How Amandaland writer Sharon Horgan, 54, has broken Hollywood with award-winning writing - after spending her 20s in a VERY mundane job

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Amandaland, the highly-anticipated spin-off of Motherland, aired its first episode on Wednesday night.

While some viewers were disappointed to see a different show, instead of a new series of the original, a number of reviewers have raved about the programme which stars Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley.

According to the Independent, it 'will make you howl with laughter', meanwhile Stylist said it is 'brilliant, brutal and 100 per cent better than it has any right to be'.

The positive critical reception marks the another hit in the long list of television triumphs for Irish actress, writer, and producer Sharon Horgan, 54.

Her impressive CV is packed with hits, with 2006-2009's Pulling (a comedy about three 20-something women sharing a flat) which she wrote and starred in, marking her first major success - though she had acquired some writing and acting credits before then. These included a part in 2015 romcom Man Up starring Simon Pegg.

However, Pulling marked her breakthrough, and kickstarted an impressive career that would see her go on to write and star in Hollywood movies and British dramas including Catastrophe, Bad Sisters, and Motherland.

Sharon was born in Hackney in 1970. But her parents moved to County Meath in Ireland to run a turkey farm when she was four. After convent school Sharon studied art. 

'I worked as a chambermaid and a barmaid and saved up so I could pay for this drama course at the weekends, while I was at art college during the week,’ she previously told MailOnline.

The first episode of Amandaland - the spin-off of Motherland - aired on Wednesday night (pictured: Lucy Punch in Amandaland)

‘God, what a work ethic! But then I dropped out of both and went to London.’ 

It took a few years for her acting career to take off, she explained, saying: 'I went to London and worked in Kilburn Job Centre for six-and-a-half-years.’ 

There’s nothing wrong with that, she added - unless you don’t want to be there. 

‘I wasn’t interested in progressing. It’s like when an actor takes a job waitressing, and they don’t want to be the manager, but after three years carrying plates, they’re like: “Oh s***!” That’s what happened to me.’

Why did she get stuck for so long? ‘I can’t explain that, other than I thought writing and performing was too impossible. Or I didn’t have the tools. Or I was afraid of failing.’ 

She wasn’t from a privileged or showbusiness family. ‘Sometimes it can be your background, but my four brothers and sisters all grew up on the same farm in the same tiny village and we’re all doing really well for ourselves.’ 

Maria Horgan has enjoyed success as a producer; Lorraine as an actor who has been in Peaky Blinders. Mark founded a highly acclaimed podcast called Where Is George Gibney? and Shane is a former Irish rugby star. ‘There must have been a sense of “If you work hard, things are possible” drilled into us.’

Sharon always had big dreams, telling the Telegraph in 2023 that as a child, she imagined winning an Oscar.

Another of Sharon Horgan's (pictured, centre) big hits was Bad Sisters, which she created, wrote, and starred in

And she still has big dreams: 'My ambitions are still massive, actually, they are just slightly different. I’m really ambitious for Merman [the production company she co-founded in 2014], I’m really ambitious to make as much as I possibly can and to tell different types of stories in as many mediums as I can.' 

Sharon got out of her rut at the Job Centre by going to study English at Brunel University. She also met a writer called Dennis Kelly who became her collaborator. 

‘And so I woke up,' she previously told MailOnline. 'I saw a point in the distance and figured I’d go for it. It’s about having the right people around you, and for me that was Dennis.’ 

They sent off sketches to the BBC which led to their first hit Pulling, about a single young woman with a chaotic life. 

'We were both living in shared, low-level accommodation and doing jobs we didn’t like and in relationships that were going nowhere,' she said. 'The bones of Pulling were our lives.’

Next came the Bafta-winning Catastrophe with the American actor and writer Rob Delaney. The show was a huge success for Channel 4, although neither stopped to take that in. 

‘I don’t often sit back and reflect. Every time Rob and I made a new series of Catastrophe we’d say: “We should go for a burger at least, and just sit and talk about how great it is to be doing this.” But we never did [because] we both had families. And once you finish writing something you’re making it, then promoting, then you’re starting a new one again.’

Catastrophe, was about a woman in her 30s who became pregnant by a US businessman who was in the UK on a work trip. Barely knowing the man, the protagonist had to decide whether to forge a family and relationship with him.

Sharon got her big break when she wrote and starred in Pulling (pictured) which ran from 2006-2009 (pictured L-R: Rebekah Staton; Sharon Horgan, Tanya Franks)

It was inspired by her own life: she and former husband Jeremy Rainbird had been together for just six months when the actress had an unplanned pregnancy.

The couple, who met when Sharon was 34, and wed in 2005, share two children: Sadhbh and Amer, After 14 years of marriage, they divorced amicably in 2019.

Catastrophe is not the only series she has based on her life experiences, or those of friends and family - though she noted that 'if I ever do take anything wholesale, I let them know or ask permission'.

The one exception is her daughters. 

While co-writing and producing Motherland, she did not see her daughters as potential material. According to Sharon: 'I am madly interested in the teenage brain, especially because of how hard it is to be a teenager at the moment, but I would never write about a teenage girl. I think that’s completely unfair and I just wouldn’t.'

Motherland, which Sharon co-wrote and produced represents the reality of modern motherhood, showing the struggle to hold it all together and secretly resenting your children for stealing your life. 

