About A Boy

As coincidence would have it, Hot Press’ interview with Boyzone star and actor Keith Duffy happens the very same day that Westlife announce that they’re breaking up. Relaxing on a couch in a luxury suite in the Westbury Hotel, the immaculately turned-out 37-year-old Dubliner denies having any advance knowledge of the split.

“I’d genuinely no idea,” he says, with an indifferent shrug. “But to be honest if you look at any boy band, or going back to the fuckin’ Sex Pistols or The Beatles or anybody, they usually run out after about six or seven years. Westlife have done 14 years. I thought they’d have broken up a few years ago and had a break for a few years and come back. The fact that they’ve maintained it, I take my hat off to them because it’s not easy.”
Having joined Boyzone aged 19, Duffy certainly knows what he’s talking about. “I’ve lived that life, man,” he explains. “It gets so tiring. You can burn the candle at both ends when you’re concert touring. You’ve all day to recuperate. You can lie in bed, go to a sauna, get in a jacuzzi, get yourself ready, go on stage, and then go on the piss again. But promotional touring is different because you’re up early doing the live radio shows at six in the morning. Then you’re doing photoshoots and magazine interviews, live TV in the afternoon. You might even be on midnight radio that night.
“Eventually, you don’t know what country you’re in. You can’t see the wood for the trees,” he continues. “You get tired, and when you’re tired you make bad judgements. You take things for granted, you don’t appreciate the success you have. And you can start being unprofessional. To go through 14 years of that and still manage to keep it successful and sell albums, they’ve done a phenomenal job. But you have to ask yourself as well – they’re breaking up yet they release the dates of when their new album is coming out – November 19 – and they released the dates of the tour next year. That’s only going to help the sales, isn’t it?”
So you’re saying it’s a business thing?
“Yeah. It’s a business thing. They probably will break up after the tour for a while. But I’ve no doubt they’ll get back together in two or three years time. Sure everybody does that. It keeps you young!”
Although Boyzone are still very much together, despite the tragic death of Stephen Gately in Mallorca in 2009, we’re not meeting to talk about music. Keith is currently in rehearsals with Druid Theatre for their upcoming version of John B. Keane’s Big Maggie, in which he plays the role of womanising travelling salesman Teddy Heelin.
He’s loving the work, but daily rehearsals have their disadvantages. “Sorry, man,” he apologises. “I should have told them that we’d get a quiet pub in Dublin to do this interview, but I’d only end up getting pissed, and I have to go to work this afternoon.”

OLAF TYARANSEN: What’s your earliest memory?
KEITH DUFFY: I grew up in Donaghmede, north Dublin, and I was always surrounded by music actually. My father was a great guitar player and piano player and he was in different groups – you’d often have lads in the house playing guitar and singing. I’ve a brother two years older than me, and we tended to do everything together. An earliest memory would be one Christmas when I got a wig-wam and an Indian outfit, and he got a tent and a cowboy outfit.
Was it a happy upbringing?
Oh, very happy. We wouldn’t have been the wealthiest people in the world, but my mam and dad worked very hard to provide for me and my brothers to the best of their ability. We were never short of love or affection.
What were you like in school?
I was into me sports. I wasn’t interested in academics, really. I played Gaelic football and hurling. I was always on the school team and that kind of got me through primary school. I went to school in Clontarf and we got into Croke Park one year in the school finals. I left to go a different secondary school, so I was kind of starting fresh. I went to Ardscoil Rís in Marino and their local school was St. Vincent’s, who would have had a very polished Gaelic football team. I come from Donaghmede, our local team was Trinity Gaels, who would have looked upon, a little bit, like… (pauses) Well, I was called all sorts of names because I came from Donaghmede.
Such as?
