as the witch in a Christmas play," remembers Maria.

"Now I don't know where a witch belongs in a Christmas play but she had a very kind of demonic, haunting song that she sang to put people to sleep!"

"And then as the years went on my mam put me in every stage school that was going. I was in the Ratoath Musical Society and I was in the Meath Youth Musical Society set up by Gareth Mahoney. My best years were in that society and I acted alongside Paul Mescal. We were cast in Les Miserables together along with Tom Moran in the Solstice Arts Centre. I actually owe so much to Gareth Mahoney because only for him, you never would have got all the talents that we have now in the one place. You know, he really sought out the teenagers because we didn't really have a place to perform."

After completing a BA in Theatre and Drama Studies and a full-time three month acting for screen course in Bow Street Academy along with securing some small gigs here and there, Maria began to get frustrated.

"Myself and my friend, we were writing scripts and skits and I was getting cast in the odd thing here and there, but nothing momentous was happening.

"I wasn't really getting my foot in the door and then I got Harry Wild and I was so grateful but it wasn't the real gritty stuff that I wanted.

"So I literally woke up and I made peace with putting acting on the back burner. I had two dreams; one to be a working, paid actress, and the other was to travel and see the world. And I put that on hold for so many years. Dan, my partner, has always wanted to travel and he was so patient, he was always rooting for me and then one day, I woke up and I remember calling him and saying that I had booked flights to Australia and we are going in January and that was in the September and he was lost for words!"

In the first twist of fate, just weeks before Maria was due to fly to Australia talent agent and friend, Cathy Ievers asked to put her on her books.

"So we sat there, and we kind of, you know, worked out the logistics," remembers the Ratoath actor.

"And obviously, geography was not on our side but because everything's gone online in this day and age, you don't need to be in the room until maybe, like, a couple of recalls after the first tape," she added.

"So we land in Sydney and we buy a van and we're trying to do the deal on a van and arrange an Australian kind of road trip thing and we hit the road and we're two hours into our journey, and the van absolutely s**ts itself, but through the jigs and the reels, we end up in Mudgee, a small town in New South Wales and got jobs on a solar farm.

"Cathy called me and said I've got a good tape for an Australia TV series. It's like an investigative crime drama, and the role is like a savvy, reckless backpacker. And I was, like well, that's the life I'm living!"

Maria found out that she got the recall for Scrublands, and they wanted her in Sydney the following Tuesday.

"I made it to Sydney where I met Kirsty MacGregor, the casting director and Ben Young, the director. There was such a palpable sense of them rooting for you, an energy in there, like they really wanted me to book the job."

The Ratoath actor made it in one piece to Augusta - a seaside town in Western Australia where she spent two months filming.

"I actually remember rocking up to set the first day and I was doing my biggest, most emotional scene and meeting everyone for the first time, and my character's screaming and she's kicking up and I remember thinking, 'oh my god, this is so intimidating' but everyone was so welcoming.

"I had one shoot day a week, so all of the days in between, I just got to hang out with cast and crew for dinner and travel around. We just hopped in the car, drove around, we did the wineries and whale watching and it really was amazing, it was such a stunning experience.

"And then we wrapped and I came straight back to the solar farm, and it's just so wild, how you can live one life, one day, and then the next day you're thrust back into reality. And my reality is stunning. Like, I love my reality as well, but it's living two lives, you know."

Scrublands is due to air later this month in Australia.