Sex and the country
SHELLEY MARSDEN speaks to bright young indie actor Domhnall Gleeson about sex scenes, his famous dad and more…
By the sounds of it, Domhnall Gleeson has the next twelve months or so sewn up. He hopes to film “this Richard Curtis movie in the summer” (a low-budget ‘dramady’ entitled About Time, co-starring indie sweetheart Zoe Deschanel). Then there’s another movie which he can’t talk about yet, but is “ridiculously excited about”. Right now, Gleeson is in the editing phase with a series of comedy sketches he made recently with his writing partner that will be released online and, he hopes, make money for a hospice in Raheeny.
The son of Brendan Gleeson, whose name seems to have a permanent place on those ‘actors to watch’ lists has spent the last few years proving that he’s not just another hopeful thespian with a famous dad. He’s coming up with the goods, though a main role in aHollywoodmovie is yet to materialise.
In the meantime, the 28 year old, who won a Tony nomination in 2006 for his part in the Broadway production The Lieutenant of Inishmore, has been working with some of commercial cinema’s biggest names (Joe Wright, The Cohen Brothers), and his turn in last year’s darkly humorous indie flick Sensation, out now onDVD, shows he can carry a lead role too.
In it, sad-sack farmer Donal Duggan, 26, left to fend for himself following the death of his father, is less a man than a child growing older - dead to life and aching with lust. Sensation details Donal’s relationship with Kiwi sex-worker, Kim. They begin as client and Kiwi sex worker, Kim. They begin as client and call-girl, and evolve into something like lovers, then business partners.
Gleeson knew director Tom [Hall], had worked with him on other projects and accepted the role as he trusted his instincts. He says, “We like the same kind of movies, he’s a cool guy, and when he told me the idea for this movie I really liked it, I really liked the tone he was aiming for. Of course, on top of that playing the lead role is something I hadn’t done at that point, so it was a huge thing for me. I was very appreciative of the support and trust he had in me for that.”
But the trust had to work both ways, surely? The first scene sets the film and its content matter up nicely, of graphically, as Donal pleasures himself in the corner of a field with a dirty magazine and a few lone sheep as witnesses. That’s not something you want in the hands of the wrong director.
“Mmm! I think what I liked about the whole experience was that I knew I’d feel safe on set – I wouldn’t be taken advantage of, and I knew it would be funny too. There’s a side to the whole story that’s upsetting, and obviously that’s given its due, but I think people won’t watch a film like Sensation unless there’s a bit of humour and an element of, “Oh my good God, what the hell am I watching here?!”
Surprisingly (considering the plentiful sex scenes), Gleeson says it wasn’t a tough film to do. He says it was a very easy film to work on, and he loved every minute. As for ’those’ scenes, he maintains they were so well orchestrated that everyone was put at their ease: “We knew exactly what was happening and where the camera was going to be, we knew how we were going to move. Yes, it was a little bit… odd, shooting those scenes, but it was pretty funny, too.”
Does Gleeson think Donal is indicative of many a loney farmer in rural Ireland, then? “Yes, and I wouldn’t limit that to just farmers! The world’s a lonely place, and it has its fair share of lonely males. Particularly with the internet now, you can be an awful lot closer in one way to people, but an awful lot further away at the same time. I find that really interesting, particularly how pornography online can shape how a person, especially one who hasn’t slept with anyone before, feels about sex without actually having ‘done it’ with a real person.”
In Ireland especially, as Sensation vividly portrays, modern technology can come crashing rudely into a person’s isolated existence. It’s interesting to think that until recent years, Playboy was banned inIreland – now you can get that and more (possibly too much) as long as you have a computer and internet connection.
Gleeson shot Sensation in the same twelve-month period as some of his biggest roles to date, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (as Bill Weasley) and Never Let Me Go, starring Carey Mulligan. He admits it was a pretty breakthrough year for him.
