‘Informed my fears’: How becoming a mum was critical to Sarah Snook in All Her Fault
Award winner Sarah Snook has revealed how very real personal fears rocked her as she headlined a new hit series.
Australian star Sarah Snook has revealed how having her first child “informed her fears” as she played the role of frantic mother living through a nightmare in a hit new TV drama.
In All Her Fault, streaming on Binge, Snook plays Marissa Irvine who goes to pick up her son Milo from a play date. To her horror, she discovers not only that Milo isn’t there but the sole occupant of the house has never heard of her or her child.
The next eight episodes follow Marissa’s desperate attempts to find out where her son has gone while navigating the concurrent implosion of her family as long buried secrets emerge.
It’s Snook’s first TV role since she took out an Emmy and two Golden Globe awards for playing Shiv Roy in media dynasty epic drama Succession.
And it’s a rolled gold hit. In the US, All Her Fault was the number one show on streamer NBC Peacock when it debuted.
Snook stars alongside US stars Dakota Fanning, Jay Ellis and Abby Elliot as well as a clutch of fellow Aussie actors doing their best Chicago accents including Thomas Cocquerel and Daniel Monks.
All Her Fault is based on Irish novelist Andrea Mara’s book of the same name which was set in Dublin. While the TV series moves the drama to Chicago, it was filmed almost entirely in Melbourne, where Snook lives.
‘Informed my fears’
Snook shares a two year old daughter with husband Dave Lawson, a comedian and actor familiar to Australians who stars in ABC series Utopia.
Their daughter was fresh to the world when filming took place in 2024 and Snook had to act through scenes of a mother discovering her child had vanished.
“Doing a part like this certainly informed my fears, for sure,” Snook told news.com.au in New York.
“I was very aware of how it would feel to have my daughter suddenly go missing or not be with me, and that was something I could draw on.”
One of the themes of the drama, indeed encapsulated by its very name, is how mothers are often deemed to be at fault when things go wrong with child rearing while dads can get a free pass.
Early in the show, Snook’s characters is interrogated by her husband Peter (played by The White Lotus’ Jake Lacy) as to why she didn’t more thoroughly check the details of the play date before agreeing to it.
“She’s two and a half now, having play days and we’re always there,” Snook said of her daughter on NBC’s Today show.
But she knew there would come a time when she would have to entrust her daughter’s care with others.
”If you’re working, you’re busy, you kind of just have to trust in a lot of ways.
“Reading (Mara’s novel) my stomach fell out (because) I know now exactly how this would feel because of actually being a parent”.
After Succession, Snook starred in two massively successful runs of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Oscar Wilde’s classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, first in London and then New York.
There’s no doubt it went well with Snook winning the UK’s Olivier award and then the US’ Tony award for best stage actor.
Indeed, she snuck filming of All Her Fault between the two theatre productions on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
Was it difficult to choose a role after her global break out role on Succession?
“Part of the reason to say yes was (that we were) shooting in Melbourne which made it harder to say no,” she told news.com.au.
“It’s a great script, it’s an excellent twist, I’d never done a thriller and it’s something I really wanted to work on”.
All episodes of All Her Fault are streaming now on Binge.
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Originally published as ‘Informed my fears’: How becoming a mum was critical to Sarah Snook in All Her Fault
