Irishmen McPherson and Hinds See the Light in "The Eclipse"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 07:26

Written by Brad Balfour

It's no wonder that Conor McPherson's latest film, The Eclipse, should have had its world premiere at last year's Tribeca Film Festival. The Irish dramatist has enjoyed considerable support and success in New York City. Three plays he's written were produced here to much acclaim, with the last two — which he also directed — garnering various Tony Award nominations.

The playwright turned to film and has done several movies as the director, writer or both. With the recently released The Eclipse, he draws on his own experience with literary-festival traveling. This story of a man suffering both the loss of his wife and a lack of confidence in himself also has supernatural undertones. Though it's not really a ghost story, hints of the ghostly slip in enough so that an eerie tinge adds to this meditation on love and redemption — or maybe reclamation.

Supernatural occurrences have long been a part of Ireland's rich cultural history, especially given its pre-Christian Celtic traditions and Druidic mythos. Into this mix comes the fine actor Ciaran Hinds, who lends the right sense of unease and disquiet to his performance, providing balance to Aidan Quinn's bellicose writer and Iben Hjejle's anguish.

Q: This movie was loosely based on your friend Billy Roche's story?

CM: He was writing a book of short stories and as he finished each one he emailed them to me. One was set against the background of a literary festival; it's about a teacher who’s a volunteer at the festival and is driving around this lady who’s a writer and he becomes obsessed with her. He’s married and has kids so it’s how his life unravels because of his obsession with her.

We thought it might be fun to work on a screenplay of that story. My wife read an early draft and said, "In a story we can get inside the character’s head—we can understand what’s happening to him. But in a film, if we’re just watching some guy stalking this woman, women are not going to like him. It would be better if you got rid of his wife."

So I thought, if he was a widower, we’d sympathize with him better. Also, he could be haunted, and suddenly this whole thing took on a supernatural hue. About 20 drafts later we ended up with this love story and ghost story — a hybrid of genres. That's the journey it took.

Q: Have either of you had any experiences with ghosts?

CH: I believe I had one in my teens. In the North of Ireland, where I’m from, in a graveyard there are stones there from the 17th century. Disused now, it's on a little cliff, and in my teens I was up there messing around with some friends the way you do. Suddenly I looked over in one direction and there was this shape that formed that was very recognizable as old and human, but not complete, not exactly delineated. There was movement to it and also some sort of face. I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or my own sensibilities as a teenager going, "Wow, this is crazy."

But a movement came from this image and I thought it was very weird. I looked around to the others to see if they could see what I see and they were messing around. I looked back, and at that stage, whatever it was, it was almost like free of gravity because it moved. But it didn’t sidle or walk, it just went to a place and then whatever energy, it just dissipated. I don’t know to this day whether it was a trick of light or it wasn’t. But all I remember is the gesture of it was sort of spooky and scary, and I wasn’t going to go over there because I knew there was a [quite a] drop after it.

CM: One time, I was driving along — we had just done a film which I wrote, I Went Down — with its director [Paddy Breathnach] and producer [Rob Walpole]. We were doing a tour of local radio stations in Ireland.

We were in a hurry, driving across this very desolate area, and as we drove along this very long, straight road—it was a very flat landscape where we were—I saw a figure standing on the side of the road. It was a woman, and there was something about her clothes that she looked like she was from the 1970s. She had a leather coat with a belt, boots, and just the way her hair was, was very 1970s. She was standing in the middle of nowhere, and as we drove by she seemed to be looking right at us; I remember her eyes and this half quizzical smile on her face as we drove by. Myself and Rob, we both went, "Whoa, that woman was spooky," and Paddy, who was driving, said, "What woman?"

We looked behind and there was nothing there. Maybe she was someone who was standing there and walked away, I don’t know, but I don't know what it was or why or whatever. That’s the only time I remember.

Q: Aidan Quinn plays the famous author Nicholas Holden, who has his own set of issues.

CM: In the short story, he is the writer who has persuaded Lena, played by Iben Hjeje , to come to the festival so he can reignite this affair with her. What Aidan really understood about it was he thought this is a guy who’s obviously successful, he’s a writer who all his novels would be on the stand at the airport bookshop, and his books are made into movies.

What’s great about Aidan in that role is that while he is very good looking, he's gotten a bit older, so perhaps the character is feeling the hand of mortality on his shoulder, and he's sort of worried about his prowess and attractiveness; this is causing him great panic and pain.

It was Aidan who actually said to me, "This guy is in great pain," and I realized that he understood something about that as an actor because Aidan says, "I’ve always been cast as this good-looking leading guy. I never get a chance to express this kind of stuff, this panicky, freaking out, I'm losing it, I'm a jerk, kind of stuff." He really embraced it enthusiastically and developed the character and took it to a place that I actually didn't quite expect.

CH: He's obnoxious, arrogant, a jerk, and he's suffering something inside. That often produces the humor in the story because of the extremity of his confusion.

Q: The fight scene was very convincing.

CH: The way he comes in and says, "I’m not drunk." You know he's gone somewhere else.

CM: When you have to say that, you're probably not sober.

Q:  In the last few films I've seen you getting abused in one way or another. Mentally, if nothing else, in the upcoming Life During Wartime. I was really sure you were beaten up in that scene. You liked having him abused you...

CM: Absolutely. He has to go through pain and suffering to be redeemed. They were very committed during their fight scene, that's for sure.

Q: How was it shooting that?

CM: We shot it in one day. Iben broke her toe at about half nine in the morning and continued through the whole day doing the fight. I have to say in my own defense, I didn't realize her toe was broken until after.

CH: She didn't tell anyone. She just felt the pain and taped it up.

CM: It was pretty hairy.

CH: I know Aidan once warned me I was getting a bit too close.

CM: Except that he was really hitting you and then said, "Hey, you’re getting a bit close."

Q: So who was more the boxer?

CH: He is. He's American, Irish-American, so there's bit of the jock in him. Me, I'm a dancer.

Q: We haven't seen you do this kind of movie before; you even won the Best Actor prize at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. So what was the most challenging aspect of playing this role?

CH: The job description as an actor is to do what’s required for the story, whatever that entails. Because I'd worked with Conor while we were doing the play The Seafarer, we got to know each other—not just about work, but personally. When I read the outline of the story, I thought there was something beautiful and touching and serious and rather profound about this. But then there are some crazy bits in it that how the fuck do you get to there? In the end, I think I tended to be just as open as possible and not to prepare.

Obviously, you need to know the dialogue to be able to bounce off somebody, but to be as open as possible to every moment that you’re on camera. And what’s so wonderful about Iben when you work with her is just the purity of her truth. When you work absolutely direct with someone, it’s sort of beyond acting, it's about real communication, and there may not even be a camera there. There are moments where you put yourself in the situation, and you believe in the situation; therefore you are that situation. And you hope the way Conor uses the camera, he picks up the truth of it.

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