Never Ask Me Why: Paul Auster, Novelist

First Published: The Irish Times, Saturday, September 5, 2009
WELL, MR AUSTER. Tell me all about yourself.” Quite a way to start a conversation. But then, if you’re Samuel Beckett, you can probably get away with any conversation-starter you like. And it goes without saying that you can lean across the table to pilfer a cigarette [...]

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Gabriel Byrne, Actor

 
First Published: The Irish Times, Saturday, February 7, 2009
HE DOESN’T SAY who the actress was; he’s too discreet to name names. But Gabriel Byrne does a mean imitation of her Hollywood twang, and an even meaner imitation of her horror-struck visage. He was on a film set, “quite a while ago now”; back, perhaps, when [...]

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Review: Righteous Kill

ROBERT DE NIRO and Al Pacino seem to have been circling the same territory for decades, gurning and glowering their way through twin lifetimes of a method acting. And yet they have scarcely once shared the same screen.
In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather IIcast them both as Corleones, but kept them (as is perhaps [...]

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John Barry, Composer

First Published: The Irish Times, June 14, 2008
‘I DON’T KNOW why they stopped using these things,” says John Barry, of the old-fashioned moviola machine which stands in the corner of his study. “Noisy as hell, but they’re still the best.” He pats the moviola, a sturdy freeze-framing contraption in retro grey steel, so bulky it [...]

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The Joy of the Round-Table Film Interview: Evening

First Published: The Irish Times, September 25, 2007
I’M NEVER messing with one of my own books again,” announces Michael Cunningham with a theatrical flourish at the press junket for Evening, the film that bears his second major credit as a screenwriter. The first was for the adaptation of his own novel, A Home at the [...]

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Maggie Gyllenhaal, Actor

 
First Published: The Irish Times, July 21, 2007
MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL SMILES a smile of polite, determined detachment. I’ve just asked her how she is. And I’m not entirely sure she has actually answered me. Possibly, all she’s offering is this look almost of amusement; why, it seems to say, would I bother to ask her such [...]

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On Mockumentary

Early in January, when promo clips for the Irish TV show Dan & Becs (RTÉ) began to find their way onto the net, initial reponses ran the gamut from confusion to revulsion. “Please, please, please tell me this is a piss-take,” went one online comment. “This is serious?” asked someone else. “Is this show reality [...]

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Bill Nighy, Actor

First Published: The Irish Times, February 3, 2007
WAITING FOR Bill Nighy in a cafe on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I find myself sinking into a state of deep dread. There’s no easy way to put it – this cafe is a dive. In fact, I realise, this cafe is a pub. A dark, subterranean, regulars-only [...]

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Anthony Hopkins, Actor

 
First Published: The Irish Times, February 18, 2006
What? Anthony Hopkins is here?” The porter in the hotel on Park Avenue spins around to his colleagues, who have just given me directions to the interview suite. He’s 60 if he’s a day, this porter; and on this job, on this block, he should really have shaken [...]

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