Martin McDonagh scored a casting coup when he put Dublin pair Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell together for In Bruges — and then waited 14 years to reunite them in The Banshees Of Inisherin.
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson have a lot in common. They are both from Dublin. They have both built careers that balance independent work in their homeland with big studio productions in Hollywood. And, most crucially, they share a profound admiration for Martin McDonagh, the English-Irish writer/director who, in a flash of casting genius, paired the two in his 2008 feature debut, crime comedy In Bruges, as a couple of exiled hitmen.
The chemistry was so impressive and endearing it is surprising that it’s taken 14 years — and McDonagh again — to reunite the actors on screen in The Banshees Of Inisherin, McDonagh’s tragicomic tale of a friendship crumbling in the shadow of the Irish Civil War.
It is especially surprising when you observe the two actors together: “Col” and “B” (or “Bren”) laugh easily and regularly; their banter has a pleasing flow and gentle rhythm that suggests they spend far more time together than their work and lives allow. Their friendship, it is clear, is a paragon of quality over quantity —much like their shared output.
Screen International: How did you both first meet, and what did you see in each other that made you realise you’d be good collaborators?
Colin Farrell: We first met in New York, at the Chelsea Hotel. Brendan wrote an extraordinary script, adapting Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, that he had no business having the ability to write… Jeez, I was just thinking actually, B, Everything Everywhere All At Once has a touch of the Flann O’Brien to it.
Brendan Gleeson: [laughs] I know!
Farrell: It fuckin’ does! Maybe that’ll turn the light from amber to green a bit more. Anyway, I digress. Brendan wanted to direct that film and we were meeting to have a chat. I think it was a couple of years before In Bruges. And it was just easy, to be honest with you, from the get-go. There was a sense of something kindred there. It was grand.
Gleeson: It was a kind of recognition, I thought.
Farrell: Yeah. Everything makes sense. Even differences of opinion make very clear sense, few of them though we have. Then when I heard that B was gonna do In Bruges and Martin brought that to us, it was great. We come from the same place and we’re apparently heading in the same direction. We’re heading towards the same target having left the same fuckin’ port.
Gleeson: Took different routes to get there, mind ya! [laughs]
Farrell: That’s the funny thing. Not to analyse it too much, but we’re very different and we’re very alike. We work in the same way. We love a good dig, and we love a bit of banter around the work. But then ultimately, we love to get it up and feel our way through it and get it on its feet and all that stuff. We’re always serving what’s on the page.
Gleeson: Yeah, the work is always paramount and it’s such a relief to be able to know that everybody is there to raise the bar for each other. There’s no competitive idiocy that gets in the way of anything. That just wears me out. So it’s always been like that. There’s an exuberance about the cleanliness of the way we attack it. And Martin’s the same.
Did you know Martin was devising a new script specifically for both of you?
Gleeson: I think it was seven years ago that he mentioned he had a script that was partially something he’d written a long time ago, when he was writing the plays. He had a theatre version he wasn’t happy with that he showed myself and Colin. So I was very excited from that moment, even though my character didn’t have the trajectory he has now. I really wanted it to happen, even though Martin had lost faith in it, because you don’t get to work with somebody like Martin very often in your life. About three years ago, it re-emerged in a new draft and it was absolutely exhilarating.
Farrell: Yeah, exactly the same for me. It was seven years ago, and I thought it was extraordinary when I read it. I was ready to go to work, but Martin said [adopts a London accent], “Nah, that’s shit. I’m not gonna shoot that. That’s shit!”
Gleeson: I’ll tell you what was there [in that version], Col, if you remember, the Civil War was much more front and centre.
Farrell: Much more. There was a soldier came over to the island, and I think he had a bit of a fling with Siobhan [played by Kerry Condon in the film] and all. It was a whole different thing. As Martin says, it was a lot more plot-heavy. There were shoot-outs. There was all sorts of fucking muskets and things. And by whittling it down to the simplicity of the fracture, the dissolution of this friendship, he actually allowed it to open itself up. The version we read later, the one we shot, was a lot more deep.
Is there something about each of you that Martin is responding to while writing your characters?
Gleeson: I know with this one in particular, [Martin] wrote all the characters for the actors he got. It wasn’t just myself and Col. It went right down through the cast list.
Farrell: Yeah, every single one of ’em.
Gleeson: But being Martin, he insisted on putting us into a place that he hadn’t seen us before. I think he was interested to see how our chemistry would work when we were put into a situation that’s unfamiliar for us. Because me and Col, touch wood, we won’t ever fall out. It doesn’t look likely any time soon. So it was typical of Martin to throw that in the mix, and make it the central relationship. He knew there was a chemistry there, and he decided to fuck it up [laughs].
