Prime big Deal days is coming October 8th and 9th, which can
lead to involuntary deal squeals like the infamous deal on a new
massager squeal. Save big on prime big deal days
October 8th and 9th. Sippers, welcome to this episode
of the Tea with Me podcast with me, she and Todd.
Another guest episode this week. Really delighted to get this guy
to do the podcast. Read an article with a little
bit about his life in one of the Sunday papers recently.
Knew so much of the work that he had done.
Knew his name but didn't quite know a lot about his back story
so was able to jump into that with him.
My guest is Terry George. Terry is a writer and director
who has brought us films like In the Name of the Father and the
Boxer with Daniel Day Lewis. He, he's worked on things like
The Shore, which he he won an Oscar for, recently worked with
Christian Bale on a fantastic film, The Promise that he talks
about. And honestly, we just got into a
lot of his career and how he got to where he got to.
It's not a traditional route, but that I really enjoy chatting
to Terry. I, I watched so many of his
films growing up and it's brilliant to kind of talk to him
about how he got in the film. Extremely interesting guy and
delighted that he agreed to do the podcast.
Before we kick into this, let me just plug two things.
Support local ni.com, especially coming up to Christmas, a lot of
people want to support local and support ni.com is all about
that. We'll link to it in the
description of the episode, but essentially it's like Amazon for
local businesses set up by a young guy from this very town, a
Hollywood entrepreneur, which we love to see Matt Stevenson set
this up. It's just something you might
want to look at if you're thinking about helping local
businesses through this tough time.
It maybe you don't want to, you know, buy your gifts off a big
supermarket giant website. This is a great idea.
Support local ni.com. Matt recently teamed up with
Guilt Trip Doughnuts to give away hundreds of doughnuts to to
local businesses. He's making a big difference
with what he's doing. So if you think that sounds like
something you you'd be interested in, support local
ni.com. I think that's a great idea,
especially at this time. So fair play to him for that.
Also, we've got to plug Patreon, which is patreon.com/T With Me
podcast. We did a bonus episode every
Monday. Main producer Dan, we do a live
episode once a month that the old ones are all up there.
Patreon subscribers get to see those live and also there's some
of my live stand up from the waterfront Hall in 2019.
So plenty of ways to support zippers.
Let's get into this episode with the absolutely fantastic writer
and director Terry George. Terry, my first question that I
ask all my guests on the TV's media podcast is are you a tea
drinker? What is the what is the level of
your tea drinking? If you are love that.
I mean, you've gone Australian black mug.
Tea and coffee. Yeah, quite a bit.
I don't know, 2-3 cups a day, depending on, I mean, when
you're writing, you need something to reach out to.
So. Yeah.
So big mug of Barry's Irish tea. There you go.
Believe it or not, we, we are, we are drinking from exactly the
same cup here because I'm, I'm going in and I only discovered
Barry's about two months ago, honestly in the middle of
lockdown and it, it totally changed.
It changed my attitude in lockdown.
It lifted my mood. I don't know why I've been
drinking other brands for so long because because Barry's
really is the really is the ticket.
Oh yeah, it's yeah. If you leave it long enough, you
could stand the spring up on it. That's a good old Belfast.
Team you, you live, you live now in, in New York, Terry and kind
of split time between between New York and and home.
I want to find out about about kind of how you got the how you
got the where you are. And there are so many questions
I I, I want to ask you. But first of all, I just want
to, I want to say that I think I saw in the name of the father
when, when I was 10/9 or 10. I mean, not, not a teenager yet.
And I, I can't remember a film that struck me as as much as
that did. I think I was, I was probably
too young to maybe take all of it in, but I just remember being
really, really kind of blown away by by that film.
And I watched it again as an adult and enjoyed it in kind of
a different way. And that that and The Boxer are
just two films that really, really stand out for me.
And it wasn't until I read an article in one of the local
Sunday papers that that I found out a little bit more about you.
I didn't know that the man who made those films was was from
here and and I know so much of your films and then I kind of
put it all together and was was so came the the chat to you for
the podcast. But as a as a writer, well, I.
Have to, I have to say, qualify all that first of all, because
the main driving force in the whole thing was Jim Sharon, you
know who, who directed both the in the name of the father and
the boxer. And then we switched roles and I
did some other sons. So yeah, Jim Jimbo obviously
from his relationship with Daniel through my foot was the
instigator and and the catalyst for all of that.
