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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Entertainment
Katie Gallagher

Colin Farrell says some days working on Banshees of Inisherin were 'awful' as he lifts lid on intense process

Colin Farrell said some days working on Banshees of Inisherin with his In Bruges team Brendan Gleeson and director Martin McDonagh were 'awful' due to the intense scenes.

Directed by McDonagh, the film sees the Irish acting pair back together in leading roles for the first time since the award-winning dark comedy In Bruges.

And whilst Farrell said they had a ‘laugh’ during the reunion on set, he admits the nature of the storyline meant it wasn’t always an easy shoot.

Read more: Colin Farrell's private life - marriage rumours, kid's health battle and worth

On the acting process needed for the film, which sees Farrell and Gleeson play feuding friends Pádraic and Colm, he said: “It’s the difference between being in the gym and then going into the boxing ring.

“Not that it’s horrible and a punishment, we did have a laugh working on it.

"But Jesus, some of the days were awful, Martin (McDonagh) throws you into some very dark corners.

"He writes you into some very dark corners and asks you to get out with just one match.”

Graham Broadbent, director Martin McDonagh, Kerry Condon, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson attend "The Banshees Of Inisherin" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival (WireImage via Getty)

Speaking to Ian Dempsey on Today FM’s breakfast show, he went on to heap praise on the award-winning director, saying: “He’s a special writer, he’s a very singular vision in relation to theatre and film .

“He does things with language that nobody else does, nobody that I’ve read. When I read ‘In Bruges’ I was at turns, the hilarity of it and the madness of it and the chaos that is inevitably going to feature in his films is front and centre.

“But fundamentally, they’re always really moving. I’m always deeply disturbed and moved and turned emotionally by the tenderness.

“When I say to my friends that it’s darker than ‘In Bruges’ they’re like say “What? How could it be darker than In Bruges?” and then last night I got a couple of texts from my mates saying “You weren’t wrong”.

It’s been 14 years since they first got together for McDonagh’s breakout film, In Bruges, but the trio said it was like no time had passed.

On being back working together again with Farrell on the big screen, Gleeson added: “It’s as if nothing happened. There’s fourteen years in between. We have a kind of synthesis about what and how to work. In terms of the work itself and the method that we like to use, which is a collaborative thing.

“We have each other’s back and we try to raise the bar and it goes through the way Martin works. It did feel like we just woke up from the day before in terms of ‘In Bruges’.

“There was a difference in that we kind of had to look at ourselves and say “Do we need to give each other space?” because we’re at loggerheads. We’re literally looking in opposite directions, but we took about a second and a half to say “Nah, it’s not what we do”.

The film is out in Irish cinemas from Friday.

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