My Name is Emily: Who Dares Wins

Getting an Irish indie film made is a challenge at the best of times. But with his debut feature My Name Is Emily, director Simon Fitzmaurice has redefined what it means to win against the odds.
Diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 2008, Fitzmaurice has not only defied that grim diagnosis, he has completely upended preconceptions about the condition itself. He has also redefined what it means to be a creative professional in Ireland. In a culture too often soured by begrudgery, as well as addled by competition for limited funding, Fitzmaurice has successfully forged a genuine community of interest.
His debut feature is a moving and poetic coming-of-age story about a young woman seeking to rediscover herself after being hit by tragedy. It generated more than €120,000 of its production budget through crowdfunding. It also inspired ringing celebrity endorsements from Colin Farrell, Alan Rickman, Sam Neill, Jedward and Lenny Abrahamson.
A father of five, Fitzmaurice is open about how MND has affected his life. His memoir It’s Not Yet Dark gives a frank and detailed account of the practicalities of his life, which include depending on a motorised wheelchair, a home ventilator, eating through his stomach and communicating through eye-gaze technology.
But his condition has never affected either his empathy or his innate desire to explore the human condition.
“I’m obsessed with the notion of the artist as outsider,” says Fitzmaurice. “It was certainly my experience. Of course there are many other outsiders, as I very quickly discovered when I was labelled disabled. There are many different margins to society, all of which provide a good vantage point from which to see.
“I wrote the script to direct it. MND had nothing to do with it. I am not trying to prove anything. I just keep on going, working any way I can, after MND. I’m very determined. It’s just the way I am. “Actually, I am trying to prove something,” he realises. “I remember thinking, I must do this to show my children to never give up. A cliché but true. So MND made me even more determined to direct this film.”
In his work, Fitzmaurice found a way to channel his marvellous tenacity. Despite concerns that film-making would be an arduous and exhausting process for him, he found the work deeply fulfilling and invigorating.
“From the first day of shooting I was utterly elated. To me, directing on set is just thrilling, because it requires 100 per cent of your focus, and every creative fibre of my being. I could not sit still now. I’m completely addicted to work, to getting on the road. My wife Ruth wanted me to be a writer because she was worried the film would be too much for me – but from the first day, a fire was lit inside me. Seriously: it was an energy I didn’t know I had and it has not gone out.”

On Being Addicted To Thought
This passion for artistic fulfillment is a prominent theme in My Name Is Emily. The director reveals that Emily’s status as a misunderstood, artistic outsider was inspired by his own experiences at school.
“Let’s face it: I’m a nerd!” says Fitzmaurice. “Or at least a want-to-be nerd. When I was in school I was dropped into a class that seemed to me to be full of super-brains. Everyone was better than me at everything: Mathematics, Irish, French... everything. Except English. English was different. We had the best teacher an aspiring writer could wish for. He was mad. A Doctor of English whose sole interest was imaginative composition.
“I wrote weird, emotional stories and he liked them. Made me read them out. It was the beginning of everything. That and Peter Weers’ Dead Poet’s Society shaped my young mind. I’ve been a want-to-be nerd ever since. Except I’ve since grown, to see that feeling of ‘I’m not good enough’ as a strength. I can never know enough; never read, see, do, or, be confident enough. And that’s fine with me. It’s the fire in the boiler.
“How that feeds into my work is that I’m addicted to thought – whether in film, literature, philosophy, conversation, or myself. Thoughts, bound up with emotions, have been my obsession since I picked up a pen to write down some of my own.”
Fitzmaurice’s motor neuron disease changes the nature of the film-making process. There’s a lot of advance preparation when it comes to the screenplay and storyboarding. It also means that his relationships with the actors evolve differently.
“One of the hardest things with MND is meeting new people,” he says, “as it takes time for people to get comfortable with me. On the film, I met new people everyday, and I’d have to communicate on a creative level, and very quickly. That is a serious challenge. But we got to know and trust each other quickly through the material. We speak the same language.”

