Éanna Hardwicke Shares His Thoughts on a Possible 'Normal People' Follow-Up

Irish actor Éanna Hardwicke, best known for his role in the romantic psychological drama series Normal People, is giving his two cents about the show’s future and a possible sequel.

Speaking to the BBC, Hardwicke, who played Rob Hegarty in Normal People, shared that he doesn’t want any kind of sequel or follow-up to the series, saying he’s “not a fan of rehashing things” and that it’s “nicer to leave it in people’s imagination.”

Normal People is a story about Marianne and Connell (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal), two Irish teenagers from different social backgrounds who share a deep but complicated connection. As they go through school and university, their relationship shifts between friendship, love, and distance.

Spoiler alert: At the end of the series, Connell gets an offer to study in New York, and Marianne encourages him to go, even though it means they’ll be apart. They both realize how much they’ve shaped each other’s lives, but the future remains uncertain. The story ends on an open note, suggesting that while their paths might separate, their connection will always be special.

Éanna’s character, Rob, is one of Connell’s school friends, and he’s sometimes insensitive toward Marianne. He is one of the popular students at school, but later in the series, he dies by suicide, which deeply affects Connell.

Judging by his character’s fate, Hardwicke wouldn’t appear in a sequel anyway. But that wouldn’t bother him at all—he said he would gladly “watch it as a punter.” Later in the interview, he also admitted that he would “love to see those characters in 15 years.”