Farrell: He turned the tables, didn’t he? Like the simplest thought becomes the most complex articulation. He just went, “Okay, so I brought them together in In Bruges. They kind of fell in love in that fucking fairytale town. Now I’m gonna tear them apart.”
Gleeson: That’s the man!
Was it tough for you both on set, having to inhabit characters who are falling in hate with each other?
Farrell: Only in the way that trying to internally invoke any sense of discomfort or heartbreak is. But no. There was only benefit from having the feelings I have for Brendan as a man and an artist, as an actor. We had a sense of trust that I have to say is very deep. We had a little conversation before we started. Brendan said to me, “Listen, should we give each other a bit of space?” And I looked at him and the two of us simultaneously said, “No, no, fuck that.” Now some days, we’d be on opposite sides of the ring. He’d be in one end of the pub, and I’d be in the other. But that’s more just because you’re getting your head in the space you need to get in. There was no staring daggers at each other. There was none of that bullshit, I’m grateful to say.
Gleeson: What was interesting is we came to a conclusion that we need to make each other’s lines difficult to say. Like, I was looking at him and it was impossible not to feel empathy for this character’s heart being broken in front of your eyes. At the same time, I had to grasp really firmly onto my [character’s] need to do it.
Farrell: But isn’t it funny, because then, honest to God, I remember sitting in front of you and hearing the words you were saying, but [seeing that] your face was softer than the words! My job was to make things hard for you to say. And your job was to not allow me to believe 100% that you meant what you were saying! [laughs]
The locations you worked on, in Inishmore and Achill, were gorgeous and give the film such an unexpectedly epic quality. How were they to work in?
Gleeson: Well, we went to the islands and we got gifted the weather. And then [DoP] Ben Davis gifted us the expertise to be able to show it the way he showed it.
Farrell: He and Martin really designed it. Martin was watching The Searchers, John Ford films. Martin’s always been great, but this was the first time I was aware in a beautiful way how methodical he was in his preparation for this film. How he really researched film framing, camera movement, energy. It was extraordinary to see. I was talking to Jamie Lee Curtis today, and she said she wasn’t aware of any of the camera movements in the film. That’s one of the greatest tricks. They had the strings, they performed the opera, and then they made the strings disappear so there was an organic appraisal of this beautiful land. And not only beautiful, but kind of maddening. I mean, it’s a lot to hold onto that kind of beauty.
Gleeson: I remember you saying that to me when you saw my [character’s] house. You couldn’t help feeling like you’re not doing enough on the planet when you look out the front door.
Farrell: You just can’t feel worthy. You better get your fingers in the fucking dirt and work the land. Or you better write a poem of note. Or you better do something just to justify the experience of living in accord with such beauty, such maddening beauty.
In the spirit of The Banshees Of Inisherin being a story about friends falling out, what annoys each of you about the other?
Farrell: It’s boring. There’s nothing. But do you know what, it’s probably good that we’re not in each other’s fucking grills as much as we could be [laughs]. Me and Bren, we’ve seen each other through the years periodically. Sometimes it goes two or three years; sometimes it’s as quick as 10 minutes at the Irish Film & Television Awards or whatever.
Gleeson: There’s a lot of forgiveness in 6,000 miles [laughs]. It’s good. We’re kind of kindred souls. It does feel that we can take up where we left off mid-sentence even a couple years later. So it’s one of those lucky things.
Astonishingly, there were 14 years between In Bruges and The Banshees Of Inisherin. Will it be another 14 years before we see you on screen together again?
Farrell: I hope not. When Martin started his career, I think he wanted to be a bit of a cinematic version of JD Salinger — do two or three films and then head off down the horizon. But now he’s saying, “God, I’m getting a bit older. I’m loving doing it,” and he’s got [more] stories to tell.
Gleeson: His talent isn’t letting him [quit]. So we’ll see.
But would you consider doing something together separate from Martin?
Farrell: We tried, but it didn’t work out. There was a film set to the backdrop of the Homeless World Cup [The Beautiful Game] that we were looking at doing a few years ago. It got made as well! It’ll be out shortly on Netflix.
Gleeson: Oh great!
Farre:ll Yeah, it’s lovely. But Martin was thrilled that didn’t work out for me and Bren [laughs].
Gleeson: It would have to be a good project [to reunite us]. One of the reasons Banshees took so long is that Martin didn’t want to do any old shite just to get the gang back together. I really respected that, and I feel it myself with Col. We wouldn’t want to do any old shite, either.
Farrell: Noooo! It has to be exciting. There could be nothing cute about it.
It’s hard to imagine the two of you being together in “any old shite”…
Farrell: Well then, we have to preserve that! We have to preserve your lack of imagination in the matter.
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