Brendan Gleeson says the chance to play Irish Police Sergeant Gerry Boyle in the new dark comedy "The Guard" was simply too irresistible to pass up.
A hit on the festival circuit, the movie has earned raves from critics and audiences alike and recently passed the €2 million mark in Ireland, closing in on Ken Loach's "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" as the biggest Irish independent film ever. It is now also playing in select U.S. theaters and will open wider throughout August.
Asked if he immediately gravitated to the role of an unorthodox, small-town Irish cop reluctantly caught up in a wide-ranging criminal enterprise in his own backyard, Gleeson replied with a chuckle, "Totally."
"I was reading the script and at some point around the halfway mark, I was hoping it wasn't going to crash and burn because . . . I was believing in it and as soon as I finished it I thought, 'I want to do this now'" Gleeson told The Irish Echo in a recent phone interview.
"I don't think he's been seen, honestly," the actor said of his latest on-screen alter-ego. "I don't think Gerry Boyle's been seen before and there are elements of all sorts of things from John Ford to 'The Seven Samurai' in [this film,] but I don't think Gerry Boyle's ever been seen before. And it's unusual for that to happen. There's this whole thing where he tries to rattle people's chains and he has a depth that isn't immediately obvious, that he keeps cloaked pretty well . . . I think he's a really complicated individual and it's unusual to get a comedy where you can have that depth and characterization. It's a real joy, to be honest."
In addition to a great role and strong script by "Ned Kelly" scribe and first-time feature film director John Michael McDonagh, the film also offered Gleeson a chance to reunite with some of his past collaborators, such as David Wilmot, Liam Cunningham and Gary Lydon.
Noting "The Guard" was the first time he had worked with Don Cheadle, Fionnula Flanagan and Mark Strong, Gleeson observed: "It was a lot of fun. We were down in Galway for six or eight weeks. And one bright, breezy personality walked through the door after another. When you're at the center of it, you get to enjoy the whole lot," he recalled.
John Michael McDonagh, the brother of "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" playwright and "In Bruges" filmmaker Martin McDonagh, describes "The Guard" as a broad comedy with melancholic subtext.
"The film lives or dies on its performances and I knew I had good enough actors to do it," he told the Echo.
McDonagh, who was born in England to Irish parents, said he gave many of the cast members of his 2000 short film "The Second Death" supporting roles in "The Guard" because he knew they understood his brand of comedy.
"Two of the villains [in 'The Guard,'] Liam Cunningham and David Wilmot, did my short film years ago. So I know them personally. I don't know if you'd call me a lazy director, but I cast a lot of actors that I know. The script is so specifically dark humor that if you like the script you're probably going to be fun to work with anyway. If you're not offended by the script, you're probably a good guy," McDonagh reasoned.
The filmmaker went on to say his actors more than lived up to his expectations of them.
"There was no diva-like behavior on the set," he said. "Filming out in Galway, you're pretty close to the city. We were another 45 minutes drive outside of Galway City . . . out on the coast. There's a nice hotel out there, but there's not a lot else to do. On a Friday night after a week of shooting there would be a few drinks."
In the movie, Cheadle plays Wendell Everett, a by-the-book FBI agent who comes to Ireland and ends up working with Boyle on a murder and drug-smuggling case. Gleeson said he knew he and Cheadle would get on wonderfully the first time he met him.
"We both got [the script] from the beginning," Gleeson explained. "We both got the fun in it and I met him in Los Angeles about a month before we started shooting. We knew within 30 seconds -- we were kind of laughing about the same stuff and we read through it and it became a breeze. It really was a breeze when we got home, mind you. The weather was catastrophic. In a way, it kind of added to the madness of it."