I was called ‘Silky’ and I was called ‘Trackie’ because they kind of looked down upon guys my age wearing tracksuits all the time. So there was a little bit of snobbery towards me. Ardscoil Rís was a good school because it had building construction, it had mechanical drawing, technical subjects rather than just academic subjects, which was where my strengths were. Plus I played for the school team. I think I used to look for acceptance from people too much, I used to want people to like me too much – which was to my own detriment. There was a bit of mental bullying that went on because most of the guys in my class played for St. Vincent’s and the school team. I played for the school team and for Trinity Gaels, so I was a bit of an outcast. I probably wouldn’t have been the most popular fella in school, mainly because I tried too hard. They had all grown up together. I was the outsider coming in. I only stayed for three years and then I moved on
to Plunketts,
What did your dad do?
My dad was in the rag trade all his life, from the age of 12. Men’s and boyswear primarily. In his spare time he used to gig in bands around Dublin. Clubs and pubs, showbands, stuff like that. We were always dressed very well because my dad was in the business. We wouldn’t have the latest in technology with computers or stereo systems or video recorders or TVs. When it came to Christmas, we were always shining, we were the tidiest boys in Donaghmede.
What was the ambition when you were younger?
The only ambition was to play for Dublin in football or hurling. That was my driving force. I was pretty good at the Gaelic football. I was born on October 1, so I think the age thing was after September 29, so I was probably one of the oldest kids that qualified to be on the team. I was a big lad so I played midfield in football, and I played right-half forward in hurling. I managed to make the minor team as a footballer when I was about 17, for Dublin. And I think I played about one game, that was it. I got a bang in the head playing in Parnell Park, while hurling with no helmet, and I got a hairline fracture in me skull and by the time that healed itself Boyzone was kicking off. I never went back to the Gaelic and hurling, unfortunately. But I was quite an insecure teenager.
Were you popular with women?
I was very, very popular with women, from a very young age! We made our Confirmation with two all-girl schools in Clontarf. I got a lot of attention off the girls, but I had no confidence in myself so I was no good at talking to them. My mates that weren’t getting the attention, they were a lot more confident with the girls. They’d be talking to them even though the attention was driven towards me. Then I went through a stage when I was 13/14 where I got really bad acne. In school I was called ‘Pizza Face’ and ‘Brunch’ and ‘Join The Dots’.
That’s a cruel one!
Cruel fuckers, yeah. That killed my confidence
and killed the interest from ladies for a couple of years as well.
What age were you when you lost your virginity?
Eighteen. I was late enough, but my folks and my friends thought I was an awful lot more advanced with women than I was. I used to love to let them think that, but really underneath it all I was quite insecure and very sensitive. My ambition and my drive and my personality all came from the success of Boyzone, and that was obviously a few years later.
Do you remember the day that you found out you were in the band?
Very vividly. But we had a couple of years of graft before we actually made any money. I was the second eldest. I knew Shane Lynch most of my life – but I was just in a bubble, now that I didn’t have to chase for affection anymore, I was very much accepted by the rest of the lads, and I felt very secure. So it was at that point that I was able to start building on who Keith Duffy was, and start getting ambitious, and I started actually believing that if you wanted something bad enough and worked hard enough it might actually come true. And it was that that gave me my positive outlook on life and the security and confidence I have today. It all stems from the early days of Boyzone, just being in the environment that there was five of us who all took care of each other.We never let anyone say anything against us. It was that kind of
brotherly love.
Did you get beaten up much in school?
No no, I was pretty handy meself. I remember taking some hard slaps, but, to be honest, I was no angel, I threw a few back myself. Like I said, I was vulnerable because I liked people, and then I used to look for acceptance in people – which gave them the upper hand on me. They were able to take advantage of my kind nature. You understand the psychology of people a lot more as you get older and you can look back and assess why you were the way you were. It’s something that I have a lot more knowledge of now, especially with the fact that I have a child (his daughter Mia) with special needs, and I have had to educate myself on the behaviours of children, normally developing children and children with special needs, or autism, or whatever you want to call it.
