TV FILMS OF THE WEEK
some songs for [TV series] Empire in the States this year, a couple of ballads and a hip hop tune. I’ll get back into scoring at some point – that’ll be my pension, I think!”
For now, he hopes to have his passion project – a film he started writing in 2008 about a crime family in Manchester – realised. But he knows only too well that LA is a tricky marketplace.
“A lot of the film actors want to do television; it’s a wonderful medium to explore, but it’s a machine.
“Last year was not a huge year [for me] - a couple of weeks on Homeland, a couple of weeks on Empire, 10 months writing music and writing. It’s swings and roundabouts. That’s why it’s great to be doing this [series].
“People forget. We were out last night and there was a load of 18-year-olds eating dinner and I’m not being weird, but I remember 10 years ago, they’d have been flying over [to talk to me]!
“But everyone was just eating their dinner, and I’m half going, ‘Do you not remember Mad Dogs? Hotel Babylon?”’ he says, chuckling.
“These kids would have been about eight or nine when I was in my prime of smashing BBC dramas - they’re all babies.”
“But going back to the thing of it not mattering any more and about what life is about... For me, my life is all about seeing my kid smile. When I came away here, she just grabbed my face and said, ‘I’ll see you soon Daddy, I love you.’
“I’ve never had anything like that in my life,” says Max, smiling from ear to ear. “It’s great. That’s it, that’s your Oscar right there.” FATHER James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) sits quietly in the confession booth while a parishioner confides that he intends to kill him as a way of exacting revenge for abuse suffered in childhood at the hands of another priest. Thus, Father James is instructed to put his affairs in order. With the clock ticking, Father Lavelle searches for glimmers of hope in the eyes of his wayward flock. Calvary is a wicked black comedy that contrives a murder mystery before the heinous crime has been committed. Gleeson delivers a towering performance as a vessel of God, who may pay the ultimate price for another man’s sins.