Welcome To The Dollhouse

This month sees the release of Kirsten Sheridan’s Dollhouse, a kinetic, experimental drama about a group of inner-city teenagers who break into a beautiful house and spend a night there. As hedonism and chaos reigns, the film addresses class divides, stereotypes and the fluctuating nature of relationships. But despite its complex layers, the inspiration for the film actually came from a very modest source.

“Namely a free location!” laughs Sheridan. “It’s my parents’ house and they go away every summer, so every summer I end up making a film there! But I wanted to do a story about that idea of ‘random’. That word didn’t exist when I was growing up. There’s all this talk about connection through Facebook and stuff, but young people are actually completely disconnected. So I’d been thinking about that and wanted to explore it.”
Sheridan’s film is largely based on improvisation: the actors were given only as much information about the plot as was absolutely necessary. The result is one of unfettered naturalism, a trait she ascribes to the eclectic cast. Though What Richard Did star Jack Reynor and established theatre actress Kate Brennan feature, Sheridan and her crew searched far and wide for the actors, finding some unknown gems along the way.
“We did want to avoid getting very practised actors,” she says. “You can find great actors everywhere, you can find them in drama schools, you can find them on the street. The challenge was more to cast a group with a connection. So we went looking in boxing halls and shopping centres, and ended up finding Ciaran McCabe in a FÁS office! It can be a tricky process, as you not only need great characters but people who can work with others and have acting talent. With Ciaran we saw a great spark, and he was incredibly bright and able to take direction. It can be hard, but we got really lucky.”
The actors spent months sharing intimate stories about their lives with Kirsten in order to create a realistic back-story for their characters, as well as building a unique and natural group dynamic.
“You have to be really careful though,” muses Sheridan, “because you don’t want to be just needling someone’s personal life or exploiting it. So sometimes I’d take someone’s story and give it to someone else. Or if something had happened to someone I’d use the same territory but not the same event. I think they all knew they were putting themselves out on a limb, so there was months and months of talking to build up trust and making sure they were always comfortable. I was always aware that their job was much harder than mine, so it’s about respecting that.”
Dollhouse’s free-form style, almost non-existent budget and young actors makes the film seem like a rebellious push away from Hollywood. Sheridan’s last project was the drama August Rush, starring Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Terrence Howard. But though most directors dream of shooting a film with so much star-power and a budget of €30 million, she says she’d take her little Dublin-shot drama any day.
“I loved the story of August Rush,” she reflects, “but it was the producer’s story, it was based on the birth of his own baby. So you’re walking a very difficult line as a director for hire and yet you’re trying to put your own stamp on it. I probably wanted to make it edgier than it ended up. It was a great learning curve, but Dollhouse was more a reaction to having to ask for permission, because with a big film like that, you’re constantly asking financiers or other people to back you and bending a little. I didn’t feel very free. Dollhouse feels like mine, but August Rush felt like a lot of people’s.”
Sheridan’s next big project is an edgy, indie adaptation of Dan – son of John – Fante’s cult novella Mooch, which she’s hoping to shoot in Los Angeles next year. With three young children, many would find the art of balancing being a parent and a filmmaker incredibly difficult, but then Kirsten knows from personal experience that it can be done. And growing up with her father, In America director Jim Sheridan, clearly taught the 36-year old some invaluable lessons about being a great filmmaker – and an all-round decent person.
“He’s not one of those people who’ll be like ‘here’s a tip’. I learned the most from him by just watching him be himself. He’s the exact same at home as he is in a taxi, as he is on-set, as he is getting an award, as he is making dinner. It’s just an honesty and a respect for actors and everyone, so I try to emulate that.”

Dollhouse is in cinemas from December 7.