And yeah. And I mean to be to be making
films like that in such a, in such a small part of the world
as, as, as here as Northern Ireland.
What was there, especially in the name of the father?
What, what reaction did you get to that at the time locally,
like I, I assume you were still living in in Northern Ireland at
the time. That's just.
No, I wasn't. I was here.
In fact, In the name of the Father was the first time I, I,
I'd come to New York in 82. And In the name of the father
was the shoot in Dublin was the first time I'd gone back.
So that was 94. Was it 94 or 96?
So it was like over 10 years since I've been back in Ireland
and none of it was shot in the North at all because, you know,
because the Troubles were pretty.
It was just edging towards the ceasefire.
But we couldn't shoot any of it in Belfast.
It was all shot around inner Dublin and then part of it in
Liverpool. And so I had, I had no idea, I
presumed it was all just filmed where, what, where it happened.
So. So the flats, the start, the
riot scene at the start is they're gone now.
What was the name of the flats area?
It was in notorious housing project in inner Dublin that's
now along the keys. It's not like those big.
So it was all it was all Dublin and it all had to do with
insurance and and just, you know, the viability at that
time, Belfast and Northern Ireland had no real.
They had a film industry, but it hadn't blossomed into what it is
today. So it was.
It was all purely. Whenever those whenever those
films came out in the name of the father, what kind of
reaction were you were you getting at the time locally?
I mean, I was, I was very young then, so I don't remember the
release. But when that film came out, how
how did that, how did that go down?
Was there? Was it?
Like a fart in an elevator.
Yeah, the the immediately, immediately politicians,
particularly in parliament, screamed that it wasn't true,
that it was propaganda. We were sued in court for saying
this is a true story. There were exposes.
I remember specifically sitting with Jim in his house in Dublin
when he got a call from the Daily Telegraph.
As soon as he got that call, I, I sort of knew like, oh shit,
here we go for an interview. And he started the interview and
he said that, well, you know, they said it's not true.
And, and Jim said, and I'm paraphrasing, there's a greater
truth in this film than just the truth itself.
And I'm like, oh, jeez, you know?
But that's exactly what it was. And the accusations about its
veracity were all based on, well, Jerry Conlon wasn't in the
same cell as his father, which was correct.
He wasn't. He was next door some of the
time. Some of the time he wasn't in
the same prison, but other times, you know, he was right
there. And like Emma Thompson's
character, Well, they don't say please approach the bench in
British courts, you know, but we needed Emma Thompson to talk to
the judge, you know, and the fact of the matter was, you
know, after all this hoopla, but how it been lies and blah, blah,
blah and Guilford for guilty and blah, blah, blah.
You know, 10 years later, Tony Blair apologises to the family.
They get big. They're all declared innocent.
And, you know, and, and the veracity of the film on the
level of the storytelling, we told it was true.
So, yeah, the Boxer had a different, the Boxer had a
different reaction, more from the the Irish Republican side
than within the name of the father.
There was sort of, yeah, pretty fairly negative reaction to the
Boxer because of its coverage of the ceasefire and the dissidents
and particularly the Jerry Mcsorley character.
So look, you, you tell the story and that every film I've done,
every major film has had that same controversy.
The worst effect being what's going on at the moment because
Hotel Rwanda has led to the kidnapping, capture and
imprisonment of Paul Rusey Sabagina, the lead the subject
of and the hero of Hotel Rwanda. And he's now locked up in a
prison in in Kigali, Rwanda, and is liable to be there for the
rest of his life. Is that because that the film
brought so much aware, like like a far wider awareness to Yeah,
it's. Because the New York Times just
published about, I'd say two months ago now, a big expose of
what happened to Paul and basically the Times, strangely
enough, an Irish writer deck and Walsh, a great Irish writer,
nailed it in saying that he had become Paul, had become the most
famous Rwandan in the world. And President Kagame did not
like that one bit and waged the camp.
And they, I mean, I, I had literally sat beside President
Kagame in Kigali and watched the movie with him, him, he and one
side with his wife and the whole parliament and diplomatic corps.
And but two months after the films released, Paul put out a
book and condemned Kagami's dictatorship and and that was
it. The war was on.
