Director O’Donnell’s Street Smarts Pay Off

By Martin Hintz

Irish film director Damien O’Donnell knows his lanes and alleys, a benefit that paid off in his most recent look at an often quirky world, Rory O’Shea Was Here. The movie, filmed in his native Dublin, features two physically-challenged young men who shuck convention and care center security to strike out on their own. 

The pair, one raucous and the other reflective, need to make their motorized wheelchair way along the city’s streets in order to free their souls. O’Donnell’s intimate knowledge of the local landscape puts them in the proper space, whether on brightly-lighted modern bridges over the black waters of the River Liffey or on a rainswept sidewalk. 

Phoning The Irish American Post from the Sundance Film Festival while awaiting his movie’s premiere in late January, O’Donnell told of growing up in Coolock. The home ‘hood is tucked away on the Irish capital’s north side, midway between the city center and the airport. He attended college in Rathmines, where he originally considered becoming a journalist but then switched to photography and eventually morphed into a filmmaker. He currently lives in Marino, about three miles north of downtown Dublin. 

"Dublin has changed a lot in the past few years," O’Donnell pointed out, but there was still enough of an interesting urbanscape where he could position his latest story. Indeed, O’Donnell’s first film, Thirty-Five Aside, set him up as a talent who knows the lay of the land. For that movie, he explained that he used locations observed on his route to and from college, marking such landmarks as St. David’s Boys National School in Artane.

Thirty-Five Aside, supported by the Irish Film Board as was Rory, traces the steps of a shy youngster’s misadventures while enrolled at a new school. The short movie has captured more than 30 awards since it debuted in the late 1990s, including the BBC's New Director Prize, Best of the Festival from the London Film Festival and the Best Short Film at Quebec Film Festival. "If it wasn’t for the help of the film board on Thirty-Five Aside, it probably would not have been made. I don’t know what I’d be doing now if that film didn’t happen," admitted the 37-year-old director. "I think I’ve subsequently made a good life choice," he laughed.

O'Donnell‘s feature debut came with East Is East, premiering at the prestigious Director's Fortnight at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Since then, the movie has also garnered many honors including Best British Film of the Year. As with the Pakistani protagonist in East Is East , the characters in Rory appear to be out of life’s mainstream but they rise to the challenge. 

Adding to the pile of worldwide honors he has already earned, O’Donnell’s Rory already has collected the Audience Award from the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festival. "Yet you don’t go into a film expecting an award. I think maybe that comes later, especially if the movie has been well received," he said. 

Obviously it is lucky for filmgoers that O’Donnell decided to stay the course regarding his filmmaking profession and continued to dip into his memory bank as to location, location, location. 

For instance, the set involving the "Carrigmore Residential Home," residence of Rory’s heroes until they make their way into independent living, was actually the old Sutton Castle Hotel. The historic red brick structure is located on windswept Howth Peninsula overlooking the lazily-rolling surf of Dublin Bay. "We’d sit there in the morning over coffee and look at Dollymount beach below. It was marvelous, especially in the early morning," O’Donnell recalled. 

O’Donnell was even familiar with the Pierce Street Flats, where the two film characters Michael Connolly (played by Scottish actor Steven Robertson) and Rory O’Shea (another Scot, James McAvoy) eventually acquire an apartment. When O’Donnell graduated from college, he and two friends had an office on Windmill Lane which was just around the corner from that housing complex. The three rented space for their Cling Films production company in a building once used as a recording studio by U2.

The director even called up familiar Dub City denizens to play extras in the movie, including Peter (Uncle) Uzell, spotted in the background surrounded by kids and playing with pigeons during one sequence at the flats. O‘Donnell’s father, Liam, also found his way into a scene. 

One nightclub shot -- when the two principals go out on the town -- was filmed at a Dublin hotspot called Spirit, located at 57 Middle Abbey St. "I had been in there once and knew the place," O’Donnell said. The club, along with another of the same name in Manhattan, is owned by Robbie Wooton, who helped create Windmill Studios where U2 recorded and where O’Donnell’s early production company was located. 