You’re now heavily involved in Irish
Autism Action.
Yeah. I was very ignorant towards autism and special needs. I had to educate myself. I spent years doing that and now I’d be quite well-educated on those situations and the appropriate education and appropriate treatment. It’s a great way of reflecting on who I was as a kid. I can identify now with my own kids, whether they’re lying to me because they want me to believe a certain thing, or whether they need a little bit of help or reassurance. I’m very alert to that, to try and give them the confidence they need in life.
Was your family religious?
Well, we were made to go to mass every Sunday. A lot of the Sundays we’d hang outside and go home and pretend that we’d been to mass. Obviously, over the early years with Boyzone that was completely out of my life because I was living the high life, flying first-class around the world, staying in five-star hotels, and so on.
Had you ever been out of the country
before Boyzone?
Once. When I was 18, two weeks before I joined Boyzone, I went to Greece on a two-week holiday with me mates. Obviously that changed (laughs). Jesus, I’m fed up of airports now! 20 years of fuckin’ travelling. But, sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought…
We were talking about religion.
Oh yeah. I have great belief and great faith. My faith has helped me get through some recent hard times and bereavements – obviously with the loss of Stephen and there’s quite a few people belonging to me that have passed away in the last two years, which has been pretty difficult. But my faith has always got me through. I pray to Our Lady.
You’re a ladies man.
A ladies man, yeah (laughs). I’m into the rosary and I talk to Our Lady. That’s where I keep my faith. I’m not a big church-goer. I don’t believe in listening to a priest… I’ve lost faith in people a little bit because of the obvious kind of shit that’s going on with the Catholic church and the priests and the abuse files that have been lodged. I know some Catholic priests who I’m very close to. I love them dearly and it’s terrible that they’re being tarnished with the same brush as these other priests, but they all are unfortunately. Do I believe in religion? Yes I do. I believe in God, the almighty, the creator of heaven and earth. I believe in his son Jesus Christ and I believe in the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. They’re the four people that I would chat to and pray to and, through them, connect with people that
I’ve lost in this world; the likes of Stephen Gately
and other members of my family and friends that
I’ve lost.
Were you all drinking and drugging heavily in the early days of Boyzone?
There was a lot of drinking. None of the boys in the band were drug-takers. I had taken drugs in my teenage years, alright. I was easily led, I suppose. Mikey was the eldest in Boyzone and he didn’t even drink when we started. I suppose if there were drug-takers [in the band] I might have been led in that direction, but there wasn’t so I never had a need to do it. I had tried drugs before but I was never dependent on them or taking them regularly.
A cheeky pill at the weekend kind of thing?
Exactly. Drugs were too expensive for me back then. I was fucking broke! If I got anything it was charity off somebody else, but to be honest with you we ended up being pretty big drinkers. We partied a lot. Some of us more than others, but in recent times since the reunion of Boyzone – we really made the best of it when we got back together and we had a fucking great time. But we pushed the boat out and got pissed. And we’d be on TV at half eight in the morning and it’s half seven and we’re still sat at the fucking bar! Not professional, but we knew it was only going to be short-lived and we wanted to enjoy every minute of it. We probably did overindulge but we’re here to tell the tale.
Was Louis Walsh not going mad at you?
Nah, Louis was never involved, really. In the earlier days, Louis didn’t even travel with us. Whatever we did in Dublin, Louis would turn up to, and he’d be on the phone plugging and doing what he had to do from Dublin, but he never travelled with us. He wasn’t our boss, he was our manager. We paid him his wages and that’s the way it always was – right up to the present day. Louis would say, “Lads, it might be an idea to keep your girlfriends quiet because you’re a boyband and we want to appeal to a female audience, that’s who’s gonna make you successful. So don’t rub their noises in it. If they’re going to support you they need to know that you’re free and available.” He wouldn’t say that we weren’t allowed to have girlfriends. He got on great with all our girls. He was always very friendly but he would tell them not be on the forefront, to stay in the back. Me and the boys back then had older girlfriends. They wanted to stay in the background anyway. I’m still with the original girl. Obviously the rest of the lads have moved on time and time again.
