GILLEN TOLD ME TO ADD ‘JR.’ TO NAME

KIN actor Mark McKenna Jr. has revealed that Aidan Gillen told him to tweak his name to make it stand out more.

The 17-year- old, who plays Anthony, Jimmy and Amanda’s son, said Gillen would give him career advice when they rode cabs together to the Kin set.

He said the Game of Thrones actor told him to put the title Jr. after his name because there was already another Irish actor called Mark McKenna.

The 25-year- old starred in the TV teen series Wayne and the 2016 musical Sing Street.

Mark told The Star: “I shared a taxi with Aidan Gillen a few times and he was just the nicest guy. He just sat there and talked, and he didn’t care about any… like social stature didn’t matter. He was just so nice. I was like this is the guy who I watched in Game of Thrones and in Love/ Hate, like this guy… It was amazing. They all were so nice.

“He gave me one bit of advice. I went by the name Mark McKenna, and I never took too much thought of it as an actor, which I don’t know why.

“But t here’s another Mark McKenna, who is a fabulous actor. He’s in Wayne and S ing Street . So I though thought wait, we both bot have the s ame name name, that won won’t ma make any se sense if we’re both going by t he sa same na name so A Aidan ga gave me a l ittle advice, he had to change his name as well, so he goes ‘you should probably change your name so you get recognised more as you’.

“So he advised me to change my name to Mark McKenna Jr. So that’s why I’m going by the Jr. My dad’s name is Mark as well so it’s’ not too strange. He was really good with the acting advice.”

The talented teen said fellow Kin stars Charlie Cox and Emmett J. Scanlan also shared a few tips for him – saying they told him to leave his worries behind him when he goes home after filming.

“One advice I got was to leave what happens on set on set. Like if you had a bad day on set, don’t bring it home and think I could’ve done better.

“And they also told me one of the best acting advices I ever had was to act with your eyes, don’t act with your mouth so use your eyes to interpret how you feel.

“I don’t know but for some reason that just makes me go ‘wow’ like that makes…. Like it opened my eyes to it.

“That was probably the best advice I got.”

The Dubliner said he was “in awe” listening to their stories of their acting life.

Danger

“I nearly look forward to the downtime between takes because you got to actually sit there and listen to their experiences… just listening to what they’ve been through and who’ve they got to act with. I was definitely sitting there in awe.”

Viewers of Kin watched as Amanda, played by Clare Dunne, sends Anthony to a private school in the hope of protecting him from the gangland feud between the Kinsellas and the Cunninghams.

But Mark said: “I think Amanda is worried for Anthony because she’s putting him away in this school to protect him but she doesn’t know if it is actually going to protect him.

“If you think of it, you are taking your eyes off him and you think that he’s going to be there safe, there is nobody in that school that understands the length of this big war that’s going on.

“Anthony is in huge danger, but I think that she thinks she is doing right but I think she’s really doing wrong.”

Kin continues every Sunday night on RTE One at 9:35pm.