An Arctic Tale

Colin Farrell stars in The North Water, a new series kicking off on RTÉ2 this Thursday. It features a stellar cast including Jack O’connell, Stephen Graham, Tom Courtenay and our man Colin, who describes working on the drama as “a profound experience.” Here he talks about working on the series

First off Colin, who is Henry Drax?

The character of Drax in the novel and the script is incredibly intense to read and to play, in a joyful way, but he doesn’t consider himself to be intense at all. He’s just following his proclivities day to day, moment to moment, breath to breath. He’s been a harpooner for most of his life – not that it’s ever specified – since the onset of his adolescence, that was probably when he first found himself on a ship as a cabin boy.

What was the appeal of the series?

It’s an incredible tapestry of otherworldly detail, something so foreign to me. There have not been very many films and stories that take place around the whaling industry. Out of interest and curiosity and fun, I looked around, and for such a dramatic moment in history, there are not that many stories, so it was wonderful to be immersed in this world that was so exotic, so brutal and so different.

How was filming in the Arctic?

I did feel that death was just around the corner at any given time, that we were just one mistake away from someone falling into the Arctic sea and either very quickly getting hypothermia or sinking under the weight of the waterlogged costume. There were also polar bears around, that were beautiful and majestic, but also apex predators. It was a very profound experience for us all to share.

Did you take the famous polar plunge?

I’d like to deny that I ever did it, but lovely Roland [Møller, who plays Otto in North Water] then decided to put it on his Instagram. That was lovely, one of those ritesof-passage, the polar dip. God, it was cold, to state the obvious, a dip in the Arctic ocean, it was terrifying. I only went in the once, but I think Jack O’ Connell went in a couple of times. He got the bit in his teeth. I was in and out fast. It was cold!