Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan flawlessly recreates Nadine Coyle’s iconic passport drama
Nicola Coughlan recreated the moment Nadine Coyle panicked as she couldn’t find her passport. (Screen captures via YouTube)
Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan reminded us all that, yes, our brain can in fact produce serotonin when she perfectly impersonated Nadine Coyle.
Speaking on The Graham Norton Show last Friday (11 December), Coughlan revealed that the Irish Girls Aloud singer was the inspiration behind her character’s accent on the Channel 4 series.
“When I was preparing, I didn’t know a Derry accent first off,” she said.
“I thought, ‘Who do I know?’ And then I thought: ‘Oh Nadine from Girls Aloud is extremely Derry’.
“And I don’t know if people will know this, but there was an extremely controversial incident in the early 00s in Ireland.”
Nicola Coughlan retells the iconic moment Nadine Coyle lies about her age to get in a girl band
Host Graham Norton quickly clocked that Coughlan was referring to the time when Coyle lied about her age in order to get her band to on the reality show Irish Popstars.
“I feel like it was the first Irish sort of pop culture TV moment, it was Popstars the Irish version So she went on and lied about her age, but she got found out on camera.”
“It was so good,” Norton chimed.
“She had got into the band and then her on-camera interview,” Coughlan continued, “the first one to introduce yourself and who you are.
“She said: ‘My name is Nadine Coyle, I’m from Lark Hill in Derry, my date of birth is 15/6/85 making me a Gemini’.
“And then she thinks for a second and goes: ‘What date of birth did I say.’ And then it fades and she’s outed herself on camera. But everyone lost the plot.”
Coughlan then did a flawless impression of Coyle, when the panicked singer called her mum to ask where her passport was after Popstars questioned what her actual date of birth.
“It was all a lie, she knew. She was 16, but she was meant to be 18,” she added.
After the gaffe, Coyle lost her place in the band Six. But she later auditioned in the British Popstars: The Rivals, winning the series and scoring a place in Girls Aloud.