“It was all a bit fraught and frenetic around that time. But you know, if you’re not up for that kind of a challenge then you’re probably in the wrong business. The dream is to work on projects like that, and if it comes true, then you’d better be ready for it.”
They’re all very different movies, but each was an experience that Gleeson relishes for different reasons. “Harry Potter is about as far apart from Sensation as you can get in terms of what your responsibilities are, first of all, how much you’re required on set, in terms of what you’re doing with your day. There’s an awful lot of waiting around on a Harry Potter movie, there are about 300 extras on set; the whole thing is absolutely mental.
“On Sensation you never stop working – you don’t have a trailer to go to and even if you did, you’d never be in it ‘cos you don’t have time. Plus, the responsibility of the whole film rests on your shoulders, along with the director. But I enjoy both experiences. I think I recognise how lucky I am. I hadn’t worked for a couple of years previous to that film and since then it’s been great.”
I ask Gleeson what his most interesting role has been so far, and he sighs heavily before confessing that it’s an impossible question to answer. Still, he seems to have a soft sport for his horny farmer. “I’m hoping I’m getting better as I go along, each role is a step further in how I develop as an actor, so I keep on finding it all interesting. But… Domhnal in Sensation would definitely be up there though. He’s a very strange creature.”
He has a soft spot for Konstantin Levin, the character he plays in Joe Wright’s upcoming adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; the film was his first period piece, he had a new accent to master, and he was intrigued by “this man desperate to find out what it is to be a man. It was amazing to work on, the stuff dreams are made of.”
Talking of dreams, which directors in his most fantastical moments does he imagine working alongside with? “A lot of the directors I worked with I’m desperate to work with again”, says Gleeson. “Beyond that, people like Terrence Malick, Todd Solondz, Paul Thomas Anderson – all the usual suspects; the masters. It would be incredible to work with any of them. I’ve basically got a list that I’ve given my agents and I’ve got them tracking people, so….Hopefully, one day…”
Gleeson comes across as a cool guy. Down to earth but full of ambition and with that lanky, interesting look that goes down a storm with left-field directors. That’s my impression, anyway – he’s not someone you see much in the media. He says it’s something he’s aware of and tries to avoid at all costs.
“Sure, you get noticed every now and again when you’re out, mainly from Harry Potter or Your Bad Self, an RTE comedy sketch series I starred in. But, I mean I never answer questions about my private life. People don’t know what I do, and I like to keep it that way. As a result, people don’t think they have a right to know, which is important. I’m an actor; that doesn’t mean I’ve promised my soul to anybody.”
Gleeson says his famous father and his refusal to play the ‘fame game’ has been a big lesson for him. You don’t “muck around with newspapers”, he says, and you don’t do interviews if you know they’re going to be about “what you get up to on a Saturday and not much else.” He clearly looks up to his father, adding: “There’s a lot to admire and to learn from there – both in terms of how to be an actor and how to be a person. I’m lucky to have him.”
Sensation (Element Pictures) is out now on DVD.
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Paradis on Cafe de Flore
By staff reporter
Vanessa Paradis has never been pinned down to one label. Before she was an actress, she was a model and a singer, becoming globally famous at the age of 14 when her single ‘Joe Le Taxi’ became a smash hit in 15 countries.
But despite winning a French Cesar for her 1989 debut Noce Blanche, she’s turned down several major film offers over the years and taken prolonged sabbaticals from acting in order to focus on her music and raise two children with Johnny Depp (they’ve been a couple since the 1990s).
In the last couple of years, however, she has picked up the pace again with film work and her starring role in Cafe De Flore may be a sign that Paradis, now 39, is about to enter the most fruitful phase of her acting career.
Jean-Marc Vallée’s emotive, mystical drama tells two parallel stories: one, set in present-day Montreal, depicts the break-up of a marriage and its devastating impact on Carole (Hélène Florent), who remains convinced that her bond with husband Antoine (Kevin Parent) was meant to last forever; the other is set in 1969 Paris, where single mother Jacqueline (Paradis) is raising a young son with Down’s Syndrome.
