Hollywood rewrites Irish history... yet again
HOLLYWOOD ignorance about Ireland has struck again.
Showbiz website Vulture carried out an extensive interview with Dublin actor Domhnall Gleeson ‘over the phone, from his home in Ireland’.
But in the very first question they referred to the Star Wars and Harry Potter actor as being from the UK.
Referring to the Sarah Water’s novel on which his latest movie, The Little Stranger, is based, Gleeson was asked if it was a commentary on postwar culture in Britain.
‘Being from the UK, I thought you’d be able to provide some insight on that,’ said the interviewer.
Gleeson, 35, was presumably too polite to take up the issue and instead confirmed that the book and film were about the huge changes to the class system in the 1940s.
‘Wealthy families had these huge houses and they’d keep them even after the war left them flat broke, letting them fall into disrepair rather than part with them,’ he said.
‘These people had a sort of social wealth and yet at the same time they didn’t have the money to maintain that lifestyle. It was a strange crossing over, families living in mansions when they could barely afford to eat, just for the sake of maintaining appearances.
‘For many people, these houses would eventually become expensive tombs.’
In the film, which Vulture called ‘an unusual and unusually wellexecuted new horror film,’ Domhnall plays a doctor in one such old house. ‘Places like this are the perfect location for a ghost story, with all the crumbling façades slowly revealing the horrors within,’ he added.
The movie reunites the Dubliner with Irish director Lenny Abrahamson – they made Frank together in 2014 – who was nominated for an Oscar for Room.