British actress Daisy May Cooper stars in “Rain Dogs,” a dark comedy about an unconventional family premiering March 6 on HBO (10 p.m., and likewise available on HBO Max).
The series, created by creator Money Carraway, is ready in England and follows struggling and impoverished single mother Costello Jones (Cooper), her daughter Iris (Fleur Tashjian) and Costello’s best friend Selby (Jack Farthing, “Poldark”) — a wealthy gay man who’s Costello’s pseudo “soul mate” and Iris’ father-figure.
“It’s an unconventional love story, really,” Cooper, 36, told The Post. “[Costello and Selby] are from opposite ends of the spectrum. He’s very affluent, she’s poor, they usually’ve each been neglected in other ways and haven’t got the talents to have a traditional healthy relationship, so it gets toxic.
“However it’s just such an interesting relationship that I’ve probably not seen onscreen before,” she said. “That was really exciting to play — and really truthful.”
“Rain Dogs” tracks Costello’s efforts to hustle to make ends meet and supply for her daughter, which sometimes gets her into sketchy situations through which she need Selby to bail her out. He’s got his own problems too, having recently finished a stint in jail.
Cooper ( HBO’s “Avenue 5”) also starred in and co-created the British mockumentary series “This Country” along with her brother, Charlie Cooper. (Its American incarnation is Fox’s “Welcome To Flatch,” starring Sean William Scott.”).
Cooper said that, like Costello in “Rain Dogs,” she grew up in poverty. Costello works at a peep show — and Cooper said she could relate to that have.
“I remember auditioning to be a stripper after I was really poor and about 18 or 19, and the way bleak it’s,” she said. “I used to be working as a cleaner for about 100 kilos a month. I went in for an interview for laundry dishes in a restaurant, after drama school. I didn’t get the job … The one thing available that may at all times recruit is the f–king sex industry. And I remember being indignant about that. Since you’ve got seedy men you, and you think that, ‘You’ve got no idea how talented I’m, or where I would like to be, or what my morals are.’ You only see a pair of t–s. Individuals who come from a stable upbringing don’t must put themselves through that type of stuff.”
Cooper said that filming “Rain Dogs” brought up memories from her past that, “I suppose I haven’t handled.”
She recalled a time when she was 20 and living under one roof along with her brother and her parents. “It was like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ [My brother and I] were working as cleaners because our parents were each unemployed and couldn’t get jobs on the time. It was hell.”
They lived outside of London, but she needed to take a bus there for an audition for the show “Call the Midwife.”
“I needed to take 9 kilos out of the family’s food budget to get a [bus] to London. I only had one pair of shoes, these sandals that had fallen apart, and I needed to tape them, and walk from Victoria coach station into Central London,” she said. “I remember feeling so anxious, because I had such a stressful time just even getting there … That’s what Costello goes through on a day by day basis. It will be really easy for anyone else. That’s what jogged my memory [of my life] a lot. I used to be terrible within the audition, and also you go ‘In fact I used to be,’ because there was a lot invested in it. And I had to return and tell my family, ‘That was really bad.’
“I’m grateful there’s a show that’s as gritty as ‘Rain Dogs.’ It’s not poverty porn. It’s being real.”