The Joy Of Playing Weirdos
Evanna Lynch, known for her role as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter franchise, was immediately drawn to the film and to the thoughtful but misunderstood character of Emily. Learning to collaborate with Fitzmaurice was a new challenge for her – but one she found hugely rewarding.
“It was very intimidating being around him initially,” Evanna admits. “He has this stern, monotone voice and a huge chair, so he’s quite an imposing figure. And before I had met him I had read his book twice and had deified him a bit – so of course after the first meeting I came out thinking he hated me!
“I think because there’s a gap when you’re speaking to him, all these insecurities emerge in the silence! So I think personally that was a really good experience for me to go through, to really trust in myself and to mean what I say.”
When Lynch and Fitzmaurice got into a comfortable routine of exchanging emails after a day’s shooting, Lynch discovered the how articulate and insightful her director was. The two built a rapport through the particular intimacy and honesty of written correspondence.
“That process actually really worked for me as an actress, as I’m quite introspective and I work a lot though writing,” she says. “I journal as the character. I’m quite a quiet presence. So for Simon and I to be able to email and explore Emily through writing was wonderful. And it’s also an actor’s dream to have a director who is so invested in the character, which Simon was. Everyday we had conversations, and the more we wrote and got to know each other by email, the more I felt comfortable with him on set. So I’m actually really grateful that we did it that way.”
Lynch shared Fitzmaurice’s affection for the lead character.
“I love that she’s at odds with the world, but comfortable with herself,” Evanna reflects. “I always felt that dichotomy myself, in that I knew who I was and who I wanted not to be in the world, but I didn’t know how to express it. And Emily thinks she knows everything. She thinks she’s got it all figured out – but she doesn’t really know how to feel, because she’s afraid to feel. I thought she was an interesting mix of being very bold and very brave, but also very vulnerable and afraid of a lot of things that she didn’t realise.”
For Evanna, playing a character like Emily allowed her to explore facets of her own personality she had failed to embrace when she was younger.
“I don’t think I was brave enough in my weirdness when I was younger, I think I was more cautious,” says Lynch. “I think I almost make up for it now, by playing weirdos! I definitely wish I had been more free with it.”
Having lived in L.A. for nearly four years, My Name Is Emily is the first Irish film that Lynch has worked on. She found it inspiring.
“I didn’t quite realise what a vibrant, creative community we have,” she says. “It’s certainly opened my eyes to the creative life back home. And working with Simon was life-changing. He’s the most passionate person you’ll ever meet. He loves life. I think because he’s been pushed so close to death and he’s had medical people telling him that he should let go, he’s really struggled to get his voice out there. It was amazing to be around that energy and that zest for life.”

A Beautiful Piece Of Story-telling
Musician James Vincent McMorrow was similarly moved by Simon’s personal strength, having met the director when they were both guests on an RTE show.
“I wasn’t aware of him before that moment, but just hearing him speak on the show, tell his story, it was emotional,” says the singer. “I found myself intrigued by who this person was and what he was doing. When they told me he had written a book, a screen play, and was about to direct it, that blew my mind!”
McMorrow allowed a few of his songs to be used in the film for free, but after being shown a rough cut of the film, was so moved by the story that he decided to write an original song to match the power of Fitzmaurice’s film. The resulting track, the haunting ‘You Alone’, expresses the film’s themes of self-acceptance.
“Simon wrote a film about loss. I wanted to capture that in some way, without it being too downtempo and sad,” explains the singer. “The repeating line ‘it’s you alone’, which is the crux of the song, wasn’t intended to be sad, it was intended to be defiant. It’s a film about a man refusing to accept the normalcy of life, and then his daughter also choosing her own path – even if it isolates them both and leads to hardship.
“That’s an idea which means something to me, I spent a lot of my time on earth thinking about the things we accept as the things we have to do – and wondering why more people don’t question them. There’s also that direct link there for me between those themes and Simon himself. He is as much a part of that songs emotional resonance as the movie itself.”
McMorrow is effusive in his praise for Fitzmaurice.
“I know Simon and his producers want this movie to be taken on its own merits, and rightly so,” says McMorrow. “But at the same time, I find it impossible to separate Simon, and who he is, from what this film is. Like I said, he is a hero, and I truly mean that. I honestly feel that he and this movie should be lauded from the rooftops. The mere fact that this film exists, and not only exists but is a beautiful piece of storytelling – I just think that’s amazing. “Because every odd is stacked against this person, he could simply wake up every morning and sit in his house. He’s been through so much, is going through so much. And yet this is what he chooses to do: to write books and direct movies. I just can’t fathom it. I hope this sheds more light on the book he wrote. I read it on a plane and I cried the whole way – the person next to me was incredibly confused! It’s such a sad book, but such a triumphant book. I hope more people find it and read it. His story is one that should be known.”
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My Name is Emily is out April 8