Shots From The Lip

Brendan O'Carroll is a man with a lot on his plate - and his mind. Currently three quarters of the way through a hugely successful run of his own Mrs Brown's Last Wedding in Glasgow, he returns to Dublin for a one-man show at the Olympia that's cheekily timed to coincide with the Dublin Theatre Festival.

In the middle of all that, he has decided that the time is right to take a stand in relation to what he sees as a lack of transparency within the Irish film industry, in particular in the area of funding. O'Carroll also has his 'reservations' when it comes to the world of Irish theatre.

JOE JACKSON: You had some kind of run-in with the Dublin Theatre Festival a few years back in relation to your play The Course, right?
BRENDAN O'CARROLL: They sent me a letter saying they were rejecting the play because it was "not up to the standard required by the Dublin Theatre Festival." The uncanny thing is that, at that stage, I hadn't even written the play.
Initially, I was gutted, knew I was getting the bum's rush, being told I'm not wanted in this theatre world. But then I realised "fuck it, it's not just me they don't want, it's my audience." So I put on the play during the Festival and it out-sold the entire festival. It went on to become the biggest selling comedy in Irish history, as far as I know.
And you hadn't applied, for example, to the Arts Council for a grant?
I've never had a fucking grant in my life. Not a penny. But then I don't think it is right to apply for grants. I think the Grant system is fucking redundant.
The Abbey says its remit is to bring new writers to the stage. Then why are we seeing things like The Plough And The Stars every fucking summer for the Yanks. Is the Abbey a theatre or a tourist attraction? If it's a theatre then, like any theatre in the world, it has to make money. It has to stand on its own legs.
Do you feel ostracised by theatres like the Gate and Abbey, who would probably also be dismissive of your work?
I don't think they would understand the commercial potential. You saw that press release, from this theatre in Glasgow yesterday, saying Mrs Brown's Last Wedding is its biggest success ever, taking over one million pounds at the box office. That's the commercial reality of this play! Shows in the Abbey perform to twenty people sometimes. How can you not be disappointed in that?
But I never approached the Abbey or Gate in relation to staging my work. And they probably would be dismissive. Until I die! Then they'll be saying "unless you understand Brendan O'Carroll, you really can't understand Ireland in the nineties".
But the one thing that will be said after I die is that "Brendan O'Carroll brought people to the theatre who were never at the theatre before." Theatre is for everybody, not just the select few. If you're living in Tallaght and you have a nine-five job - or you're not working - and you're trying to make ends meet and worrying that one of your children may be getting into drugs - what represents art to you? The people decide. And I have no doubt that 99% of the people who go to my plays in Dublin don't go to the Abbey or the Gate.
I know you have strong feelings about the Irish Film Board. Surely these are rooted in the fact that they didn't give you the backing you needed to haul Sparrow's Trap out of the mire?
I've a very good sense of detachment on all this. Sparrow's Trap was made by Penny Rush Films, which is a limited company. I was a director of that company and also the director of the movie. And this was my first experience of film-making.
I went on to make some very bad business decisions. For example, I lost my distributor. So the business decision, then, should have been "stop". When you have no distributor for a movie, you don't do a movie! But, naively, I thought "I have committed these people." I had my cast, crew, we were two, three days away from shooting!
But I should have got everyone in a room, said "Guys, I'm going to have to fold the film". But good old working-class pride stopped me doing that. So I started borrowing money from wherever I could. And, eventually, I applied to the Film Board but they precluded me from applying because - I was reminded - someone who worked for me was on the Film Board.
How much money had you asked for?
Enough money to complete the movie. #150,000.
What was the overall cost?
#1.2 million. That overall package included the distribution deal with Brendan McCall of Buena Vista. They only pick a certain number of Irish movies a year to distribute. So the distribution cut he offered would have given a net income to our company of about a half a million pounds. That would have been enough to give #150,000 back to the Film Board. And #350,000 would have cleared off the debts from the movie. And then I would have waited to see if I'd get my own money back from worldwide sales, video sales, TV sales. But the whole deal was based on completing the movie and I didn't have enough money to finish it. But if I could have gotten that #150,000 from the Film Board, McCall would have distributed it and we all would have covered our costs. At least.
So you borrowed money to finish Sparrow's Trap?
It's shot. I just need to edit it. And, yes, the money came from personal loans, people coming through for me.
Did the Film Board read your script and say 'this is shite'?
Eventually, they read it. But didn't say it was "shite". They just go "no". There is no discussion. After they said 'no' I wrote a letter saying I'd like to see a polling of the decision. As in, who was in the room. They didn't even reply to that letter.
Are you saying that the person whose application is turned down has the right to know who made that decision?
The Irish Film Board is there for the public. We pay their wages with our taxes so who, in the end, should they be accountable to? You and me. The public. So I think I'm entitled to know who was at that meeting.
For example, the cost of sending Rod Stoneman and his crew to one Festival would make eight student movies, make eight kids into directors! That's what he's supposed to be fucking there for. Not to visit festivals in Hong Kong! What the fuck is he doing over there? When was the last Irish movie that opened in Hong Kong? When was the last Hong Kong company that came and made a movie here in Ireland?
Surely students are being helped by the Irish Film Board?
They have to borrow the money, personally! I've contributed to so many student movies. Both financially, by giving them budgets, and acting in their movies for free. Or pulling strokes for them whenever I could. As in 'we've no caterer' and I'd say 'a friend of mine has a cafe, give him a buzz' and they'd come back and say, 'great, Brendan, he's giving us sandwiches every day and flasks of coffee'. That's all they want. Small things. And while they're struggling at that level, we - the tax-payer - are sending members of the Irish Film Board all over the fucking world. For what exactly? That's what I want to know.