How long have you and Lisa been together now?
We had a kid very early on. Jordan was born in ’96. We were together from ’94. To be honest, I had so many buddies that came from single parent families and they all had issues – issues with themselves, or with life, or a chip on the shoulder or whatever. It was a shock to me that Lisa became pregnant, and to her as well, and to our parents. I made a pact back then that, whatever happens, I’m going to be very much a part of this kid’s life. We, as a couple, are always going to be strong together as a front for our son, and through thick and thin and through rocky roads and upsets, we’ve managed to pull through to the other side. And I’m delighted we did. It wasn’t that I was a fucking genius and I knew that Lisa was going to be a great mother and a great wife and I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna keep you” – it was complete fucking luck and as it turns out she is a fantastic mother and a great friend to the kids
and she’s a great wife. I got lucky. I got really,
really lucky.
I notice you’re not wearing a wedding ring.
No, I never have done. I don’t like jewellery. I’m married now a long time, 12, 13 years. I wore it for a long time, but then when I got into the acting business – if you’ve been on holidays you’ve got a big fuckin’ white line on your finger and the make-up artists are trying to paint it out – plus there’s the fact that I like messing around on motorbikes and playing around with cars and stuff like that. And it was a white gold band and white gold is soft, so I fucked up the underneath of it completely. Lisa had it re-rolled for me twice, and I just thought, “Fuck it, I’m gonna wreck it again!” So it’s in my drawer and if we’re going out for special occasions or big nights out she’ll say, “Put on your ring!” so I’ll put me ring on. I like jewellery, but I don’t like the feeling of rings on me fingers. I usually wear a bracelet and a watch.
How acrimonious was the Boyzone break-up
in 2000?
It was acrimonious to a certain degree. Certain members would remember it to be cool, but it wasn’t. There was a couple of us who weren’t interested in breaking up. Listen, it is what it is and life happens the way it happens. I’m glad it happened now because the reunion was all the more sweet. The reunion is the most important part of Boyzone for me because it gave us unconditional time together for two-and-a-half years before Stephen passed away, to get to know each other again, to refuel our love for one another, to clean up anything that needed to be cleaned up, and to go forward as a united group.
Why did the break-up happen?
Ronan had gone through a really hard time. He’s the youngest member of the band. His mother died at the age of 54. He’s the youngest of five kids. His heart was broken. His head was a mess. He said he wanted to break up. There was a bit of ego going on there. I said straight up, “This is ridiculous, we worked our arses off to be the best in the business, we’re the biggest, most successful…” Take That were gone three years, so at that stage we were there to cream the money in – just do the gigs and make the money. It wasn’t good business, as five business directors, to break up the band back then. Why would you break up a successful company when you’ve got a great product, a great marketing commodity going on… why stop that? It’s bad business. But then when Ronan said he wanted to go and record some solo stuff, Stephen said, “Yeah, so do I,” and Mikey said, “Yeah I’ve been writing my own stuff, I want to record that.” And I said, “Listen to the three of ye, you’re all gonna try and compete against each other in the charts? For fuck’s sake!”. Myself and Shane were happy to keep going. The other boys made a joint decision then that it was the right thing to take a year off. Of course that year turned into seven years. But that’s just the way things were supposed to happen.
You became a pretty successful actor after Boyzone split...
Yeah well, I was kind of lost out in the desert. I didn’t realise what the fuck I was going to do. I wasn’t a very strong singer so a solo career wasn’t an option really. I knew the most important thing was to create a name as an individual now. And not the big one in the back with the broken teeth, as I was often referred to.
Your teeth look perfect.