'There are definitely mums in Motherland who are based on my good local friends...But they like it. They’re happy for me to do that,' she said.

After Catastrophe was up for an Emmy (Carrie Fisher was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series for her role as Mia in season) Sharon started working some of the time in America, writing the comedy drama Divorce for Sarah Jessica Parker in New York. 

Comedy Catastrophe was another success story for the Irish artist (pictured L-R: Sharon Horgan; Rob Delaney)

Her own divorce from Jeremy Rainbird came just years after the US show. 

Reflecting on the split while speaking to Red Magazine in 2023, Sharon admitted she felt 'scared' separating from her husband at first, but by that time, she was much happier.

She told the publication: 'I found it scary at first, but it's just about learning to do things in a slightly different way. Everything I was relying on another person for, I was then able – for the most part – to teach myself. 

'I'm not saying I don't have help around me – it's a big old thing I'm running here – but learning how to do things I was scared of has made my life richer. I feel more in control and more independent. I certainly feel happier than I have been in the last few years.'

Despite her transatlantic career and stellar success - and the income that can come with it - Sharon has said she ensures skeeps her daughters down to Earth.

'I’m a bit of a ballbreaker as a parent,' Sharon explained. 'It is important for me that they don’t feel the privilege too much. 

'I’m definitely not a parent who lavishes anything. I’m really tight-fisted actually. And there’s this constant conversation we have about what happens when they reach the age when they’re – sort of – kicked out.’ 

She has also previously spoken to MailOnline about how daughters feel about her career.

Sharon Horgan is pictured at premiere for season two of Bad Sisters (seen in New York in November 2024)

The Irish actress tied the knot with businessman Jeremy Rainbird back in 2005 and the pair were married for 14 years until they split in 2019 (Pictured in 2016)

In 2021, she said: ‘It’s a bit embarrassing for my girls. There are sex scenes out there ready and waiting to be watched by their peers. That’s mortifying. I have embarrassed them hugely...I mean, my daughters have told me when kids at school have said: “Why did your mum write a show where she has sex in the first five minutes?” You know, it’s a good question…’ 

However, she added, at that time, her daughters were interested in her work. She noted: 'I think it would be terrible to become an actor; that’s a hard slog and it doesn’t often work out. I’d much rather there was something else in their futures. But I think they’re interested in the production side of it. There’s something magical about watching a set be built then come to life.'

While she is best known for her comedic performances, in 2023, Sharon took on a dramatic role in Best Interests written by Jack Thorne.

The four-part drama told the story of Nicci (played by Sharon Horgan) and Andrew (Michael Sheen) and their daughter Marnie (Niamh Moriarty), who has a life-threatening condition. While doctors believe Marnie should be allowed to die, her parents battle in the courts to keep her medical care going. 

Its plot has reminded many of the case of Archie Battersbee, the 12-year-old boy from Southend-on-Sea whose life support was withdrawn in August 2022 despite a long legal battle led by his parents Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee to keep him alive and continue his treatment. 

Sharon, who played Marnie's heartbroken mother, put into an impossible position, revealed how her own real-life experiences brought her performance to life.

Speaking to the Guardian after the first episode aired in Summer 2023, alongside her co-star Sheen, she recalled the terror and desperation she felt when her own daughter contracted meningitis when she was young.

'While we thought we might lose her – as I was watching them trying to find a vein and get some antibiotics into her – I remember thinking: "I don't care what happens – like, take off her limbs, whatever you need to do – just keep her alive".'

While she usually works in comedy, the Sharon (pictured, left) co-starred with Michael Sheen (pictured, right) in Best Interests (Niamh Moriarty pictured centre)

Drawing on her experience, she explained the difficulties she faced when playing Nicci and revealed she and other cast members were taken to 'really awful places' while filming as they put themselves in the mindsets of people who were suffering. 

In the drama, Sharon's character Nicci partnered a Christian charity in the fight for Marnie's life.

Speaking to the Times, the actress revealed: 'Nicci’s connection to her religion and her faith was something that was just so alien to me, despite the fact that I was brought up a Catholic and educated in a convent school and my aunty’s a nun. I was surrounded by religion, but I dipped out of it very young.'

One aspect of the performance that she could sadly relate to was the terrifying experience of having a very ill child - her eldest daughter caught meningitis as a baby, and it was life-threatening, though she fortunately survived. 

'We were so unbelievably lucky and we know that. But the aftershock — there’s definitely PTSD and I dealt with any of my second daughter’s illnesses with blind panic because you always think, "If that can happen, why couldn’t it happen again?".'

When discussing whether the role was a deliberate move away from comedy and into something more serious, she said she would 'laugh at [her]self' if that were the case, despite comedy often being seen as 'sort of the lesser art'.

Lucy Punch (pictured, left) and Joanna Lumley (pictured, right) are pictured in character as Amanda and Felicity in Amandaland

Her return to the writers' room to pen Amandaland shows the prolific artist is still committed to her comedy work.

Speaking about the spin-off, Sharon said: 'I was genuinely sad having to say goodbye to Motherland.

'There's such a fondness for that show and those characters. So it was a real thrill to get to pick up the further adventures of Amanda and Anne, not to mention Felicity.

'Lucy, Phillipa and Joanna are top of their game in these roles and are joined by an incredibly funny and talented new cast.

'Can't wait to showcase the next challenges of parenthood and the very particular kind of friendship the school gates bring.'