“The baroque, operatic quality was a real attraction,” says Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham of his new movie, Let Us Prey. “I’d worked with the director Brian O’Malley before on a short, and it was a good script – but also, unusually for a horror movie of this type, we also had a very strong female lead, which interests me. It’s not the usually young hero saving the good-looking girl from whatever. She’s actually a proper, fully-formed complicated individual, which really helped.”
With an impressive and diverse filmography that includes The Little Princess, Jude, Dog Soldiers, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Hunger, Centurion and The Guard, Cunningham says he’d rather take a supporting role in an intelligent project than top billing in a film he doesn’t believe in.
“I certainly wouldn’t look at something and go ‘Oh great, that’s a good part for me’ and not look at the rest of it. I look for good stories, and films filled with good characters, not just starring roles surrounded by paper cut-outs. Hopefully then the film will exceed the sum of its parts, like in this film.”
He says being in Dublin for the recent same-sex marriage referendum was “extraordinary”, particularly as someone who “finds injustice abhorrent.”
“My favourite statement about the referendum was the 80-year-old man from Donegal who said ‘This’ll probably be the last time I vote and I want to leave Ireland in a better position than how I found it.’ I loved the humanity of that. It was something to be proud of in Ireland. I voted ‘yes’ for one reason: I want to get myself out of the life of people who don’t need me in their lives.”
Cunningham is endearingly enthusiastic about Game of Thrones, describing himself as a fan of the “glorious” television show. He also admits Davos makes a nice break from his preferred onscreen persona of “moody and broody”.
“In a show like that you do need a few decent individuals who you can hang your hat on. What I like about the character is that he’s from the lowest of the low, but he has more nobility and integrity than the rest of them put together. He’s principled and back-boned and decent and loyal – sometimes that can be particularly boring to play, but not in this show!”
The series has shot Cunningham to unprecedented levels of fame, to which he’s still adjusting.
“It’s odd, I’ll admit. I was in Sydney last year and I had to run out of a bar, it was getting a bit much. I’ve had girls faint in front of me. It’s a bit like being in a boy band! Luckily the beard is a fantastic disguise; I can shave the beard off, put the glasses back on and disappear back into glorious obscurity! But it goes with the territory; every actor on the planet wants to be involved with something that is this good, that is quality and that people love. And the wages of that are popularity. I’ve also been in this game long enough to know that the second you start thinking it’s actually about you, that’s when the house of cards comes down.”
He does admit that even five seasons into the show, he still hasn’t read the Game Of Thrones books, as he doesn’t want them to distract from the screenplay – and George R.R. Martin knows. “He keeps asking ‘Have you read them yet?’ and he told me ‘I will be contacting you after the show is over and I want lengthy reports back about each book!’”