I got them fixed. The Americans wanted them fixed for certain acting gigs. They were broken for years. I got away with that cheeky look, but me mother said, “It’s about time you grew up,” so I thought, “Right, okay!” (laughs). But yeah, the most important thing was to keep my profile up, so I did a lot of TV presenting work in London and stuff like that.
Did you enjoy that kind of work?
It was soul-destroying because even though I wasn’t a great singer, I was a great performer, or I believed I was anyway. I liked making people laugh, making people happy. The journalist thing just didn’t suit me, y’know, bringing up somebody else’s kind of attributes and stuff like that. I just thought, “Ah no… I can’t be doing with this”. Then I got a part in this short movie, which I loved. It was my first big acting role, and I realised that I didn’t need 20,000 people to make the hair stand up on the back of me neck. All I needed was a cameraman and a director. It was great, it was explosive. The Coronation Street press office read an article, brought me to Manchester, interviewed me, told me they weren’t looking for anybody, they just wanted to have a chat… about two or three months later they rang me up and said they had created a part for me. I went in for three months and stayed for three years.
What was Corrie like?
It was great. I done the whole white-knuckle apprenticeship into acting on Coronation Street, one of the fastest-moving shows in the world. It was a great learning curve. Life, in general, in most things you do, is all about confidence. It’s all about believing in yourself, and believing that you can do it. Don’t be worried about the people that are going to show rejection, just shine above them, shine past them. You can do it. Always keep a stern front, confidence and a positive outlook and be friendly to people, and you’ll thrive in whatever you wanna do. I believe that.
It obviously took you a while to get to that point...
Yeah, but at least I got there. There’s a lot of guys that I went to school with and I meet now, and they haven’t grown up in the last 20 years. They’re still fuckin’ 19 or 20. Their attitude, their snide remarks, their insecurity comes out. I’ve always been brought up to respect my elders, and have time for my elders, and I meet people now in their 60s and I realise, “Fuck’s sake, man, that’s the attitude of a fuckin’ 25 year-old!” A lot of people in Ireland… they call it the begrudging nation, but there’s ignorance amongst our grown-ups that they just never grew up. It’s childish, it’s silly.
Probably they had lousy childhoods...
Maybe so, and they’re rebelling against it for the rest of their life. Going into a pub and a guy in his 40s picking a row with you? “I’ll knock your block off!” I mean, what the fuck? Unless you’re a bloody gangster and I’ve robbed your drugs, why would you want a battle of the fuckin’ stags? Fuck’s sake, just have a pint and shut the fuck up, man! Why do we need to be rubbing off each other like this? Fuck that! But the realisation that a lot of men never grow up, they remain children – these tough attitude, chip on the shoulder, type guys… for that, there’s a million other guys that are fantastic and do educate themselves.
Have you ever done a stageplay before?
After I finished Corrie for the first time, in 2005, I did Dandelions, written by Fiona Looney, with Pauline McLynn, Deirdre O’Kane and Don Bradfield. It was my first theatre run, and it was brilliant. It was a lot easier than this gig because it was a brand new play so I was the first person to play that character. It was nerve-wracking, but the whole process in a play of sitting in a rehearsal room with a director and the other members of the cast and building on your person and who you need to be is very different from doing Corrie, where you literally get given a script and you’re word perfect before you go into the studio. There’s no rehearsal. There’s a line run and then you shoot it. And they shoot it backwards and forwards and up and down. They don’t shoot in sequence. Episode ten, then episode two, then episode eight then episode one, it’s all over the place. A very fast-moving job.
A different process with Druid, presumably?
The process in theatre is great. For four or five weeks now with Druid I’m in rehearsals with Garry Hynes, who is a fucking phenomenal director. She’s genius. Watching how she breaks it down and puts it back together, how she helps you to understand who your character is and how you become that character, that whole process is fuckin’ great fun!
Tell us about your character?
