Volta™ – Irish Independent Film Online

The Guard has been called a dark comedy, a buddy cop action film and an intimate character study: how would you describe the film?

It’s all of those things, and probably a few more, but for me The Guard is a character study. I believe the characters are the plot. Obviously, the story must move forward and things must happen in a narrative, but ultimately a film is about the characters and how they interact with one another. It’s a very individual take on all of those things, like a black comedy crossed with an action film but fundamentally, it’s about this guy who just upsets everything just for the hell of it, but also to make the people around him reveal their true colours.

What was your reaction when you first read the script?

After reading 20 pages, I was thinking, this is insanely brilliant. I knew straight away that I wanted to do it. The writing just jumped off the page at me. I had a growing excitement all the way through and when I got to the last third I felt that all John Michael McDonagh’s ideas had really come together. He is a real craftsman and his writing is very assured. The script is packed with cracking dialogue that you just know he’s sweated over to get right.

Tell us about your character, Garda Gerry Boyle.

Gerry is a grand idealist, with these touches of cynicism. He’s frustrated in his idealism all the time but he perseveres. He keeps going. He’s not a hard man at all, although he might think he is. You can see his softness with his mother Eileen and his gentlemanly behaviour with the Dublin girls he meets up with. He’s lonely, really. He’s always looking to make a connection with someone and wants to meet someone with the same integrity. All the other men around him are sleeveens on the make, looking to drop a few bob in their back pockets. Gerry is constantly being confronted with a pretty miserable excuse for manhood, so when Wendell comes along, he has someone he can respect.

Tell us a little bit about the set up of The Guard.

When we first meet Gerry he comes across a car full of young fellahs speeding down a country road. Now, normally in a movie, the next thing you’d see would be the cop car chasing after them with the siren blaring. But Gerry has seen all this a million times before so he has a good idea about what’s going to happen next. The car crashes and Gerry goes and cleans up the mess as best he can. That’s the opening scene, and it’s where we set out our stall. We’re looking to turn the audience’s expectations upside down. So, later, when a dead body turns up with a cryptic message daubed in blood on the wall, you’ve got your typical film noir murder mystery set-up. An FBI agent named Wendell Everett comes to Galway to investigate this gang of drug dealers who have a ship-load of cocaine to unload. Gerry and Wendell have to team up to track them down. Wendell wants to catch the crooks but Gerry is more interested in figuring out the mystery, how its all connected, and isn’t too bothered about the rights and wrongs.

Our expectation is that Gerry is a hero, but is he, really?

Gerry has this idea of heroism that he might have gleaned from watching Westerns like High Noon and Shane, you know. He didn’t join the Guards to push a pen around in an office, doodling rabbits on a jotter, so he’s constantly disappointed by the banality of what’s going on around him. He’s one of those people who is looking to meet his match, just dying to find someone who isn’t shocked by his carry-on but has the principles to stand up to him. Wendell is this straight-laced, dogged kind of guy with this steely core who enjoys puncturing all Gerry’s balloons, if you know what I mean.

Is it fair to say that the two policemen have very different methods?

Oh, yeah. Gerry doesn’t sweat the small stuff, he’s fairly relaxed about procedure and you’re never quite sure what he’s going to do next. I think that there’s a certain nobility about his unpredictable nature, but he’d be a tough guy to deal with in real life. Wendell, on the other hand, plays everything absolutely by the book. So Gerry the smart-alec does everything he can to ruffle Wendell’s feathers. He says the most outrageous things, really not politically correct at all, and expects Wendell to crumple. But Wendell has been dealing with guys like Gerry all his life and he’s made of sterner stuff.

What was it like to working with Don Cheadle on an Irish film?

It was phenomenal really. I had met up with Don in LA before we started but to meet him in Connemara with the horizontal rain and apocalyptic wind was great. It was the middle of winter and Don couldn’t believe we were trying to make a film in that weather. He is a brilliant actor though; lively, intuitive and very intelligent. He follows the contours of every scene, he’s right there with you at the precise moment every time. He’s really focused.

You worked with Martin McDonagh on his feature debut In Bruges and maintain the family tradition working with his older brother John Michael on The Guard. Was it hard not to make comparisons?

Not really. They’re brothers and there are obvious similarities in their work but there are a lot of differences too. I think they’re both brilliant but it’s not really about making comparisons. As directors, they were both calm on set - which is always a good thing - and they share a vigorous approach. They’ve loads of energy and are really alive to the details of everything in the frame. They’re both brave and committed and they’ve worked out all the possibilities so they’re not leaving anything to chance. They’re both really excited about the form in which they are creating, and are both full of confidence, and that rubs off on us as actors. It’s just tremendously exciting to be working with them.

The Guard met with a phenomenal reception when it screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the US. Were you worried that American audiences wouldn’t get it?

Yeah, I was and especially since it was possible that the audience might not stay with it long enough to figure out how great it is. But they really responded to it and I think Don’s character really helps. Wendell takes the audience by the hand and leads them through the story. You feel safer with him than with Gerry, you know? “It’s OK to be a little confused in this strange place”, he kind of says, “I don’t understand it yet either, but we’ll get there in the end”.