So that was that. And then the most recent big
film, Act on the Promise, which is on the set during the
Armenian Genocide and tells the story of the Armenian Genocide,
produced not only a ferocious reaction from the Turkish
government, but they actually made a kind of phoney counter
film. I forget its name now.
Oh, the good Lieutenant. Or some right right.
So you made films about humanitarian issues and
controversial stuff and, and you know the shit's going to hit the
fan and I've can't expect that. Yeah, I mean, you know, people
talk about like the legacy of films and and the power of
filmmaking, but you offer examples there of, of, of big
hard hitting things when when governments are getting
involved. You know, I, I, I would imagine
whenever you first get into into filmmaking, you just think about
that kind of thing. You just think about telling
stories and the the knock on effect that can have is is
crazy. Is, is there when you, when you
for I want to ask you about how you, how you got into
filmmaking, because in a, in a limited article that I, that I
read, it kind of talked about how you, you went over to
America and started working in a lot of different jobs.
And, and before you left, did you have a, did you have a
passion for filmmaking? Did you leave here with a with a
love for that or did you totally fall into it?
I didn't. No, I didn't have a passion for
filmmaking. I'd never not in a million years
that I think everybody evolved, but I was I did, you know, I did
some writing and and then when I came to New York, I got into
freelance journalism. I started off doing reviews for
Irish American newspapers, music reviews.
I think it was the first one to review The Pogues when they came
way back when and Christy Moore and all of that.
And, and that evolved into a job at a magazine, New York
Magazine, pretty famous magazine.
And, and at the same time I was, you know, I wrote a play called
The Tunnel, which eventually Jim Sheridan put on.
And that's where the connection started.
And when he went off to do My Left Foot, I ran the Irish Arts
Centre, which then was like basically a shed on the edge of
Manhattan. So Jim was away doing.
He did actually my left foot and the feedback to back.
And then my left foot came out just as I met Jerry Conlon when
he'd been released and was in New York doing a book tour.
So it was this sort of weird coincidence evolution that I
went from journalism to playwriting to filmmaking.
Yeah. And, and the whole filmmaking
thing was purely through Sheridan.
The idea I had actually, at that time before, while he was off
doing my left foot, I was working for a woman called Shane
Alexander. And Shane Alexander was the most
famous woman writer in America at that time.
She'd written, she worked for, she was the first woman writer
for Life magazine and then had been on the biggest, the
equivalent of Panorama in the United States, 60 minutes where
she did this 5 minute commentary at the end of it.
And she was doing a book on the biggest mafia trial in American
history. It's called The Pizza
Connection. And I was a researcher and at
the same time she got an offer to write ATV series thing about
an American woman's in the horses and shoe jumping because
the island and blah blah blah. And I Co wrote that with her.
So so I was sort of hovering around.
But it was Sheridan and the whole evolution from the tunnel
to my left foot to the name of the father that kicked it all
off. Do you think with, with writing
that being, being from, you know, somewhere like here helps
in terms of, in terms of really good characters?
Because you know, the, the kind of stories that you, you, your
crew live in here and the kind of, let me, let me say unique
type people that we have sometimes.
I would imagine if you, if you put that into a script or into a
story, it, you know, it might, it might sound made-up to
anybody who isn't from here, but I just think we have a very, a
very different take on the world.
And especially when you know, having a working class
background and encountering a lot of a lot of characters, you
know, you're imagine the, you know, the subject matter that
gives you is, is is pretty rich. Well, it is, yeah.
And I'm look, I'm sure I don't want to make, you know, Belfast
or Northern Ireland to be the, the, the, the great sort of
character. What do you do boiling part of
of the world? I'm sure every every community
has those. But I think there's something,
you know, and a lot of people have written about this.
There's something about the Irish North and South that that
we obviously are into storytelling and literature.
And, you know, the greatest writers in the world, a lot of
them, Yates and Joyce and Heaney and all, you know, they're,
they're all feed off that culture which some people have
put down to the, the language being stolen away, the the
Gaelic language being stolen away and banned and so forth.
And therefore you had, you know, the Irish had a talk in riddles,
you know, they were talking riddles like it.
