Brendan Gleeson: “‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ has the funniest lines under the most tragic circumstances”

Without being one of the biggest names in the award race, ‘Almas en banjo de Inisherin’ has been racking up a multitude of nominations and awards for months on end. Without going any further, Colin Farrell won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and recently won the Golden Globe for Best Actor, while his co-star has also received much praise. The new movie of Martin McDonagh (‘Three Billboards on the Outskirts’) reunites with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, as he did on ‘Hiding in Bruges’, to reflect on how friendships are faltering and how interpersonal relationships are currently being treated. We had the pleasure of talking to both actors about all of this in an interview for eCartelera.

Pádraic (Farrell) and Colm (Gleeson) are lifelong friends until one day they are no more. Colm is fed up with wasting his life talking about unimportant things with Pádraic and decides to break off the relationship to devote the last years of her life to his music, which causes a catastrophe in his friend’s routine. Between the comic jokes and the existential rawness of their characters, both actors had to dose their performances well. “Martin writes very complicated characters”says Farrell, “Like my Pádraic, who seems very simple. There is a very crazy emotional and psychological life that Pád is out of touch with, but as the story develops and with what happens at the end, it becomes more complicated. Martin puts the his characters in such dynamic and unstable situations… also, he has a great sense of humor. But he’s not as fun to watch as he is to read.”. For his part, Gleeson also praises his director’s writing work: “He has the strangest way of writing the funniest lines under the most tragic circumstances.. And when you go to do it, the last thing you think you’re doing is laughing, but when you see it, things change.”.

Despite the comparison, Pádraic and Colm are still two friends with different positions, which makes ‘The Banshee of Inisherin’ a film without villains. “When I saw the film, I was really surprised at how I empathized with his character”Farrell was honest, “Look, when I put myself in Pádraic’s shoes on a daily basis and I was at his house, I still didn’t quite understand, objectively and intellectually, what he was going through. I was very interested in my side of the street. But when I saw her… that’s what that Martin does, is non-trivial in the way he expresses thoughts and feelings about the human condition. Last night someone told me ‘I don’t know who to root for, Colm or Pádraic’, and I said ‘You shouldn’t be on anyone’s side’. You see what you see and you experience what you experience in those moments of reliability between all the characters”. Gleeson, on the other hand, highlighted that, at first, the treatment towards his partner is more shocking: “I think in the most immediate reaction there was the aftermath of rejecting Pádraic’s character. That’s how I felt the first time I saw him, that Colm’s motivation was something to explore later, but seeing the devastating aftermath of Pádric, To me, he has more emotional immediacy and we stayed with him longer. On the other hand, as you said, it’s great that there is no villain. They are on the same level of despair.”.

The toxicity of the modern world

Another of the strengths of ‘Almas en tormento de Inisherin’ is the strenuous defense of physical contact, face-to-face conversations and coexistence with one’s solitude. “The idea was to separate technology from people and how friendships are negotiated with letters”Gleeson explains, “I think a lot of things are said without needing to speak. A lot of things happen visually. And there’s a feeling of community, I think the value is there. But it’s also in the way the community leaves The character of Pádraic aside, it helped me remember how toxic social media has become. Someone decides that a person is no longer on the right side. They become a pack of wolves, I think there is some sort of parallel. What is not said and eye contact is absent at this time. The need for silence is very interesting in the modern world.”.

Farrell confirms this witch hunt metaphor: “I was going to say that the proliferation of the internet in terms of communication between us was supposed to bring the world together and I think it sort of does, you can communicate in one second with someone ten thousand miles away. there has been an overall cost and an estrangement, a need for the immediate. It’s one thing to shout into a valley that you love someone and another not to, but just being able to grab someone’s hand and give them a squeeze sometimes says more.”.

‘Almas en pena de Inisherin’ arrives in Spanish cinemas February 3rd.