Colin Farrell weighs in on the Irish takeover of Hollywood
Colin Farrell is among those giving theories on the current on screen Irish renaissance
Aux News Colin Farrell
Ireland is having something of a renaissance in Hollywood. The country racked up multiple nominations at the 2023 Oscars and followed it up with Cillian Murphy becoming the first Irish performer to take home the Best Actor trophy at the 2024 ceremony. In addition to Murphy, several other stars from the Emerald Isle have given breakout or career-cementing performances in the last few years, including Saoirse Ronan, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Andrew Scott, Ayo Edebiri (on an honorary basis), the entire cast of Bad Sisters, and of course, Colin Farrell.
Farrell, who was nominated for Best Actor in 2023 for The Banshees Of Inisherin, recently spoke to Entertainment Tonight about the “amazing” talent of his native country. “I mean, we punch so far above our weight, you know?” he said. “We’re only a country of five million people and I don’t know, Irish people—just whether it’s through music, the written word, whether it’s prose of poetry, film, theater of course, we just—we have a deep connection to… I think just to the importance of story and to leaning into stories and meanings with which we understand ourselves and the world around us.”
Last month, Pierce Brosnan—one of those interviewed for the recent documentary Quintessentially Irish—shared a similar sentiment with the BBC. “We come from a landscape of poetry,” he said of the wealth of talent coming from Ireland. “They’re great storytellers.”
Ros Hubbard, the Irish casting director credited with discovering Farrell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, among others, has her own theory about the Irish renaissance. “I think everyone wants to portray feeling and character but our actors are not overburdened with too much ‘poncey’ [pretentious or affected] training. Most of their work is through film. You are getting a genuine truthful delivery in their acting,” she said earlier this year, via the Belfast Telegraph. “I can’t even think of one Irish actor who would irritate me. They are just natural-born actors and the difference between them and me is that they know how to bring it to the next level which is showing people what they mean. Absolutely bringing the script to life the way they do.”
Ruth Barton, a critic and film studies professor at Trinity College Dublin, spoke to Slate last year about the pipeline for Irish talent, which is bolstered by state-subsidized theater. Young actors can start their training on stage, graduate to Irish TV, and then aim for bigger projects. And it’s a pretty smooth transition to Hollywood, where “they’re getting pretty accomplished actors coming in who know what to do, who speak English, and who don’t have to deal with the kind of cultural adjustment either because, you know, we can see American TV here.”
All of these theories explain why Irish talent has exploded in recent years, but not why those stars have become so beloved. Of course, being hot and gifted goes a long way, but the Internet has particularly embraced Ireland. For that phenomenon, Barton has another theory: “Ireland stands for nothing on the world stage,” she mused to Slate. “We’re not an aggressor. We’re not a colonizer. The Troubles are over. We actually live in one of a few countries with a fairly stable democracy. We don’t have crazy leaders. It’s a benign kind of identity, Irishness.” In other words, it’s just good craic.
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“We don’t have crazy leaders” was about to set me off on an Arlene Foster / Edwin Poots, young-earth creationists, tangent, until I remembered they were DUP and therefore Northern Ireland’s problem.
Even the non-British part isn’t the utopia that paragraph implies.https://apnews.com/article/ireland-women-constitution-referendum-8eead7fd4ee13e76d77e8322bf348d0dIt’s a “benign kind of identity” as long as you agree with a very particular sort of Irish Catholicism.
Yeah, not really. I’ve seen a lot of people, especially in the US, assigning more meaning to that than there is. Most people didn’t know what, if anything, that was supposed to accomplish and didn’t even bother turning out to vote. There are real problems that need dealing with. And also contrary to a lot of American media, it isn’t that they’re a bunch of racist, immigrant-hating right-wing maniacs. My family’s been here 3 years now and have been overwhelmingly welcomed. When issues do arise it’s been about being from America because of what the US is doing to the rest of the world rather than our skin for the most part.
Sorry , as someone who voted in that referendum , most of that is bollocks. The TLDR of it is my generation and onwards have gotten away from the catholic church and have gone out of our way to reduce its power in Ireland . Literally the fact that abortion is legal over here now , and not in say ..Texas would have been impossible to predict in the 1980s. .Regrding the article and changes to the referendum ..the whole thing was so vaugely worded that no one in knew exactly what was being changed in the constitution ,One motion seemed to be removing the “normal for its time but sexist now” wording that basically refering to women’s place being in the home. But considering the other motion seemed to remove the onus of the government to care for sick /elderly and that it should fall to the “family” instead , whatever that were to mean, there was a lot of confusion .A lot of people played it safe and voted for no changes at all to the consitiution. The whole thing felt very rushed and confusing, and that the government were trying to basically trying to pull a fast one. That , plus the fact that some older voters would still want a more conservative ruling automatically voted against it , mean that neither change passed.Most people want another ,properly explained , and completely transparent referendum instead on that wording .To take a quote from that article.. “Most people certainly want that sexist language removed from the constitution. There’s been calls for that for years and it’s taken so long to have a referendum on it. But they proposed replacing it with this very limited, weak provision on care.”
Now on the other hand , we’ve seen a rise in far right anti -immigration protests organised online , and that IS bad . Recentfly we had a riot when a (mentally ill ) guy who was originally thought to be an immigrant attacked a family in Dublin and left a girl in a coma. Ironically despite being born in Algeria , the attacker is actually an Irish citizen , and a bystander , who wrestled him to the ground and disarmed him actually was an immigrant (and he’s been lauded rightly for this) . This didnt stop a load of mouthbreathers being whipped into a frenzy by some online groups and had them riot .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dublin_riothttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/europe/dublin-attack-deliveroo-driver-fundraiser.htmlhttps://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/01/30/girl-5-stabbed-in-parnell-square-attack-readmitted-to-intensive-care/
Just here to stop this Jamie Dornan erasure!
we are talking Republic of Ireland and not the north…
Leaving Caitríona Balfe out of this is a tragedy.
My entire life my sociopath mother told us there was NO Irish in us, as though that were some kind of shameful infection. We were the proud descendants of a French knight (and some Scottish people). She pranced around acting like a princess her whole life.
I did the proper research last year. Some French dude went to Ireland in the 1600s. In the 1700s they came here. From Ireland, County Donegal. Only sorry I didn’t get the chance to tell her that before she kicked it.
I don’t feel remotely significant either way.Take that, ya stuke.
I have seen that a lot with boomers. That they are always 100% from one country and the decadents of some sort of nobility. See also the people that claim they have like 1/9th Cherokee princess. Its rare that people obsessed with their ancestry ever claim that their ancestors were one of a thousand shit shoveling serfs.
“…one of a thousand shit shoveling serfs.”Lol, Amen. People have such a twisted idea of what ‘royalty’ actually was. They were mostly ignorant bullies who were persuasive enough to con a large gang of people to kill other people for them. Then they took everything, leaving the majority to starve. How noble.
If you go back far enough, most people will indeed have an aristocratic ancestor. Along with about 999 shit shovelling serfs.
In an amusing reversal of that story, the actor John Hurt spent many years boasting of his family’s Irish roots. He then went on the TV show Who Do You Think You Are? and it turned out he had no Irish ancestry at all.
That is crazy. Well, all modern humans are descended from African peoples. We should all be wearing BLM shirts. I think I should put one of their banners on her gravestone. Maybe I can find a rainbow one too.
Also, Kerry Condon has been awesome for nearly 20 years at this point.
When asked why the Irish produced so many great poets and novelists, James Joyce replied that “A people so thoroughly buggered by the Church and the English feels compelled to sing.”