To call Jacqueline devoted is an understatement – she showers love and affection on Laurent (Marin Gerrier), enrolling him at a normal school, teaching him to defend himself from bullies and maintaining a steely determination that he’ll live past the norm of 25 years for a person with Down’s Syndrome.
But when he develops a close attachment to Veronique, another Down's syndrome child, her maternal devotion comes under threat, leading to unforeseen consequences. It’s fair to say that Paradis is heartbreaking in the role and she was duly rewarded with a Best Actress prize at the 2012 Genies,Canada’s equivalent to the Oscars.
Congratulations on your award. Were you there to accept in person?
Thank you very much. I wasn’t but Jean-Marc Vallée, the director, went and accepted it on my behalf. He asked me to send a little note just in case I won. I thanked Jean-Marc and Marin, the little boy that plays opposite me, because if they’re giving me the prize, it’s really because of these two men. It’s the case in every movie that you’re only good if the people around you are good. That little boy added so much grace and so much humour to our little tandem.
Was it difficult finding a young actor to play your son?
It was by luck and by love that Jean-Marc found Marin, because he is the actual friend – boyfriend even – of Alice [Dubois], who plays Veronique in the movie.Alice’s parents had sent a tape of her to be considered for the movie and Marin was on that tape because he was playing with her. They’re pretty much in love with each other.
You’re known to be picky with film roles. Why did you choose to do Cafe De Flore?
It was so brilliantly written. It was a shock to read but such a beautiful script. I also loved the movies that Jean-Marc had done before and the fact that he offered me a character unlike any I’ve been offered before was irresistible.
She’s a tough and devoted mother. What did you make of Jacqueline?
She has set a goal in her life because she has nothing. There’s no husband, no family, no friends and no money – nothing but the love she has to give this little boy. It’s all about him for her and she lives with the threat of losing him so her goal is to make him strive and survive and be strong. She doesn’t do everything well – it’s actually the contrary – but she does everything from her heart.
Did you ask Jean-Marc why he wanted you for this role?
He didn’t want me for the role! He met with other actresses inFrance. But after I read the script, I called him and I think he could see that I was so into it. It was that conversation that made him choose me, I think.
What did your collaboration with Jean-Marc bring out in the character?
She’s so different from me so I had to erase a bunch of things. I couldn’t be seductive, sensitive, vulnerable. When Jean-Marc and I were looking for the voice of this woman, it became really clear at one point that she had to be very masculine. Because she is both the mom and the dad, we had to find the masculinity in her.
Without giving too much away, did you ever meet or talk to the actors who star in Cafe De Flore’s parallel storyline?
No, we only met when the movie was done. They started to shoot the Canadian part first, and then Jean-Marc came toParisfor a month of preparation. He brought a 20-minute edit of what they had just shot inMontrealso we got to see the other characters and also the tone and rhythm and level of emotion they were playing. We still had to find our bearings together but there was already a movie that we could relate to, even if our story in Parishas nothing to do with theirs… apparently.
Had you had experience of working with or knowing anyone with Down’s Syndrome prior to making Café De Flore?
No, it was the first time. And it was an amazing experience because Marin comes from such an amazing family. He has an older brother and a younger brother and the parents, Natalie and Christophe, are just unbelievable people – great parents and great human beings. This little boy was born with Down’s Syndrome. He was also born with an amazing personality, amazing intelligence and a sense of humour. It’s in his genes. It was beautiful spending time with them; we got along so well.
Were his parents there all the time?
No. It’s a tough thing for parents to leave their son in the hands of other people. It’s a big responsibility for us and they trusted us very much. They got to know us and then trusted us enough to leave their boy with us. They gave us shortcuts to what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what works, what doesn’t work.
How did he behave with you, the woman playing his mother?
