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No longer your usual suspect

by Jo Litson

25 May 2005 - WHEN Gabriel Byrne packed his bags in February to begin filming Ray Lawrence's new feature film, Jindabyne, his daughter asked him morosely why he had to go to Australia.

"I said because that's where the film is set," Byrne says. "And she said, 'Well, can't you get another job?"'

It's a question the New York-based Irish star of The Usual Suspects, Polish Wedding, Spider, End of Days, Vanity Fair and Assault on Precinct 13 has taken to heart. After 25 years the appeal of the actor's gypsy lifestyle has definitely palled, particularly since it means long periods away from his two children, Jack, 16, and Romy, 13.

"You read articles in the paper about stay-at-home dads [and I think], 'Oh Jesus, I'm just dreadful,"' he says in his beguiling brogue.

The nine-week shoot for Jindabyne is complete and for all his regrets about the time away from home, Byrne seems to have enjoyed the experience. Speaking in Sydney before flying to New York, he says Jindabyne could be a "very, very important film", not just for Australia, but internationally.

Apart from a handful of commercial Hollywood movies, Byrne has tended to opt for edgier fare, choosing scripts that he feels have something to say. Jindabyne is based on a chilling short story by Raymond Carver called So Much Water So Close to Home, relocated to Australia by Lawrence and screenwriter Beatrix Christian.

"It is a provocative film in that it really makes you think about responsibility, guilt, blame and forgiveness," Byrne says.

With its portrayal of Aboriginal and white Australian communities, the film, Byrne says, is a poignant plea for reconciliation. The issue is clearly close to the actor's heart and one that he relates to from an Irish perspective.

"I do believe that things like that have to be addressed," he says. "I think they leave deep scars in the souls of the victims and the people who have been perceived as being on the other side."

He recalls taking part in a concert in Cork in 1997 to commemorate the Irish famine of 1845, which some believe the British government could have helped prevent. Tony Blair had sent an apology on behalf of the British people.

"I said, 'That's momentous ... and you know what? The British ambassador isn't going to read that out. I'm Irish and I'm going to read it,"' he says.

Byrne read Blair's message to the crowd of about 35,000 people.

"It was the most emotional moment because for the first time we felt that tragedy was being acknowledged and addressed. That was at a time when people believed Tony Blair was the golden boy. Remember those heady days? There was such a sense of optimism and excitement in London after having got rid of Thatcher - I can't even call her Mrs Thatcher, but anyway let's not go there."

Politically engaged, Byrne doesn't just mouth off or sit on the sideline. He is an outspoken supporter of Ireland's film industry, has been a member of the Irish Film Board and produced several films there, including In the Name of the Father. A human rights campaigner, he was the instigator of a program for Amnesty International called Imagine.

Byrne, 55, is known for his dark, brooding, sexy good looks. He's dressed in blue cotton trousers and open-necked white shirt, revealing an occasional glimpse of pasty-white flesh. His hair is beginning to grey but the eyes are as piercingly blue as they appear on screen.

He talks quietly, thoughtfully and self-deprecatingly, the conversation roaming far and wide: the Catholic Church, the plight of the Snowy River, fishing ("I hated feeling life struggling on the end of a stick"), being an Irish actor in the US, raising children, the language used to report on the so-called war on terror, death.

It's all delivered in that gentle Irish lilt. He prefers to retain his own accent in films, as he does in Jindabyne. "I don't know if it's a political statement but it's a statement about who I am and about the validity of where I come from."

Born in Dublin in 1950 to a Guinness brewery cooper and a nurse, Byrne had a strict Catholic upbringing. As a child he was inspired by the idea of becoming a missionary and at 12 went to a seminary in England. He was sent home four years later, after being caught smoking.

"I don't practise Catholicism any more," he says, "but I think that it's a fascinating subject." He found the television coverage of pope John Paul II's funeral compulsive viewing and evidence of "how well the Catholic Church understands ceremony, ritual and theatre. Here was an ex-actor making one of the greatest exits in history on a set designed by Michelangelo and Bernini. I met him when we were shooting [Stigmata] in Rome. We actually shot in the Vatican, and he spent the time talking about acting."

Byrne was in his late 20s when he started acting. Lobbing up at the Project Theatre, a fringe company in Dublin, he found himself working with the likes of Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan, who would go on to become the Young Turks of Irish film. He had his first taste of fame in a popular Irish television series called Bracken. After working in theatre in England, he made his first film, Excalibur, for John Boorman, then headed to the US where he came to attention in the Coen brothers' 1990 film Miller's Crossing. But it was The Usual Suspects in 1995 that made him famous.

He has three films in post-production: Jindabyne, Wah-Wah, written and directed by Richard E. Grant and shot in Africa, and Leningrad, written and directed by Alexandr Buravsky and shot in Russia. For now, there are no other films on the horizon. Instead, Byrne is looking forward to a return to the Broadway stage in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet, opening in November. "That's six months of bliss or terror - probably both," he says with a laugh.

Byrne made his Broadway debut in 2001 in O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, winning a Tony award nomination for his portrayal of James Tyrone, Jr, a washed-up actor with a drink problem. He finds O'Neill "incredibly rich territory" but daunting. "Even just talking about it makes my stomach somersault because I know the horror of standing in the wings and not being able to escape and having to go out there, realising that you've got thousands and thousands of words in your head and they all have to come out a particular way."

His eye rests on a copy of the script on the coffee table in front of him and he laughs. "It is pretty scary."

There is a silver lining: Byrne will be in New York for an extended period with his children. "And we'll see what happens after that," he says.

Jindabyne is due for release next year.

Source: The Australian

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