New Joey Dunlop film in the works
Irish actor Marty McCann – he who appeared in The Survivalist and has recently featured in the smash BBC Two series The Fall – is currently doing his homework on Joey Dunlop as he prepares for a bigmoney, big-screen movie on the life of the world’s most famous road racer.
“The more I’m learning about Joey, the more I’m amazed,” he told Belfast Telegraph’s Sunday Life. “I am completely in awe.”
Ballymoney biker Dunlop, who died racing in Estonia in 2000, won the TT Formula One World title five consecutive times, as well as claiming 26 wins at the Isle of Man TT and 13 North West 200 victories. He also received an OBE for his charitable work.
“I’ve realised that Joey Dunlop didn’t say a lot, but he let his actions do the talking,” said McCann, who previously played U2’s frontman in the film Killing Bono.
“The more I found out about him, the more complex he becomes. You can’t get to the bottom of Joey, he was his own man. He was an enigma. The script tries to understand his obsession with racing and the trance that these men go in on the bike. As someone who isn’t in the sport, you have to wonder what makes you race at 210mph.
“Joey was widely quoted as saying there’s two green blurs and a grey blur and I try to stay on the grey one — that’s how fast he was going — so as an actor, it’s interesting for me to be able to try and get into that mindset.”
The film has been penned by Oscar-nominated Boogaloo and Graham writer Ronan Blaney, and will be made with Northern Ireland Screen.
After being in Maze, a film based on the 1983 jail escape, McCann hopes the Dunlop movie shows another side to Northern Irish history.
“I think it could be a big success, especially in Ireland, because so many people loved Joey Dunlop even if they weren’t big bike fans.”