It's hard, but a soap doesn't have to be a trap

Maeve McGrath plays Lorraine Molloy in RTE's soap opera Fair City.Initially Lorraine was just a fairly small part of the Molloy household, but in the last couple of years I've had story lines based around me - about slimming pills, getting married, not getting married - so it has got better and more interesting.

I had studied drama at Trinity and was doing theatre around the country when my agent rang and told me that they were looking for somebody who looked younger than they actually were. So I went for the audition, and got the job.

I was 21 at the time, and I was playing 15, so there's a fair gap between me and Lorraine. A lot of people think I'm younger than I am, but I don't mind that. I'm 26 now, and Lorraine is only 19. I actually feel that the age gap is even bigger now - 19 to 26 seems like a huge gap in terms of maturity, and she's not a particularly mature teenager. Most of the parts I play are young - I've never played my own age. I don't look old enough to play 26!

I've got quite used to Lorraine now - I know her and what she would do. The scriptwriters also get to know and they write the character in your style.

I don't work all the time. I could be in for two weeks, then out for two, then in for three, that kind of thing. RTE only pays you for the weeks you work, and you get an average of about 20 weeks a year. We work through the summer as well now, so there's 45 weeks of production a year, rather than the 32 weeks it used to be.

That's both good and bad. It means you're not available for other work, unfortunately, because the summer used to be the time you were able to do that. But you also have more security and more money.

When I'm working that much it's hard even to get to auditions. You're never off long enough for a play's four-week rehearsal period, so most often you're disappointed if you're going for a part.

It's even harder now that we work all year. Last year I was in Ballykissangel and I worked in the Abbey, but now we don't have that extra two or three months during the summer.

Some people might see a soap as a trap for an actor, but you can always leave. It's a yearlong contract, so the option is always there. A few people have left this year to do other things.

On a shooting day, I'd be up at 6.30 a.m. to be in at 7.30 a.m. for makeup, and then filming throughout the day until 6.15 p.m. Rehearsal days are shorter: we don't start till half nine, and we're finished before four. Nearly everything is shot on the set at Montrose, but we've done quite a lot of exteriors in Dublin this year - which is nice, to show other sides of the city.

I get the script 10 days to two weeks in advance; then it's up to me to read it, break it down, and learn it. People often say to me: "How do you learn all those lines?" It's actually quite easy once you put your head down. I specifically set aside days in the week to do it: I'll learn a specific block on Sunday, then another block on Monday.

I think if the lines are well written, it's much easier. I also find it's easier if I've got 11 scenes to learn rather than two or three - I have no idea why!

I get about a month's notice of which weeks I'll be needed, but if I really want to know, I can arrange it. I have to go into hospital soon, and I told them ages ago that I needed to be off that day, so they made provision for that. They're good that way.

We do two episodes per week. So we go in for rehearsal on a Saturday, rehearse again on the Monday and on the Tuesday morning. On Tuesday afternoon we have what's called the producer's run, when the producers and scriptwriters come down and watch us run through it, so we have to know the script by then for the filming days, which are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. For me, those are the most enjoyable days.

In an interview with Hugh Linehan