Full Moone Fever

"No!” Supposed nice guy Chris O’Dowd is booming across the table, his face like thunder. “No. You make a silly face, big balls!”

Thankfully his irritation is directed at an imaginary snapper, rather than a tangible writer. And it is, of course, all tongue-in-cheek. O’Dowd is sitting in the Guinness Storehouse, another drink ordered, charming a cluster of reporters as is his wont. He can’t like facing the press, I’ve ventured, casting sideways glances at my fellow professionals. A lovely bunch, I’m just glad they’re not all facing me.
“I don’t mind them actually,” the Sligo man smiles back. “I wasn’t even trying to get out of it at the start, I was just looking for another pint! But I don’t mind this at all. Do you know what I hate? Photoshoots. I fucking hate them. I just feel like a dancing bear. Almost literally. It’s not even that [they ask to ‘be sexy’]. What they’ll generally do is say, ‘Make a silly face!’.”
It’s par for the glittering course the comic actor’s career has taken in the past few years. Born in Sligo and reared in the small Roscommon town of Boyle (more on that in a moment), O’Dowd bounced from UCD’s Dramasoc (after a stint on RTÉ’s The Clinic) across the water and into a role in cult Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd. His comedic chops there for all to see on British TV, film work followed, with appearances in Gulliver’s Travels and The Boat That Rocked. The next jump, unexpected but fully deserved, was even bigger, as he made a splash in Hollywood with a star turn in last year’s Apatow-produced, Kristen Wiig-penned Bridesmaids. It is Apatow’s most successful production, and has put O’Dowd on the map as the thinking woman’s not-entirely-suave comic crumpet of choice.
I’m eager to know what it’s like to have so many female admirers. From a different perspective.
“With the big penis God gave me?!” he asks incredulously. “No, no... It never really comes into my life. I feel people talk about that more than it actually happens. Do I have women chasing me down the street. Not enough dude!”
As for the film...
“I was surprised by the success of it everywhere, just because it was so successful. I suspected it would do well, I just didn’t realise it would do so well. The night we had the premiere in Dublin was one of the best nights of my life.”
So now he’s used to the red carpet thing, he’s been going a step further of late and becoming part of the actual ceremonies. In December, O’Dowd turned his Irish charms to hosting duties, at the British Independent Film Awards. A new experience for him, you imagine his natural warmth and wit so him through with ease.
He lets out a whistle of disbelief.
“Man it was big night, a lot of fun. It was terrifying and I don’t know if I’d do it again but, as an experience, it was unique. It’s a weird thing to do and I didn’t just want to go out there and do the normal thing. So I did a dance, showed a YouTube video, did a dance...”
The group’s attention turns slightly to the presence of Ashley Banjo of dance troupe Diversity, also on promotional duty for his new Sky One show. So I have to ask, were O’Dowd’s rhythmic skills such that he’ll be asking Banjo about collaborating at some point.
“I mean, I don’t want to embarrass him,” he deadpans. “He does it for a living. I don’t want to be all, ‘Yeah, yeah!! And this is only my third job!”
So he’ll stick to the acting. And the writing. O’Dowd’s presence here today is down to both, as his new Sky one series Moone Boy is set to air through September.
“Well Moone Boy is a fantastic comedy, I hope,” he explains, “Which centrres on a 12-year-old growing up in Boyle and his interesting, disgusting family. He has an imaginary friend, who is played by an incredibly talented actor – slash dancer – called Christopher Martin Paul O’Dowd.”
How much of young Chris has gone into it?
“My balls. Well... it’s set in 1990, so all of these experiences are experiences I had which we’re elaborating upon. I remember joining the altar boys and finding it, as a clandestine organisation, quite terrifying. There’s an episode where we do a parody of Goodfellas, within the altar boy organisation, called Godfellas. It’s quite a seedy, terrifying ordeal.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my co-writer Nick Murphy. Who’s now called Nick Vincent Murphy. I’m sorry! He called me yesterday and...”
O’Dowd’s hand goes to his forehead as he slumps forward.
“Listen, his name’s Nick Murphy. The guy’s name is Nick Murphy!”
Come on Chris, it’s like when you added the ‘O’ to your name. “...Well there’s another guy in equity, he’s a big director of stuff. ‘But why not make it a fun middle name, like Blaze. But he’s the best. He knows that world really well, he’s from Kilkenny, a similar suburban Irish town.”
Think of Moone Boy as a fantastical recalling of O’Dowd’s upbringing, with more gags and inhabitants who look suspiciously like famous comedians. Filming took place in Boyle itself earlier this year. Is his home crowd in for a roasting?
“To be fair, there’s no villains,” he notes. “My family are terrified. Every time I go home they’re like, ‘Maybe we should just read it!’. No Mam, you’re fine. I’ve changed the names a lot.”
Let me guess, they’re all called Blaze now.
“Haha! The Blaze thing is funny. We have a joke where one of the boy’s has an imaginary friend. He’s going to be played by Johnny Vegas. He’s like an English wrestler who used to be on TV, like Big Daddy. And his name is Crunchy Danger Haysticks. We were talking about it on the way here and Ted says, ‘you know, my middle name is Blaze’. What?! That’s not a real middle name. And he said, ‘No, there’s a Saint Blaze’. He was like the patron saint of Sour Throats. Super Strepsil man.”
On a more serious note, O’Dowd was definite that the series had to be set in Boyle itself.
“It was essential, it wouldn’t have made sense otherwise. But what’s great about Sky is that they really wanted us to film here. That wouldn’t have happened with any other channel.”
Aside from his pet TV project, he promises further IT Crowd exploits (“It’s not finished. We’ll do some specials, I think that’s right”) and the big screen still looms large.
“I’m going to write a film with my brother. He’s older, so he’ll probably get me in a headlock through Skype. Hopefully, as generally happens, he’ll do the work and I’ll take the credit.”
There’s also This Is 40, the spin-off to Knocked Up which focuses on Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters. “I play a guy who works for Paul Rudd’s record company. To be honest I would have done it whatever it was but it kinda developed into a fun thing. There’s a whole thing where Jason and I try to seduce Megan Fox. We’re not good at that and I do most of it with humus in my moustache. I think it’s pretty funny.” He also wrestles her in a swimming pool apparently. One week it’s Ms. Fox, the next Don Draper’s missus...
“[January Jones] is a handsome woman! I’m sure I made that known to her. We were shooting our ‘bedroom’ bit, her boyfriend was there, she was clearly terrified that I would... touch her.”
He didn’t, he’s a gentleman. But you can see the appeal of being a movie star. His new plans to become an Olympian, however, seem to come from leftfield.
“I’m doing the floor, the gymnastics. Ashley from Diversity is my choreographer. Wait until you see me in my little speedos!”
The Whole Of The Moone Boy, then.