Movember Spawned A Monster - Hot Press meets Aaron Heffernan

The Movember juggernaut continues to gather pace and this year it’s bigger and more impressive than ever, with numerous stars from the worlds of sport and entertainment lending their support to the cause. Amongst those who will be growing a ’tache this November to increase awareness of men’s health, and in particular prostate and testicular cancer, is actor Aaron Heffernan, who in recent times has come to wider attention courtesy of his role as Detective Gavin Brogan in Love/Hate.

“A friend of mine who works with Thinkhouse PR threw me an email a couple of weeks ago and asked if I’d be interested in getting involved,” says Heffernan of how came to participate in Movember. “He said he had some people involved already, like Simon Zebo and a few others, and the idea was that we’d do different bits and bobs throughout the month. I’ve always wanted to get involved — I am something of a bastion of the moustache.
“That’s despite the fact that, ironically enough, I can’t grow a very healthy looking moustache myself. I did my best for the photo shoot the other day. I’m still onboard despite the lack of growth in my own!”
What style of soup strainer is Aaron looking to sport?
“Well, I’ve quite liked the mutton chop look before, although I know that’s not really a moustache,” he muses. “Usually what happens when I grow it is that it looks like someone put the tail of Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over my top lip. But this time around, I think I’m just going to go for the full Tom Selleck.”
Presumably friends of Aaron’s have taken part before?
“I had a friend of mine from college over, Scott LaValla, who plays with Stade Francais and USA rugby,” he explains, “and he is actually an ambassador in Paris. He was over for the week and he was like, ‘Buddy, are you going to this Movember launch on Friday?’ And I said, yeah, I’ve actually been asked to be an ambassador over here, and so we went along together and met some of the founders. It was cool.”
Has Aaron known anyone who’s been affected by prostate or testicular cancer?
“Not directly in my family,” he responds. “But you’d be hard pressed to find a family who haven’t been touched in some way by some form of cancer. There’s no better man than a man with a mo’ to try and battle it in some way. If nothing else, it takes a chip off the block in the area of research and development for men’s health. I guess there’s more articulation about women’s cancers, but the more awareness we can create generally, it’s good. Obviously, it’s football season at the moment, and it’s great to see a big sports establishment like NFL rowing in behind Paint It Pink. It’s all positive stuff.”
Reflecting on the global phenomenon that Movember has become, Aaron enthuses about the smartness of the concept.
“It’s a clever mixture of style, looks and something that actually has weight and meaning,” he notes. “It’s like that weird intersection between the clinical, medical world and fashion I guess you would call it. Or male grooming, which over the past five years or so has definitely become a feature of the zeitgeist. You have these places like the Waldorf barbers on Westmoreland Street where they do these fucking cutting edge flip beards and so on. I guess it’s part of the hipster look which has become a beast in itself, and I’m completely into it.”
A busy individual who also runs the Collapsing Horse theatre company, where the other members include Game Of Thrones star Jack Gleeson, Heffernan is developing an animated feature film based on Collapsing Horse’s first show and has a couple of live action movies in the pipeline.
Undoubtedly, though, his most notable role to date has been in Love/Hate, and he’s scheduled to make a few appearances in this season’s run.
“I wasn’t in the first three episodes, but I have few small jobs to do over the next while,” he says. “Last year they took a bit of a risk casting me in the first place, because my character wasn’t actually in the script. But Stuart Carolan saw the audition and wanted to put me in somewhere, so they kind of shoehorned me in with the rest of the lads, and I was delighted with that. Even to be working alongside actors like Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Brian F O’Byrne, you’ve just got to watch what they do and learn from them.
“It’s been great, people love it. More often than not, people have nice things to say about it, despite the fact that in our roles, as the guards, we’re a bit dorkier than the criminals. But it’s been cool, it’s been one of the stepping stones to building the Heffernan empire! In true Conor McGregor-style, I’m not here to take part, I’m here to take over!”