He was great. That was my biggest fear because with Down’s Syndrome, most of the time there is a problem with assimilation, of processing new information. It’s quite a weird thing anyway for anybody – kids, grown-ups, Down’s Syndrome or not – to be in the scenes we were playing. It’s not a comedy, it’s tough, but he always knew that we were playing and when it was done, I was just Vanessa.
So you made him feel relaxed on set?
You know what? He made me feel relaxed. Everybody fell in love with this little boy on the set. He’s so funny and he’s a little angel. He’s a demon as well! He’s very stubborn so it wasn’t easy all the time.
Did you introduce your own children to him?
Yes. We had a few parties where we danced and ate fries and drank Coca-Cola. It was great.
CAFÉ DE FLORE is released in cinemas on 11 May.
Add a commentBlood on the tracks
SHELLEY MARSDEN meets Colm Meaney to talk about his latest role as greedy railway baron Thomas Durrant in epic new series Hell on Wheels...
“I feed them bullshit, they eat it up…” thus pronounces Colm Meaney to fellow investors in his latest role as the scheming and ruthless businessman Thomas ‘Doc’ Durant in Hell on Wheels, which follows the railroad construction inAmericaas its moves from East to West. The prolific actor is a piece of perfect casting as Durant, the man poised to make the big bucks with the new railroad, and who will say and do whatever it takes to get them.
In an epic series that’s straight out of the history books, Meaney (Star Trek, The Damned United, Layer Cake, The Conspirator, Get Him to the Greek)’s character, is based on a real historical character who was part of the railroad goldrush during the aftermath of the Civil War.
When I come to interview him in a suite at The Dorchester, the 58-year-old Dubliner is hanging nonchalantly out of a window, smoking a cigarette. When he spots a distinct baby bump, he almost falls out of the window in his rush to put it out. He smiles, looking relieved when I tell him to please, go ahead and finish it as I wait across the room.
Mr Meaney is looking relaxed and sporting the kind of tan you don’t get if you’re based in Ireland, but confesses he’s exhausted, having caught a flight to London from his home in Mallorca at 6.30am, after a heavy night on the town celebrating the premiere of his new film The Perfect Stranger, which was filmed on the island he calls home.
As for Hell on Wheels, already a success inAmericaand now coming toUKscreens, an animated Meaney says it was the exquisite writing which first got him hooked on it.
“In the past five, ten years the best writing is in television”, he says. “It’s far superior. I read a lot of scripts for a few features every year, and there’s just no comparison. This one just jumped out at me, it was a beauty. Also, it was the kind of character I wanted to do and hadn’t done a lot before.
“In this business they tend to pigeonhole you a bit, and sometimes you get stuck in the blue-collar guy, or the bad guy, or the cop. But this guy I play, ‘Doc’ Durrant, he’s about money. He’s very wealthy, very powerful and the vocabulary the writers have given him in the dialogue is just fantastic.”
He might sound like the archetypal ‘bad guy’, but there are more complexities to Durant than first meet the eye, and his dense, eloquent monologues have more brilliant one-liners. In one scene at the beginning of the series, he says, “They want me to be a villain? I can play that part.” In his own eyes, this guy is merely doing what he has to do.
Meaney agrees, and says it’s one of the reasons Durant fascinated him. “There’s a monologue at the end of the pilot… he’s been drinking and is in a very reflective mood. But he’s objective, he’s dispassionate about recognising who he is, what he does: yes, there will be blood and tears shed in the making of this railway, this is not an easy task we’re undertaking. He’s aware that guys like him will not be remembered well in history, they’ll be considered not very nice people.
“But he seems to say, if you want this railroad built, you need guys like me. Simply put, Durant believes the ends justify the means. I got the sense straight away that this guy was like the characters from the 40s and the 50s, great actors like Walter Houston. He’s got so much dialogue that you have to talk fast – and these guys talked fast. There hasn’t been dialogue-intensive writing like that since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That got me really excited.”
