Full of divilment
As The Dry returns director Paddy Breathnach hails star Ciarán Hinds down-to-earth approach to show
HE’S AN Oscar-nominated actor who has worked with Spielberg and Scorsese, but Ciarán Hinds remains ‘full of divilment’ on set – as does his wife Hélène Patarot.
The couple star together in the BAFTA-nominated comedy drama The Dry, returning to RTÉ for a second season next month.
Director Paddy Breathnach told the Irish Mail on Sunday that Hinds is ‘exceptionally decent and very serious about his work – but full of divilment’.
And the 71-year-old actor’s wife, French-Vietnamese actress Patarot who he met during a stage production 37 years ago, is ‘the same’.
‘The pair of them are like 20-year-olds or teenagers with that impish divilment. They’re brilliant,’ Breathnach said.
Hinds plays Tom Sheridan in The Dry, father of recovering alcoholic Shiv (played by his fellow Belfast native Roisin Gallagher), while Patarot plays his acupuncturist and lover.
Breathnach said Hinds ‘questioned me initially’ about a scene where the couple have a daylight romp behind some bins, asking ‘would I really do that?’
‘But when we came to do it, the two of
‘There’s no airs and graces from Ciarán’
‘Will this still be an issue in a year’s time?’
them just threw themselves into it. She runs out from behind the bins and she’s pulling her knickers up, but she brought the placement of all that herself. There’s just great fun and humour about them.’
In the series two finale Hinds and Michael McElhatton have a fight scene, and the two ‘totally relished sparking off each other’, according to Breathnach.
‘I remember when I saw the tapes of the stunt rehearsals, the two of them were just laughing and messing as we were doing it,’ he recalled.
The seasoned director said his job was made easier by the maestro Hinds’s easy manner and ‘respect’ for those around him on set.
‘He came on to our set and it’s not the biggest budget show in the world, particularly in the first series, there was barely a green room for the actors. It was sort of like a spare bedroom for the actors in the main location.
‘But there’s no airs and graces, there’s no sense of hierarchy of importance off him.’
Instead, Hinds saw himself as a ‘member of the company’ on the shoot, which ‘elevates everybody’.
‘It also gave, particularly the more inexperienced actors, great confidence that “here’s this great actor and he’s not thinking he’s the bee’s knees. He respects me as much as anybody else.”
‘That’s a great tone to set from a senior actor. It’s brilliant because it helps generate a very good atmosphere and a very confident atmosphere among the cast.’
The Dry was Breathnach’s first time at the helm for an entire TV series – he has directed episodes of Vikings and the season finale for the upcoming Bodkin, set to land on Netflix next month.
The Dry actresses Siobhán Cullen and Pom Boyd also star in Bodkin, which is the first scripted series from Higher Ground – the awarding winning production company of former US president Barack Obama and his wife Mchelle.
Breathnach had no contact with the couple beyond the invite to the wrap party, which read ‘BO and MO invite you to the wrap party’.
‘Everyone said: “Who’s BO and MO?” That must be what they’re known as.’
The Dublin director is better known for feature films like Man About Dog (2004), Viva (2015) and Rosie (2018) – an award-winning drama about a young family who become homeless, starring Sarah Greene and Moe Dunford. He recalls the production team asking ‘will this still be an issue in a year’s time?’ while making the film. And of course, it was and it is a bigger issue.
‘People maybe who didn’t have to countenance the prospect of not being able to get their own home – that began to spread further and further away from initially more marginalised communities and then gradually more mainstream and very mainstream.
‘And I think the film affected people because it’s about “Can you have faith in tomorrow?”
‘All your hard work, all your good intentions to raise your family in a particular way – can you have faith that you can sustain that? And that’s the tragedy of the film – here’s somebody who’s doing their best, and there are many people in that situation, and yet that isn’t good enough.’
Breathnach is equally ‘proud’ of the Oscar-shortlisted Viva – a feelgood Spanish-language drama entirely set and made in Cuba.
The Dry returns to RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Wednesday May 15 at 9:35pm