And it still exists today. And I think in the North it has
a lot to do with the, you know, that whole thing, the Seamus
heating thing of whatever you say, say nothing and, you know,
trying to find out where somebody's from, from their name
and all that, that, that don't, you know, And you know,
everything is a question in Northern Ireland, you know.
Yeah, yeah. I think the funniest thing is
when that I always say to Americans, you know, here's the
difference. When you meet someone from
America that you've encountered before and you can't remember
who they are, or even if you can remember, they'll come up to you
and say, oh, Terry, you know how I'm sure you don't remember we
met in blah, blah, blah. When that happens in the
Belfast, if you fucking don't Remember Me.
It's it's an accusation right away versus the, you know, the
other thing and that's kind of the whole conversation.
So so there's a there's a Christmas and a cutting edge to
our dialogue and to the stories we tell.
Unsure. So you you feed on that.
So so yeah. And then I mean, within the name
of the father. It was Jim was doing the, the
fact, the kind of father son stuff when I was doing the
political, the troubles in the gaols or whatever, and we mixed
it up. But there was that combination,
you know. Did you have any reservations
about about writing projects or around the troubles and based
around that time and dealing with political issues and and
being from here or was it just something that you.
Yeah, no. Reservations and you know, it,
it it had, it created problems for me, a lot of problems.
But you have to get it out there, you know, and you have to
understand. And I knew right away I was
writing from the I'm, I'm Catholic in name only, you know,
and the test the structure of the Catholic Church.
But I'm, you know, Republican. And so I knew, right, you know,
I have a bias that's going to appear there.
And you can't help that. And you try to mitigate that by
putting your yourself in the headspace of the people on the
other side and try to write that way as much as you can.
And I guess, I suppose the biggest condemnation I got, but
from both sides was for some mother's son, you know, the the
hunger strike movie. But I was trying to write from
the perspective of the mothers. You know that.
And it's funny, I watched the crime reluctantly at 1st and
then I'm enjoying it. I just started, yeah.
I watched it. I've watched the whole fourth
season now, which usually probably just getting fed at the
minute. But the whole the thought, you
know, Julian Armstrong does an amazing job with Thatcher.
And what struck me, there's a whole episode based around when
her son Mark went missing in the Sahara Desert and the effect it
had on her. And what struck me about that
was this is the same woman that, you know, that ten sons starved
to death over what turned out to be a little boast, you know, was
resolved. Yeah.
I don't know, you know, reasonably quickly once that,
that, that. No, no, no.
Thatcherism gave way till the day.
So. Yeah, that.
So, you know, I've never hidden or claimed to be objective.
You can't be objective in film. If you point the camera 30
seconds one way and five seconds the other, you've already made
it. You know, a subjective decision.
I mean, I, I, I just started the crown.
I went into it with, I don't know a lot about the royal
family. I mean, probably went to into it
with, with real indifference. And I think I'm about 5 episodes
in and I've never understood people Terry that order like
commemorative plates and tea towels about the Royals before.
But now I just find myself Googling like, what can I get?
You know, You know, coasters, whatever it is, pillows.
As an investment or as as that you're a fan.
I don't know why I'm. I'm I'm, I'm just, I don't know,
I'm just obsessed with I think that that world.
I think that that notion of, of being so detached from, from
reality and living in such a such an old kind of way, like
that's, that's mediaeval almost to, you know, just be so out of
touch with the, with the real world.
I, I, I find it really, really fascinating.
Really fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know,
half the world does now. It's a big hit.
And clearly, I mean, they don't come off very well.
No, I guess the Queen does pretty well.
And strangely, Prince Philip does.
He always struck me as the biggest wobbly of them all, you
know? I mean, Charles is a disaster,
you know? Princeville comes across like
someone who who kind of just got swept along with it and decided
to have a bit of fun, a bit of fun along the way.
Yeah, but it's the entitlement that that should all be allowed
to happen. Yeah.
I mean, it's great TV and people over here love it and, and it's
interesting to see the perspective of it, you know?
It's, it's difficult to watch it being, being from Northern
Ireland. That's I think we are, we're
very polite and we have good etiquette.
And it's very difficult to watch it whenever people don't say
thank you at every at every turn.
You know, when when one of the Royals takes off a robe and a
servant takes it, you know, there should you should be
turning around every time here. Cheers, mate.
Appreciate that. There's no thanks.
