Today, leisurely strolling around Galway with a cigarette in hand, Peter Mullan seems his usual, cheery self until the subject of swimming comes up.
While he did look a little peaky earlier on when I mentioned Gordon Strachan taking over at his beloved Glasgow Celtic (“It’ll be great,” I demur. “Coventry would have gone down anyway and Rupert Lowe seems really hard to keep in with.” Who says girls don’t know anything about British soccer?), the recollection of the intensive water training required for his role in On A Clear Day has the charming Glaswegian looking very discombobulated indeed.
“I really wanted to film in the Bahamas for the swimming,” he sighs. “Jesus, we could film in Spain on a bad day. But instead I got the Irish Sea. And it was so fucking cold. It was like being stabbed until all the life drains out of you. The most pain you can imagine.”
In this impressive debut feature from British director Gaby Dellal, the Glaswegian actor plays Frank, a recently redundant dockyard worker who dreams of swimming the English Channel.
“I did have to train hard enough to withstand the ocean for 10 minute stretches. It was all good in the pool. But in the sea you just start hallucinating from the cold. They estimate swimming the English Channel takes 10 years off your life and I thought mine was coming to an end after 10 minutes.”
Like much of Mullan’s work, On A Clear Day provides a neat showcase for the actor’s charismatic, yet fearsome technique.
Frank, haunted by recollections of his infant son’s drowning, is a growling, intense figure, who quickly melts into a much softer entity without ever losing his north European dignity.
“It’s a nice little film”, explains Mullan. “And I don’t mean that in any patronising way. But it’s about something ordinary becoming extraordinary. I liked the fact that it had a really great take on male friendship. It’s not like some Hollywood crap where everybody starts hugging everybody else. It’s just a gang of guys who understand each other and each other’s problems even if, unlike women, they’re incapable of dealing with emotional issues head on.”
Scottish men, he says, find it difficult to discuss emotional issues. “Ultimately that’s because they’ve internalised the standards of masculinity in their culture. It’s fucking sad,” says Mullan.
Surrounded by an oddly redemptive gang of drinking buddies, Mullan’s character must not only fulfil a Full Monty styled destiny, but overcome his propensity for crippling panic attacks.
“That really clinched it for me because I’ve had them myself,” he says. “I’ve had them for 20 years. Like him, I just got on with it and suffered in silence. It’s nothing you can talk about. But I’ve actually found they’ve gone away since I started swimming for the film. I’ve kept it up since and I can’t believe it was that bloody easy to make them stop.”
Now, aged 45, the actor has consistently, well, overpowered from the screen since his 1990 film debut in Ken Loach’s Riff Raff – his ruthless uppity manservant in Miss Julie, his salvation-seeking dry alcoholic in My Name Is Joe, his junk-dealing lowlife in Trainspotting. Recent years have seen him return to his first love, directing, with the much admired Orphans and 2002’s award winning The Magdalene Sisters.
He is, however, quite happy to be in front of the camera just for the moment. “I loved turning up everyday and having Gaby tell me and everybody else what to do,” he says. “That’s exactly what you need as an actor. And it’s great not having the associated headaches. There’s never any danger of me directing from the backseat.”
“I remember once doing a scene for Michael Winterbottom in The Claim," he continues. "I had to barge in and shoot this actress who, on every take, would allow her bosom to go on display as she fell to the ground. I was just glad not to be the guy who had to worry about reining in those breasts.”