The part of Durant is based on a real character, who interestingly started out as an eye doctor, before swiftly veered off into business and investments. During the Civil War, there was a blockade on the south and he was importing cotton from there to here. He was a man, it seems, always poised to enter into the shady side of business – which so many were at the time.
Meaney says, “It was all about profit; your Carnegies, your Morgans. There’s quite a bit of writing about Durant which I looked at. But luckily, he’s not so well known that people nowadays know what he looked or sounded like. If you’re playing a historic character like, I don’t know, Don Revie, you’ve got to nail the voice, the look, but I had a bit of freedom with Durant.”
He adds, “As much as this show gives the writers scope for really interesting dialogue, it gives actors great scope for characterisation. Durant was larger than life, and the way the language is written, you need to play him like that.”
As well as the sparkling dialogue, Meaney also went for the role as it was an opportunity to be part of a period piece, something he’d done little of until the last few years of his career. As a viewer, he says what he appreciates most is good, historical storytelling.
“Fortunately, around the same time I did the pilot for this I did The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford and also set in the American Civil War. Then Bel Ami which has just come out, set a bit later. Robert Pattison’s a lovely young guy, but I was more involved with Kristen Scott Thomas on that film (I play her husband) - she’s an extraordinary person, and the most powerful actress I’ve ever known.”
Hell On Wheels has clearly ignited Meaney’s interest in this period of history. There is little of the original railroad still in existence, he says, being superseded as it was by many others. But he would like to visit Council Bluffs if he gets a chance, where they launched the original railway from, and says the wide, open planes, the prairies of Calgary in Canada (just north of the U.S. border) boasts the same kind of landscape, that same sense of wilderness.
It’s quite astonishing to think of how the railroad changed people’s lives, something not lost on Meaney, “At the time, to go fromNew YorktoSan Franciscowould have taken six months –you had to do it by sea. With this railroad, you could do it in seven days... For us in this age of jet travel and all, it's astonishing to kind of get your head around the fact that communication was very slow, travel was slow, and it was very different world.”
The actor was given his own railroad carriage for the show, his own “luxuriously appointed Pullman car” which looked he is at pains to point out, far better on screen than it was in real life. There was also a fair bit of horseback riding to do (“It’s set in the West in the 1860s, so you’d better get on a horse!” he laughs).
Aside from the quality of its actors, the sets on this show are nothing short of breathtaking, and Meaney has high praise for those who have managed to recreate the period so authentically, meticulous detail by meticulous detail.
“The art department does an incredible job to make it all look so authentic, people don’t realise that every little lamp, glass flower on that set was placed there by somebody. You walk into these rooms and you’re transported, you’re there.
A big family man, Meaney’s latest role hasn’t been without its logistical setbacks. Having got theL.A.,Dublin,Palmacommute down pat, he says it “complicates life a bit” now that there’sCalvaryin the itinerary.
“The awkward thing is, the time we’d spend inL.A.since my daughter started going to school – she’s seven now – was usually the summer. But the summer now is up inCalvary. It’s complicated, but it’s a good complicated. I ain’t complaining!
“My daughter was with me for nearly a month last year, just the two of us. We were selling our house, so my wife had to stay behind and do the packing up. So I took the little one with me to work, and she had a great time. Ah, and with that set, and all the animals… The Calgary Stampede happens in July, so we all went to that and well, she turned into a cowgirl for two weeks, you know? Those are the moments that you don’t forget…”
Whether he’s playing an engineer on a space ship, a homeless man living in his car or a ruthless railroad baron in post-Civil WarAmerica, Meaney says he’ll only go for a role if something in it speaks to him from the outset, and Hell On Wheels did. “I hope people get the same kick out of watching it as I did filming it”, he smiles. Oh, I think they might. Hell On Wheels could be one of the most exhilarating period dramas we’ve had on our screens in some time…
Hell On Wheels: a turning point in U.S. history
Airing over ten weeks on TCM, Hell On Wheels is a cinematic American western series which is already a hit in Americaand is now filming for a second season. It comes to UKscreens on 20th May at9pm, with repeats on Thursdays at9pm. It comes fromAMC, who are behind the series’ Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad.