Teddy Heelin is basically what, back in the ‘50s, they called a ‘commercial traveller’, so he’d have been touring around Ireland being a wholesaler to convenience stores, making sure the products are up on the shelves and that kind of thing. I have a reputation of being a bit of a whore-master, a bit of a womaniser, very popular with the women, but with that reputation nevertheless. It’s a fucking finely written play by John B. Keane. Obviously we play it straight but there’s loads of laughs in it, loads of black humour. Druid are fantastic, probably one of the best Irish theatre production companies, with the best theatre director we’ve ever produced – Garry Hynes. For them to consider me for a job like this is a huge honour.
What’s happening with Boyzone?
Since we got back together, we’ve done three successful tours, we brought out two albums, both of which were No.1 for four or five weeks in the UK. We’ll never split up again. We’re not a band that is gonna be busy working 12 months of the year, because we’ve all got families and kids and different interests. I love my time with the band. I’d never be in the music business outside of Boyzone. Everything that happened to me – the birth of my children, my marriage, everything has been while I was in Boyzone. So it’s a part of me life I never wanna close the door on. When we’re performing together, we’re fucking good.
So what’s next for the band?
The pipeline story at the moment is that we’re 20 years together in 2013. So we’re thinking of getting back together at the end of 2012, October, November, and getting a new album together, an anniversary album of some of our favourite songs – some of our old songs and some brand new songs. Maybe do an anniversary tour. Just celebrate the fact that we’re 20 years together.
Where were you when you got the news that Stephen Gately had died?
I’d had a few drinks. There’s a lady, Annie Gribbon, she owns Make-Up Forever. She’d done our make-up back in the early days. We were at her 50th birthday party, and myself and a mate of mine and his wife and my wife were in a taxi-van on the way to the Wright Venue, and Ronan rang me from Chicago. I think it was about ten to twelve or something
like that.
It must have been a massive shock.
Well you can imagine. Complete just... madness, disbelief, craziness. I fell onto the floor and I was crying for about five minutes before I actually verbalised to everybody else in the car why I was there. I remember Lisa screaming, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” and she actually got annoyed with me because I didn’t answer. I didn’t even hear her. I was kind of in this zone of, “What the fuck is going on?” It was a really horrible, horrible fuckin’ feeling.
How does it feel now?
I don’t have that horrible feeling anymore. At the time, you’re uncontrollably emotional. The soreness is still there, but you can control your emotions when you get one of those waves of reality that he is actually gone.
What happened next that night?
Shane lives in London. But he just so happened to be in Dublin that night. I rang him and he said he was in Dublin. I said, “I’m coming to get you,” so I went and picked up Shane. Ronan was on a flight home from Chicago. Mikey was out at the Man Of War pub having a pint. I rang him and we all met up at my house, just behind the airport. We all went out there and booked ourselves on the first flight to London the next morning. Our big thing was to get to London to meet Ronan, and get over to Mallorca straight away. Really, really good friends sent in a couple of private jets to pick us up and get us over there so we didn’t have to worry about that. We got the plane from Dublin Airport to London and
there was a private airship waiting to bring us
out to Mallorca
Describe the scene.
