Vanessa Matias Fahy is a young actress best described as a ‘citizen of the world’. When she speaks there is a curious mix of posh English and broad American – a sure pointer to her international school upbringing.
Born in Nigeria, Fahy grew up in Singapore where her Irish father and Filipino mother worked as teachers. It was there that she made her first tentative steps into acting – and more surprisingly, Irish dancing.
“I started Irish dancing when I was about four, before Riverdance hit the world,” she says. Later, riding on the back of the Riverdance craze, she even co-founded an Irish dancing school in Singapore.
Initially Fahy had planned to move to Dublin after leaving school to study acting, but an opportunity to enrol at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York was irresistible. She promptly packed her bags for the Big Apple, where her only contact was an unfamiliar aunt.
“I loved the buzz of New York,” she recalls. “Singapore is such a clean and courteous and over-polite place and New York isn’t like that, it’s crazy and everyone does what they want. I loved the energy people had… they say New Yorkers are not friendly but I didn’t find that.”
Away from the comfortable lifestyle she had been accustomed to in Singapore, Fahy found herself thrown in at the deep end.
“I loved that about New York, there was none of this over-babying. You became independent very fast. You had the chance to really find yourself.”
At only 24 years of age, Fahy has now settled into Dublin, at least for the time being, and has thrown herself into the city’s acting scene.
In her most recent role, she is playing a bride-to-be who gets cold feet in Stags and Hens, written by Willie Russell and directed by Ronan Wilmot.
“The play is about her journey to find her way out of marrying. It’s a really light hearted comedy drama so loads of laughs, with some stuff also going on beneath the surface.“
Stags & Hens opens on 16 February at The New Theatre, East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Tickets are €20 (€15 concessions). For booking information visit www.thenew-theatre.com.