You know, I just want to see everybody thanked.
But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a fascinating series.
I I don't want to dwell too much on politics at all, but in the,
in the article that I that, that I read or read about you, you've
been interned about internment. And that's something, that's
something I. Was adjourned and then I was
sentenced and. Yeah, and obviously that came
out in the. You know, it, it shows up in the
movies and it, you know, it came out in the press coverage
hugely, you know, and and you know, you can't do three years
in long cases. It was then not have a big
impact on your life. But yeah, I mean, it's, I have
to remember it's 40 years ago now, you know, and there's like,
I've actually lived in the United States longer than
Northern Ireland or Northern Ireland is my home and, or the
north of Ireland or whatever the fuck you want.
Yeah, I know. I don't.
I don't think there's a right answer.
Well, I don't know. What should we call it?
Bally. Let's let's get a new name for
it and make Danny Boy the national anthem and fucking move
on. I mean, that's a simplistic
thing to say, but. No, I'd be all for.
It. I'd be all for it.
I mean you you. It is crazy that you can.
Batland. Let's Let's call it Batland.
We can have a flag with a big bap with an egg and sausage in
the middle of it. And I'm all for bapland.
I think the one thing that we unite both sides of the
community is BAPS. We're united in our food choices
for sure. Baps can't be Baps cannot be
denied. And you can see that when you
see everyone. Everybody in Northern Ireland
but including myself, needs to lose 20 lbs.
You split, Yeah, yeah, You talked about, you know,
splitting sometime between America and and and here.
Whenever you come back to here, what do you, what do you really
like to do? What's the what's what's your
like go to thing if you've been away for a while?
Well, you know, I was, but I was home from January to literally
February 26th because my daughter Orla just shot a movie.
Oh, it's great. Right In the same location as
the shore, basically my house and around there.
Yeah, the George's saying there seems to be a little bit of
pattern of the the George's enjoy just like doing a little
bit of filming from the house, which which I can definitely get
on board with, you know, just keeping it close to home.
Let me tell you, I don't enjoy it because the fucking house
gets wrecked. Right, right.
Having. A film crew around your house
and in your house and all around it.
Now the short was only 6 days, so that was nothing.
This was two months and is liable to be more because of
some reshoots needed or whatever.
But but the the area, the region, Kalak Art Glass, the
mourns Terella is one of the most beautiful places in the
world and friendliest and and neglected because it never had
the same attention as, say, the, well, the northeast, you know,
Giants Causeway and around there, I guess Newcastle was
Royal County Down. But other than that, it wasn't
really on the tourism map. So I like to try to use that as
much as I can. Yeah.
When I go home, what I like to do.
Well, I mean, you see friends and I guess the Irish North and
South of this thing, they don't, they don't call you up and say,
are you available or whatever. You know, the door knocks and
then they come and that's a cup of tea and the Paris buns and
the custards and all that, you know, those wonderful healthy
foods that we love so much. Yeah.
So that it's more that getting together.
And, you know, I go into Belfast occasionally.
My brother Michael is still there.
And but that's that. Yeah, that's it's, it's, it's
just hanging out, you know. I think you know, the the likes
of Lacal and around the Mourns and our glass, that kind of the
work. I mean, I think a lot of the
reason why it is under undervalued and maybe not a lot
of people visit there. I think when when Val Morrison
made the song Coney Island, I think he put the idea in
everyone's head that every shop sells potted herrings, you know,
cockles and things like that. I mean, it doesn't make the
cuisine sound appealing. So I think that might have put a
lot of people off. I don't know that.
I mean, the two, there were two places that used to sell it in
our glass, you know, Milligan's supermarket and, and there was a
fish store and all, but the, the, the, the whole economy
fishing industry in our glass and Coquille and Portofagi and
always devastate, has been devastated by overfishing and,
and all sorts of EU/UK skullduggery and whatever.
And it's a shame because, you know, it's part of my growing
up. I remember, I literally remember
huge Nets of herrings being lifted off fishing trawlers and
some dropping out and me picking them up and putting them in a
bag. And that was the Friday thing,
you know? But yeah, yeah.
And potted herrings and all that and picking.
And, you know, I did a little bit of it in the shore where
they were picking. They were actually picking
Willick's not, you know, not mussels.
But Americans don't understand the concept of eating sea snails
is beyond them. I got.
