“I must confess I was never really a science-fiction fan,” he says in the new issue of Hot Press. “If I catch it I catch it, but I wouldn’t be running out to see a Star Trek movie.”
Asked about the Trekkie community, he adds: “There were a couple of times at conventions when you’d meet some of them and think, ‘You could do with a good wash!’ That Bill Shatner ‘get a life!’ line from the Saturday Night Live Star Trek sketch would cross your mind from time to time, but most of them were decent, nice and very knowledgeable.”
In a wide-ranging interview, the Dubliner also talks about his starring role in hit American show Hell On Wheels; the new Pelé biopic he’s shooting; Love/Hate; his turn as Don Revie in The Damned United ; Alan Partridge; digital vs. film and One Chance, his latest movie about Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts.
“My honest to God reaction when my agent rang up and said he had a script he wanted me to read about Paul Potts was, ‘Oh, the Khmer Rouge bloke,’” Meaney laughs before adding: “The script was delightful; it’s a wonderful story. I only got to see the finished film last night, and David Frankel, who’s previously directed the likes of The Devil Wears Prada and Marley & Me, has done a wonderful job.”
A film he’s less proud of gracing is A Belfast Story, this year’s post-Troubles violencefest, which got into trouble for sending out a balaclava ‘n’ nail-bomb press-kit.
“I just thought that was idiotic,” he proffers. “It was no more than I would’ve expected. Unfortunately, what started out film-wise as a potentially good idea didn’t work out very well. Everybody would’ve been better calling it off and going home. It’s a very flawed film.”
Read the full Colm Meaney interview in the new issue of Hot Press.