Movie brat

After much anticipation, Film Makers Ireland will announce the winners of the prestigious UIP (United International Pictures, of course) film awards at the Cork Film Festival on October 12. This is the third year running that UIP have been involved in the impressive award scheme, the largest of its kind in Ireland with a total payout of E29,000. This year’s recipient in the category of Best Feature Director is Kirsten Sheridan.

The daughter of renowned Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan (In The Name Of The Father, My Left Foot), Kirsten has already established herself as a director capable of capturing extreme and troubled characters, as evidenced by her award-winning short Patterns, and last years big-screen adaptation of Enda Walsh’s acclaimed play Disco Pigs. MovieHouse caught up with a very pregnant Kirsten, a mere couple of weeks shy of her due date, to talk about her award, her debut feature and Daniel Day Lewis.

TB: At eight and a half months pregnant don’t you feel like slowing down?

KS: I’m really lucky because at the moment I’m writing so it’s obviously not that physical and I can get away with it! But I do have two screenplays that I’m working on and I’m trying to get both of them to first draft stage before the birth. But I’m nearly there. Nearly!

TB: So you clearly don’t have that late pregnancy brain-turns-to-porridge syndrome then?

KS: Well, you know it’s funny because my brain does wander to absolutely nowhere. It’s completely gone in loads of ways – forgetting keys and all that kind of stuff, but I can still write, thankfully. It seems to be the last thing to go. It’s really strange.

TB: So you’re saving up maternity leave then?

KS: Yeah, exactly. I’m going to take about six months off and the award has really helped in that way. It means I can take more time if I want to and that’s really brilliant right now.

TB: Taking time out from the notoriously fickle film industry must be a bit of a worry though...

KS: It was worrying at the beginning but all the people I happen to be working with at the moment were really understanding though. I did worry that if I took time out that they would want to go with someone a bit more flavour of the month, but the guys I was working with were fine about it so I’m lucky, because the film industry is notorious for throwing spanners in the works when it comes to plans and projects.

TB: Again though, will the award help with keeping your name out there while you are otherwise occupied?

KS: Yeah. I mean I’m not sure it would get you jobs, but it helps. It gets financiers to take a bit more notice than they would have. But mainly, it’s just something that’s really encouraging.

TB: To date your work in both the short film Patterns and your debut feature Disco Pigs have displayed a strong preoccupation in interior states of being. Is it a particular area of interest?

KS: Yes, definitely. It’s most definitely an area of interest and actually the reason the producer of Disco Pigs gave me a job as director is because they happened to see Patterns. And they are both set against intimate, visual based worlds, but they are worlds that can smother you at the same time as being quite lovely. And I suppose one of the other things that draws me to that kind of material is that I like characters who are extreme. I’m very interested in mental illness and the main reason is that I hate the way it’s understood as a terrible thing.

TB: And when you look back on getting the call to do Disco Pigs, was it a really intimidating experience?

KS: It wasn’t for me because I had never seen the play so it was new to me. I did see the play before we shot the film but because the writer of the play, Enda Walsh, was involved in the film it was a lot less intimidating than it should have been. At the end of the day I was working closely with Enda and we became great friends and I was more concerned with what he thought rather than what the theatre-going set thought. Anyway, film is such a different medium so the play’s reputation didn’t really bother me at all. The only worry was keeping the energy of the play intact.

TB: And how did you go about that?

KS: Well, it was difficult because plays by their very nature are in your face and they reach out and grab you. Just replicating that is something you can’t get too bogged down in, because film has a completely different energy. So we had to make little changes – for example, even the first draft of the screenplay that I read already had Runt killing Pig instead of leaving him as she does at the end of the play. So both Enda and I were aware that we had to step things up a bit and take it to a different level for Disco Pigs to work outside of theatre. And we did change Runt’s character quite a bit as well, to contrast with the energy of Pig. We made her a bit more of a dreamer and we made him just full of rage. And we developed distinctive styles to go with each of their characters.

TB: Given your background, were you always more conscious of film than the average kid?

KS: Yeah, I was 12 when My Left Foot was being made so I spent a lot of time on set. And Daniel (Day-Lewis) used to spend literally all of his time in the wheelchair, and he never came out of character during the day so people actually had to feed him. I remember getting an awful shock when I saw him walking for the first time cause he so rarely did it.

TB: Maybe he was just being chronically lazy?

KS: Maybe so. But yeah, from an early age the lines between reality and the film world could be very blurred for me. And then my dad is making a film that’s very autobiographical as well, so it’s all a bit messed up!

TB: So at what point did you decide on film as your own career?

KS: I suppose when I went to college around the age of 19, but I always knew I wanted to work with actors. I mean, that is the part of the job which I get a real kick out of, and that was really what swung it.

TB: Unlike the rest of the distiguished Sheridan clan, your films don’t accentuate their political dimension. Is that a conscious departure on your part?

KS: Well, yeah. I’m really interested in personal stories, but society doesn’t impact on the plot in my stuff in the way it does in say, In The Name Of The Father. I mean one of the things I am writing at the moment is set in Russia during the 1970s so obviously there has to be a political dimension, but I hate those kind of social characters in films – the kind where the cop or politician or whatever just represents a particular point of view. I mean, with this story I’m working on, I am looking at Communism, and how it starts as an ideal, but becomes something brutal, but I’m interested in the couple at the centre of the story, and how the background translates in their relationship.

TB: Are there drawbacks to having a family in the film industry as well as advantages?

KS: Yeah, but I try not to think about them or I’d drive myself mental. I suppose the main thing when you are surrounded by the family and their strong opinions and views is that you have to learn to dislocate yourself from that in a way. If it’s your film then you have to make your own mistakes. No matter who your parents are.