It’s gas, because being in a boyband wouldn’t have been the most hip thing back in the ‘90s, and most blokes our age would kind of throw stones at us or slag us off. It just wasn’t cool to be in a boyband, especially coming from such a rock-renowned country with the likes of Therapy? and U2 and Sinéad O’Connor, and obviously now you’ve got The Script and The Coronas and The Blizzards – we’re such a rock ‘n’ roll country. And going through the airport – on our own we could kind of dart, put the baseball cap on and get away from the grief, but when we were together it was a nightmare, and for years we’d have stag dos and hen parties in airports… the hen parties would be dying to get photos and they’d be all over us, but the stag dos would just be ripping the shit out of us. So, we were going through the airport at about half four in the morning. The people we were going to meet in the Wright Venue found out what happened and they all arrived back at my house, so there was about 200 people at my house, but myself, Shane and Mikey locked ourselves – we have a little bar in the garden – we locked ourselves in there sipping whiskey, just to get our heads together about what we were going to do. We were walking through security, and obviously all the plasma screens in the airport had breaking news – “Stephen Gately is dead” – and we were all very emotional. But there was about 30 guys on a stag do, on the righthand side walking down towards the A gates or the B gates, and Shane looked at me and I looked at him and Mikey looked at us… (laughs) The three of us said nothing but it was all, “If these fuckers say anything, let’s just hammer them!” We didn’t give a fuck, we knew we’d get locked up, but under the circumstances we’d be out and we’d be on the next plane. We’ve walked away from these pricks all our lives, let’s just dive in. Honest to god, we walked past the 30 of them and every single one just went, “How are ya, lads? Sorry lads...” It was amazing. It made us worse. It made
the tears come down because people genuinely did care and they were all so nice, shaking our hands
and stuff.
The flight was at 6.30am. We went up to that new area where Burger King and the coffee shop is. And Shane said, “Look, I’d better get some food in,” and Mikey said, “Fuck it, I’m getting a beer,” so I said, “Alright, get me a beer.” So he went up and ordered six bottles of Corona, and Shane got two full Irish breakfasts. The two of them came back to the table bawling their eyes out and I said to them, “What’s wrong with yis?” and they went – “They wouldn’t charge us, man… they just gave it all for nothing”. It was amazing! We were going through security at Heathrow and people weren’t even frisking us: we were setting off alarms, and they just gave us our bags and told us to go. It was unbelievable. We hooked up with Ronan then and fucked off to Mallorca. The rest was highly exercised on the TV…
Do you feel you’ve been well treated by the media over the years?
The Irish media has never been as bad as the British media. The journalists over there were vultures for years. We had an understanding with the [Irish] journalists, we knew them all. The likes of Eddie Rowley and Ken Sweeney. But ah, look, it goes both ways, man. There’s no point in slagging off the media or the press because when you go for promotion you’re gonna use them to your own advantage. Then when you’re pissed out of your head and falling off a kerb at four o’clock in the morning coming out of China White’s in London, and you’re photographed on the front page of the paper, well – you put yourself up there for a fall and if you’re going to fall in front of them, you can’t give out about that. Sometimes the intrusion into your private life can be too much. Everybody is human, and God made us not to be perfect, so people are going to fuck up. Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, and it’s nobody else’s business what goes on behind closed doors. The whole kind of shit in the papers of ‘this footballer is sleeping with this girl’ and infidelity or whatever going on… I don’t think it’s anybody else’s business. If it’s somebody like Cheryl Cole and her fella, and they’ve no kids or whatever, and both of them are media-hungry, well fine, write what you want, but when there’s kids involved and they go to an ordinary school with 30 other kids in the classroom, and their mammy and their daddy are on the front page of the papers and their private life is splashed everywhere, I think it’s not fair on the kids. So there has to be a line drawn between media-hungry people that are fucking up in the public eye, and parents of children that have made a mistake and fucked up. There has to be some sort of protection for the kids. In general, look, the media are there, they do their job. You need them, you want them, you use them, and don’t be expecting that they’re not going to use you back when you fuck up.
Somebody once observed that the worst thing about being famous is that you have to be in a good mood all time.
Well, you do. You do. And I’m lucky in that respect that I generally am in a good mood. I’m a real friendly drunk, I’m a real gobshite! I love everybody so I end up being too fucking nice to people when I’m drunk, and that can get you into trouble as well.
Do you have a motto in life?
Always look for forgiveness before permission.

Druid presents John B. Keane’s Big Maggie, directed by Garry Hynes, at Galway’s Town Hall Theatre (November 11 – 19) and at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin (November 21 – 26). Then on nationwide tour to eight more venues until February 2012. druid.ie.