Blood on the tracks
Murder on the Orient Express
LIAM NEESON, Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan. These are the Irish Alisters we know and love, flying the flag in Hollywood, earning millions of dollars and landing big movie roles. But there is a second tier of Irish actors on the cusp of breaking through.
Sarah Bolger, Barry Keoghan and Tom Vaughan Lawlor are also all on the precipice of greatness. And another name volleying for a place at that table is Dublin actor Kevin Ryan.
Over a decade ago he decided to leave the family business — his father is an eighth generation stone cutter — and chase his dreams of becoming a successful actor. He left behind his friends and family, and moved to LA, where he lived like a hermit and studied his craft, hoping for that one big break.
‘There are a couple of ways that LA works for people because it can be a really lonely place,’ Kevin explains. ‘Some will go to London and move in to Europe and transition to New York before eventually landing in LA. So they already have good representation and a portfolio before landing and can hit the ground running.’
By his own admission, Kevin did the opposite, putting himself into a world where he knew no-one and his only focus was acting.
‘I came over here on my own when I was very young,’ he says. ‘That was daunting, but with that I put myself into college and went studying. I was doing six or seven days a week in an acting studio and outside of that I was in a gym. I was a sponge so the loneliness didn’t bother me, even though I was going from having my childhood friends down the street who were always there, to not knowing anyone.
‘But I was fulfilling my dreams and doing something that most people wouldn’t do, so that was worth it. I was constantly trying to get good parts. I look back at it now and I don’t see it as a sacrifice because the life I have now is more important to me than messing around with my mates. If people come out here and don’t know anybody these days it can be tough. You can be here four or five years before you properly make friends. It just takes time, but you could be at home and still be lonely.’
Relationships are not easily made in Hollywood it seems, but it didn’t take long for Kevin to fall in love. One Christmas Eve at an English bar in Santa Monica, Kevin met Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister Dedee. The 20-year age difference didn’t seem to matter and they got married very quickly in January 2009. Too quickly, Kevin feels in retrospect, as the marriage ended in divorce a couple of years ago.
‘ I was married to (Dedee), once in a long, long, world ago,’ he says. ‘It was very brief and we were in love and we had a relationship and I was very young. It was over quickly and that was that.’
He has since moved on and is once again dating an actor, this time the stunning The Fall star Karen Hassan.
‘I have a beautiful girlfriend from Belfast now, so I’ve moved on. I met her at a friend’s wedding and when I was doing Guilt in London we started seeing each other. I made her pack up her home in London and come over to LA.
‘She’s great. It’s always weird when you hear musicians dating musicians and actors dating actors, but I just think that the familiarity with the life helps. Actors lives are weird and spontaneous and transient, and it helps when your partner understands.’
It’s 9am on a Wednesday morning and Kevin is making his way to the beach f or the day. He has j ust returned to LA from Vancouver where he wrapped on the famous ABC show Once Upon a Time. Before that he was in New York filming what is his biggest break to date, joining the cast on the James Spader-led TV series The Blacklist.
The series has a global audience and Kevin has landed the part of an Irish smuggler in an episode which will air l ater this year on Sky Atlantic.
‘I got a call from Maureen Hughes, the Irish casting director and she had been working with US casting director Steve Jacobs. They sent me over the script and there was a great plot about an Irish father and son who are into smuggling. They have their own shipping companies and work globally and they’re involved in a lot of illegal activity.
‘Raymond Reddington, played by James Spader, becomes aware of us and there is a bit of a hunt going on. My character is a complete sociopath and just so much fun — he’s ruthless in every sense and sometimes it’s just fun to play a great villain. His name is Colin Kilgannon and he’s just a ruthless, brilliant bad guy.’
The producers decided from the off that they wanted to hire authentic Irish actors for the part, which is a practice that’s in short supply in America at present.
‘It was something that’s very rare, especially in the US, to get a great Irish role,’ Kevin says. ‘They didn’t want to get someone playing an Irish person. By the way, I have the utmost respect for actors who do that. You don’t see the effort that goes into getting the Irish accent right. Everyone can name a show they have seen with a bad Irish accent.’
Kevin’s CV is starting to make a lot of noise around Tinseltown. He played a part in ABC’s Guilt, a series loosely based on the Amanda Knox story, which was filmed in Budapest. He also landed the lead role in Enclosure, a psychological horror film which was released last year. Kevin was also recently seen as Detective Francis Maguire in the BBC series Copper, and in the History Channel’s Sons of Liberty. But he says that acting alongside James Spader is possibly his career high to date.
‘James Spader is just incredible to work with. He’s cool and knows exactly what he wants. He’s there so many years he has a handle on the show and what it is, and he’s so in tune with each scene. We were shooting in New York and it’s so loud and you’re constantly holding for police sirens and helicopters and there’s always something happening. Or you have a psycho or a crack head shouting at you and ruining your shot. He’ll hold out for that stuff and wait — he’s a gentleman and a warm man t o work with.’ In fact, Kevin had not seen The Blacklist before he started working with James Spader, but made a somewhat controversial decision when he got the part. ‘I decided not to watch it because I didn’t want to get intimidated by seeing the show,’ Kevin says. ‘I just focused on the script and did my character work because it can throw you off if you watch the guys on screen before you go in and work opposite them. It does for me anyway. I loved the material and a lot of my work is shown in the States so it’s great that I’m starting to get work that’s airing here.’
Despite being just 33, Kevin has worked alongside many of Hollywood’s top actors. None however, were kinder or more impressive than John Malkovich. The pair filmed the NBC series Crossbones, a fictionalised tale of the life of Blackbeard in Puerto Rico, together. Malkovich took the Dubliner under his wing and the pair have become close friends as a result.
‘It was mad, we were in Puerto Rico during the tail end of a hurricane and John approached me. I don’t know if he took pity on me. But because he presumed I didn’t know anyone there, he invited me up to his house for dinner. So I said ‘yeah, brilliant’ — it was Thanksgiving and he was having a bit of a party. So I went to this house and I brought a bag with some beers and wine.
‘I land at this mansion of a place on