Especially boiled. I got where the show was filmed
wrong. I I, I thought it was Dundrum.
I just had an area of Dundrum in my mind where I thought that
that's where the Shore was filmed.
So I didn't realise that it was that it was.
No, it's, it's, it's the Bay, it's Clock Bay.
But the whole thing is shot. And, you know, there's a title
Pole where all the locals would go out and pick some muscles
and, and, and Willex, mostly Willex because they could sell
that. But now, God help them, it's
Lithuanian refugees and Eastern European refugees who you see
are picking Willex out of necessity, you know, and they'd
be out there. I'd see a light going at 3:00 in
the morning in the winter, whether out with the tide.
So it's a strange evolution, you know.
I think quite a lot of, I think there's at the minute in our
glass hope we've got this right. There's fishermen from Ghana
that have just like got involved with the local GAA club and
they've, they've been training and playing and that, that was a
fantastic news story in Italian. That's a good thing.
But there's also, you know, there's the flip side of that.
There's Filipino fishermen who are on boats who can't get off
the border, have been on it for. That's a slave labour thing.
At the same time, you know, I mean that at one point I was
going to do a movie about this, about just slave labour on deep
sea fishing trawlers, not around our glass, you know, So, So
yeah. But yeah, it has evolved and
it's more of an evolved community, like everywhere
else's, which is a good thing. Well, that's Speaking of
projects that you would think about doing or want to do that
that that's one of my final questions for you is, is there
is there a particular story that you've that you've always wanted
to tell through film that maybe you haven't been able to or, or
or would love to do so but haven't haven't had the chance
yet? Yeah, there's a couple.
There's a few that I've, you know, that I'm working on, two
set in the north, one in the South and the market area where
my mother and granny and all was from fascinates me because it's
so crazy marketer. I know every, all the Belfast
areas are crazy, you know, and they all have their legacy.
But the market just was so, I mean, literally where my granny
lived, which was on Legging St, which looked out on Chromic
Square. And there was a courtyard that
led until a sort of a bigger courtyard and stables in the
back of these Victorian decrepit, you know, outside
toilet houses. And I think it was the Murdoch,
so the stoves that had stables there and they keep horses, you
know, the trotting horses and all that stuff.
So there was always horses, there was always animals running
about the market. They were all cattle getting
escaping and there'd be a panic and, you know, and because they,
the actual cattle market and sheep market and pig market was
across the road, you know, and they drove them like literally.
I remember as a kid, one of my vivid childhood memories is
working with my mother. We were going from across the
Albert Bridge and up that hump where now the railway station is
or whatever. And just as we got towards the
top of the hill, a herd of cows, and I mean hundreds of them with
horns, they didn't dehorn yet came charging over.
It was like something out of, you know, the Wild West.
And we had a 2, you know, and these cows came stampeding by
with these guys with these tanned boots.
They all wore these big tan boots, you know, whipping them
with. And then my grandmother's in
that stable behind her house. When the circus came, they, they
put up the, the zebras and the elephants in the giraffes or not
giraffes. I don't think I ever saw
giraffe, but camel, elephant, zebra, that's where they'd house
them. It was it.
I mean this. It's just insane.
I mean, 11 micro observation I only sort of confirmed in my own
head recently about the market is the way I drive into Belfast.
I would sort of drive down the Ormoor Rd in parallel with it.
And then don't think this is something you would ever
incorporate into a film about the market.
But any fella under the age of 40 that walks out of the market
towards city centre shorts all year round and, and I know that
is a very niche observation, but code on the top half jumper, zip
up trainers, always shorts. I don't know what it is about
guys in the market, what I don't know what they have against.
Well, that's that's that's when you that that was in my time.
They wouldn't be they'd get. Are you kidding?
They could. That's for where they.
Were in shorts. I thought with the pound boots
and the stick were driving and, and they, because, you know, the
besides those, the animal markets, there was the what's
now George's Market, which was a clothes market and then a food
market. And so, yeah, yeah, they were,
it was like the, the lifeblood of the city and the, and the,
the province filtered through there.
And at the same time they were tough.
Oh geez, that's a tough area. Yeah, I mean my, my, my granny
grew up, I guess on the other on the other side of the bridge in
in the new order on Susan St in the Newton Ord Road.
