Why did Amy Huberman leave Harry Wild? Orla didn't leave with her — the role was recast
Viewers who started series 4 of Acorn TV's Irish mystery in May 2025 found Charlie Wild's wife Orla still very much in the show, still married, still turning up at the Wild/Reid Detective Agency — and played by a completely different actress.
Nobody has explained why. Amy Huberman, who played Orla across series 1 to 3, has never given a reason for leaving, and neither Acorn TV nor the production has issued a statement. That is the whole of the confirmed answer, and everything else circulating online is inference.
Who plays Orla now
Aoife Mulholland took over from series 4, which premiered with a double episode on 5 May 2025. She's a Dublin stage name first: West End and touring credits include Chicago, Legally Blonde, and The Sound of Music, plus the BBC talent series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Her screen debut came in 2004 in Foreign Exchange.
Huberman's run totalled 14 episodes between 2022 and 2024. Recasting rather than writing the character out is the notable choice here — Orla's marriage to Charlie (Kevin Ryan) and her place in Harry's family were load-bearing enough that removing her would have meant rewriting the family.
The theories, and where they fall down
Two explanations get repeated. Both are guesses.
- The wine business — Huberman launched Ah Wines in March 2025, a sauvignon blanc and a cava brut rosé from vineyards near Requena in Valencia, sold through Tesco and Dunnes. Company filings show Amy Wines Limited raised over €300,000 in its first year and recorded a €52,443 loss to the end of 2024.
- A scheduling clash — often dismissed on the grounds that she had nothing else on. That part is simply wrong.
She did have other work. Her 2025 credits include the Sky comedy-drama Small Town, Big Story and the mini-series The Game, in which she appears across four episodes. Series 4 of Harry Wild was filmed from mid-July 2024, which is the window any real clash would have to fit into — and none of the above proves one.
On the wine, at least, she has been talkative. Speaking to the Irish Times in 2025 about the label's design:
"I wanted a worthy classic with a modern twist."
Is Orla still in the show?
Yes. Mulholland returned for series 5, which premiered on Acorn TV on 22 June 2026 and ran weekly through the end of July. Six episodes, taking in murders in whiskey distilling, theatre, and musical tattoos, plus a gang of middle-aged burglars.
The season also delivers the thing Acorn had been sitting on for years: Joe Lando joins as new State Pathologist Pierce Kennedy, reuniting him with Jane Seymour 28 years after Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman went off air.
