“Jaysus, you know I’d love a pint, but I’d better not chance it.” Actor Peter Coonan reluctantly opts for sparkling water when he meets Hot Press for a lunchtime chat in the Camden Court Hotel. It seems somewhat out of character for the actor, best known for playing violent criminal psychopath Fran Cooney in Stuart Carolyn’s acclaimed crime drama Love/Hate.

Fran would always opt for an alcoholic beverage. As, indeed, would infamous ‘drinker with a writing problem’ Brendan Behan.
A 30-year-old Dubliner, Coonan is on a break from rehearsals of Conall Morrison’s new production of Borstal Boy, in which he plays the young Behan. It has just opened at the Gaiety for a month’s run.
“Fran and Behan are completely different characters,” he observes. “Behan was seen to be a criminal and arrested for bringing explosives to England. He got caught up in a cause. It’s not comparable to Fran who, without doubt, is a 100 percent psychopath. He grew up surrounded by criminality and saw an opportunity to make money. He probably had no other choice. Then he grew into something a lot more vicious and menacing than Behan could ever be.”
In Borstal Boy, Coonan plays the young Behan against Gary Lydon’s older version. He had previously researched the legendary writer’s life and work while preparing for a small part in Quirke, the TV drama based on the Benjamin Black novels, in which he played a Behan lookalike.
“Brendan Behan, in his heart, was a very loving person and free spirit,” he says. “Jim Sheridan was saying the other day that, when his father knew him, and when he’d meet him down the street, Behan had this energy. He was nearly always performing. That grew from his love of people.”
Behan was also famously bisexual. Does this new production of Borstal Boy delve into his sexuality?
“We’ll never really know what the scenario was,” he shrugs. “He was a lover of people, whether bisexual or not. This was the essence of Behan. He certainly had a connection with [fellow inmate] Charlie, in the borstal. There was a very deep rooted connection.”
The play is ambivalent about Behan’s orientation.
“If you try and analyse his sexuality, it becomes something completely different. We don’t know what happened, or indeed if anything happened.”
The son of a teacher father and amateur actress mother, Coonan attended Ann Kavanagh’s Young People’s Theatre and regularly performed in local amateur productions as a child growing up in Sandyford. His mother, Betty, instilled an early love of theatre. She sadly passed away when he was just 12.
“Her death probably made me want to be an actor more. I have a connection to her that has lasted my entire life. There are times when you’re having a tough day and you go, ‘Give us a hand here’ or ‘Get us through something’, and that link is there.
“My father is a wonderful man as well,” he continues. “He was initially apprehensive about me becoming an actor. I remember saying to him when I was in college, ‘I always want to work for myself’. When my career started to get off the ground, he began to see I was up for getting up at 5.30 or 6am and going to the set. He said at one point, ‘No matter what you do, you have to work at it’. I went, ‘Fuck, really?’ I thought that if you think you can act, and people tell you you can act, that’s half of it. Roy Keane was a good footballer. He made himself great from the hard work he put in.”
Most of Coonan’s early work was on the stage. More recently he’s been shining on the screen. Although playing Love/Hate’s Fran is his biggest role to date (they’ve just wrapped the fifth series), he has shown up in a number of independent movies – including Between The Canals, What Richard Did and King of the Travellers. He has also just finished shooting The Guarantee, Colin Murphy’s film adaptation of his Fishamble play, in which he plays disgraced former Anglo executive David Drumm.
A father of two, he’s been kept busy, but an actor’s life is seldom secure. “That can be difficult,” he admits. “I’ve been working steadily since January. It can be worrying, especially when you have kids. It’s part of the job. You know what you’re getting yourself into before you get involved so I just make do. I’ve been lucky this year.”
Do you get nervous before performing onstage?
“Oh yeah, without a doubt, man,” he laughs. “100%. I did Philadelphia Here I Come in Belfast recently, and the nerves were pretty big. I imagine the nerves at the Gaiety are going to be tenfold.”
Who are your acting role models?
“There’s a few,” he says. “Philip Seymour Hoffman was someone I really looked up to – a guy who went from stage to film. I like Sam Rockwell and Gary Oldman. Daniel Day-Lewis. No one’s ever going to be like Daniel Day Lewis again. He’s a man in a million.
“There’s loads of great younger actors as well. Domhnall Gleeson and Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell,” he continues. “I’d just like an opportunity to play interesting parts and delve into an eclectic mix of people’s psyches. Testing yourself – on stage and on screen. Aidan Gillen is someone I’d look up to. He’s had a great career. If I could have a career similar to any of those guys I’d be happy.”

Borstal Boy runs in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, until October 11