Set in a restless, post-Civil-War America (1865) against the backdrop of the construction of the first transcontinental railway, the drama centres on former Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon, whose quest for vengeance has led him to the Union Pacific Railroad's westward construction in a bid to track down his wife’s killer. His journey leads him to the degenerate Hell on Wheels, a dangerous, raucous, lawless melting pot of a town that travels with and services the construction of the railroad, an engineering feat which was unprecedented for its time.
The backdrop to this stunningly shot series is the railroad's engineering and construction, institutionalised greed and corruption, the immigrant experience, and the plight of newly emancipated African-Americans during Reconstruction. Hell on Wheels chronicles an extremely potent pivotal point in the history of theUnited States– one which showed how uncivilised the business of civilisation can sometimes be.
Hell on Wheels airs from Sunday 20th May on TCM ( 9pm on Sundays, repeated at 9pm on Thursdays) and TCM 2 (10pm on Sundays, repeated at 10pm on Thursdays).
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Celebrate Dickens on film
By Shelley Marsden
Two great old films based on classic Charles Dickens tales have been released to coincide with the celebration of the author’s bicentenary.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947) is the first. Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, it stars Derek Bond in the title role as a resourceful young Britisher, forced to protect his family against the demonic machinations of his wicked Uncle Ralph (Cedric Hardwicke).
Cast out into the cold cruel world, Nicholas Nickleby deals adroitly with friend and foe alike, eventually coming full circle to mete out just desserts to his unspeakable uncle. Special features include new interviews with BFI Dickens Season Curators Adrian Wootton & Michael Eaton and Dickens biographer Michael Slater
The other is The Old Curiosity Shop (1934), directed by Thomas Bentley and starring Hay Petrie, Ben Webster and Elaine Benson.
Petrie ingests the scenery as the demonic, hunchbacked Mr. Quilp in this 1935 British adaptation of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. Quilp is the wicked landlord who dominates and later ruins the lives of shopkeeper Trent (Ben Webster) and his resourceful granddaughter Little Nell (Elaine Benson).
The death of the heroine, which caused quite a stir when the book was first published, is handled with great discretion and taste, and scenarists Margaret Kennedy and Ralph Neale successfully tackle the challenge of whittling Dickens' massive novel into a playable 90 minutes. The Old Curiosity Shop would be remade three times, once as a musical with Anthony Newley as Quilp.
Both titles are out to own on DVD on 14th May (StudioCanal, £15.99 each). Visit www.studiocanal.co.uk for more.
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Heads will rock and roll
By Shelley Marsden
Who said rock and roll was about sex and drugs? It’s certainly not in Deadtime, a bloody, brutal new British horror set inLondon’s East End and starring Leslie Grantham (The Bill), Joe Egan (Dead Man Running) and Manchester-Irishman Terry Christian.
Everyone craves success and their ‘ten minutes of fame’ as Warhol once said, most will do whatever it takes - but Deadtime, the viewer is led down a chilling and twisted plot of blood, lies and betrayal that will have you jumping out of your seats.
It’s not been released yet, but the film’s extended trailer has already notched up over half a million youtube views, showing that sometimes a good story, great British actors and buckets of blood can be a winning combination!
Love Meets Murder - the once popular rock/metal band, now down on their luck and their careers, seek to create their "magnum opus".
Locked into a Wednesbury studio for the weekend nobody is able to leave - but before the band have just finished tearing into their new hit, a series of mysterious murders begin to plague them all. Now only their own self-belief can save them from the psychotic mind of their assailant
Deadline won’t be winning any film festivals, but it’s got its fair share of frights and as low budget shock fixes go, offers enough to be worth an hour and a half of your life watching. Deadtime is out onDVD(£15.99) on 14th May.
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