"It’s considered a ‘mother earth’ kind of space, where you can get massages, your palms read, fortune-told. All that," said O’Donnell. For Rory, he packed Spirit with professional dancers to surround English actress Romola Garai who portrays shapely Siobhan, who is subsequently hired to help Connelly and O’Shea adapt to the outside word. 

O’Donnell prefers scripts that come in over the transom rather than those received through an agent. "From them, you often get scripts that Neil Jordan has already turned down," he laughed again. 

While he does receive scripts from many avenues of referrals, O’Donnell admitted that he was really bad at reading them in a timely fashion. "It takes me forever. But I have three scripts to read on my way to L.A. after Sundance," he said, indicating that the time alone on the flight would be put to good use. "I look for humanity and humor," he explained. "I have to be engaged in the story and believe in it." 

O’Donnell went on to say that finding the right script was an "instinctive thing." He selects films featuring interesting characters caught up and surviving sometimes tragic situations, a process stemming from his personal world view. "No, it’s got nothing to do with my own home life. That was pretty good," he emphasized, admitting that there are some elements of the rambunctious Rory in his own makeup. 

Rory was penned by screen guru Jeffrey Caine, now living in Clonakilty in West Cork, from a story by Listowel native Christian O'Reilly, who is now living in Galway. Caine, admired by O’Donnell as a "65-year-old Jewish Hibernia-phile," came on board to make the film more of a "buddy movie." Caine was the best available writer in the country, O’Donnell declared. 

The script for Rory then came to O’Donnell via producer James Flynn who thought that the director’s keen eye for strong characterization would bring the story to life. O’Donnell read the script in April of 2003 and accepted the job. Eight weeks of filming followed after all the casting and locations were finalized. The Irish premiere under the title of Inside I’m Dancing came in October, 2004, in a program attended by Mary McAleese, the country’s president. 

However, the U.S. distributors felt the name might be misconstrued to imply that it was a musical about wheelchairs. Hence the title change to Rory, a fact that didn’t faze O’Donnell. "It’s a good title, one with focus. After all, it shows the life force of the film," he asserted.

Striving for authenticity, O’Donnell wanted to ensure that actor McAvoy, who played O’Shea, had the right tonal quality in his voice. McAvoy was born in 1979 in Glasgow, living in Scotstoun until he moved to live with his grandparents in Drumchapel. (By the by, his sister is Joy McAvoy, a singer in the popular Scottish all-female hip-hop group, Streetside). 

Since 2000, McAvoy has been living in London. Already master of dialects, McAvoy could readily produce a commentary in Glaswegian, standard Scots and Cockney, as well as voices from Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, Wales, Manchester, New York, Northern and Southern Irish and Yorkshire. 

Yet O’Donnell felt that the sound of O’Shea -- actually a Cork name -- would come across too soft if it seemed to emanate from that far southern tip of Ireland. Subsequently, he had noted voice coach Brendan Gunn haul McAvoy around North Dublin to pick up on accents in the markets there to provide a more raw, believable sound. Again, knowledge of location came into play.

Rory has generally been received well in Ireland, according to O’Donnell. "The reaction has been really favorable. Both those with disabilities and those without have enjoyed it. One thing we did not want was the ghetto-izing by subject. The real appeal is the relationship between these two men. Their physical challenges are only part of their character," O’Donnell explained. Muscular Dystrophy Ireland was another big help in ensuring authenticity within the movie, according to O’Donnell. 

The director was also appreciative of the fact that Irish audiences were receptive to Rory. It is really special when a film becomes a success because Irish audiences attend to Irish films, he concluded before heading off to shave and to prepare for Rory’s big evening. O’Donnell was hoping that a Guinness might be somewhere in that future. 

Other than that, he promised to be keeping his eyes and options open for more film projects. Maybe one of those three pending scripts earmarked for his plane-ride reading will be the perfect next-to-consider. Until then, "Tell people to see Rory," O’Donnell concluded.