And then and that it did from the did seem to be a very, very,
very tough, very tough place to live around there.
But but but also great with the with the people with the people.
And, you know, she, I, I, I remember hearing a lot about
the, you know, from, from before the troubles when, when there
wasn't like quite a lot of the problems that, that we have had,
you know, with, with workers that, that mixed.
And I, I love hearing stories about that time and, and all all
around that area. Sure.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, and and and capturing
that, I mean, I think Mary Jones and Martin Lynch and, you know,
they've all done great work as playwrights and stuff to sort of
get the sense of that. But but that's just one area I
know well. And because my father was from
the Short Strand, Paul Mccarrick, there was that bridge
link. And so I knew, you know, they
were from Beach V Street. That's that's that's the basis
of my culture. Yeah.
So trying to capture that. And I mean, you mythologize that
sort of Dickensian because it was tough and the children were
thrown out and there's a lot of bad stuff went on, you know,
clearly, but. Starting work at such a young
age, but yeah, and hard work, you know, hard work in my granny
worked in Gallagher's and. He was a drug dealer.
We produced the most picking. That was the proudest thing in
Belfast. We produced the most, you know,
addictive drug in the world, recognised by all as such now.
And that was it, yeah. I got it finished.
I could I could ask you a million questions, but I am I
want to wrap up just by asking you about about two actors that
in particular that you've worked with two of my favourite actors,
Daniel Day Lewis and and Christian Bale you worked with.
You mentioned the problems with Christian Bale.
Yeah, I, I read that when, sorry, I was going to say Daniel
Day Lewis lived in your, your mum's house when he filmed the
Belfast was that? He did indeed.
He stayed there for a couple of weeks.
Yeah. And she's making these big fries
in the morning. And yeah, he lived in the back
with the backroom upstairs and travelled over, up and down and
black taxis and stuff to get the.
And I had to go around and ask all the neighbours to like,
pretend that they don't recognise Daniel Day Lewis,
which created a few hilarious incidents.
One guy followed him in the toilets and I think is it the
green bar or the glance chask or some bar I took him into and he
was taking a piss and the guy comes up.
I don't give a fuck who you are, I want your autograph and
Christian is just the greatest. I mean, he got this bad
reputation for one thing he did on throne, which, but he's the
most generous, you know, gifted guy so that you know, you, you
hear that other stuff and then you talk to somebody and then
you meet them and it's just the polar opposite.
And Daniel's a, you know, an incredibly honourable, courteous
guy who just doesn't, doesn't want fame in the slightest, you
know, which is why he's giving up.
Yeah, but I've, look, I, I don't, I've been blessed.
I mean, I've worked with Daniel. Christian Bale, Joaquin, who's
my friend. Joaquin Phoenix.
Helen Mirren. I'm looking at the posters here.
Dawn Cheadle, Sophia Canedo, Kieran Hines, you know, Oscar
Isaac. Who am I forgetting?
You know, it's just fantastic. Bill Paxton.
There's, there's posters on the wall.
That's what I'm looking at. There you go.
I love that. You know.
I love the the the in the name of the father poster is is
great, but the boxer is that the boxer poster with with the.
No, the boxer poster is in another room.
The the the it's the short of promise in the hotel about in
the name of the father the boxers over.
I'd say no, no, yeah, that's it. I just, you know, what do you do
with posters except hang them up?
I know this, this whole background here.
I I I had reservations about doing Zooms with this because I
do zooms with people on hardware and it's my desk and it's where
the computer is. So, you know, it's like, but
I've been told it's a bit intimidating, but fuck it, no.
No, I like that. I say, like you say, if you got
if you got posters, you got to hang them up and.
What am I supposed? What do you do?
I know. That's the thing about the the
Oscar. What do you do with the Oscar?
It's fucking, you know, it's a doorstop.
It's a little tattoo just here, you know, little things like.
If, if, if I ever won an Oscar, I think I would treat it like,
like I, I was a pirate with a bird on my shoulder, You know, I
think I would just constantly just just have it there.
Every conversation of that's. The way for like 3 days and then
people say catch yourself on you know true anyway.
Terry. Talking to you I.
Appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for your time
and yeah, really, really appreciate.
It well, I look forward to listening, watching, whatever.
Thank you very much.