You also, obviously, want questions raised about the movies the Irish Film Board does fund?
I know the Irish movie industry. I know the avenues are there. So for their own sake the Irish Film Board should be as transparent as possible, to dispel any accusations of corruption.
But you do believe that a lot of money being raised in the name of the Irish Film Industry then goes into a very small number of pockets?
A small amount of people are making fucking fortunes. While film students are going around, begging for a few grand to finish their films. That is the case. I know of that happening.
How might it happen?
Let's say I decide, today, to become a corrupt producer. This is how I do it. Joe Jackson writes a book of fiction. It's not a very interesting book, but Joe is very passionate about it so, when publishers don't publish it, he puts it out himself. And he gets Eason's to distribute it. Now I go into Eason's, see Jackson's book, see he is the publisher, ring him and ask: "who has the film rights to this book?" He says "nobody has". So I offer him #1,000 to option the Film Rights for a year. With an option of a further thousand pounds for a further year and take it into production. Then, on the first day of production Joe will get #100,000.
I can tell you that Joe Jackson will do back-flips hearing that offer, so he does the deal. I get the contract signed up, pay him the thousand pounds and then go and get, say, a young screenplay writer - a student - and I offer him #1,000 to adapt the book to a first draft screenplay. Then I send a copy of my contract from the writer and a copy of my first draft screenplay and my contract with the screenplay writer to the Film Board, asking for development money. The Film Board probably will give me #25,000. But I also apply to the European Script Fund and probably get #50,000 off them.
All of which must be paid back, right?
Unless the project fails to happen. So an unsecured loan is what you re getting, really. Either way, I ve now got #75,000. I paid the author #1,000, the screenplay writer #1,000 and it probably cost me #1,000 in administration to get the whole package together. Then, maybe, I give the author another thousand to option the book for another year, because it s possible I may get more development money from the Irish Film Board. But as things stand, I spent #4,000 and I ve got #75,000 in. That gives me #71,000 profit. If I have eight of those movies on my slate I ve got a half a million pounds. But the trick is, don t make a movie. Because, as I say, if you make a movie you have to pay the money back. So now I m the corrupt producer making movies , but not making movies.
And what happens to the author eh, Joe Jackson?
Fuck him! It s just there s your rights back, thanks a lot! Making money is the game, not making movies. And I really would, for example, love to see a list of the script funding that has come out of the European Film Board into Ireland. And see how many of those movies have actually been made.
So you re calling on Smle de Valera to initiate an investigation into the question of funding in the Irish Film Industry?
I certainly think that something as anonymous and autonomous as the Irish Film Board, that has absolute power, if held up to the light, would have more than a few holes coming through.
Do you think Smle de Valera wouldn t react to your call for such an investigation?
I don t know that she would.
She must notice that there are a lot of movies not being made in Ireland. At one point last summer, for example, there were no films being shot here and I d heard there were up to 42 productions pencilled in for 1999.
True. But a movie about Irish people winning the Irish lottery, Waking Ned, was made relatively recently and went on to become one of the most successful movies in a long time. But why was it made in the Isle of Man? Why wasn t it made in Ireland? We were the forerunners of the structure for tax breaks, in the movies. We gave Britain the pattern and now our movie industry is next-to-dead. What happened?
For one thing the development of the Irish Film Industry was fucked up from the start. When we were hot, they were making films like Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan but we weren t a movie industry. We were just a big location. They came, took the tax breaks, made the movie, then went home.
Wasn t Section 35, the government s tax initiative for filmmakers which has recently been renewed as section 481 largely directed at attracting films like that?
But we ve lost sight of the smaller, independent, Gerry Stembridge-like movies. All of a sudden Irish films are being remodelled to resemble Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart. They are great movies. But the movie industry in Ireland is not going to be created by those movies. It s going to be created by A Love Divided, Amongst Women, Sparrow s Trap.
Under Section 481, 75% of the money used in the movie must be spent in the Republic of Ireland. And you must employ one trainee in each field. But, too often, trainees aren t brought in to learn their trade, they re brought in to do menial tasks. Irish kids come out of college and work as third AD s, parking cars, herding extras into schools and giving them packets of crisps and bottles of Seven Up.
Doesn t that sort of thing sum up the exploitation of Irish people, in general, by major American film companies.
It s representative of the exploitation of Irish people in every facet of life! Major companies not just film used to come here because Irish labour was cheap. Now they come because we re good at what we do. Why do you think we re known in America as The Silicon Bog ? But they won t come here to make movies anymore because we didn t invest the money properly when it was coming in. We didn t invest it into creating our own young directors, putting it into our own movie industry.
Look at I Went Down, that was a class little movie made on a budget that could be recouped in Ireland, and with television and video sales worldwide. But nearly every movie made in Ireland since, as I say, Saving Private Ryan, is made for America. Fuck America! Let s make movies for ourselves. There s where our young directors will learn their trade. We made movies for the Americans. We let them come, park their trucks, use our facilities, our people and now they ve fucked off to other places where they can get better tax breaks. That s a fucking disgrace. Yet it s not too late to change things. But the first thing that must be done is an investigation into the way films are funded. And why so many films are not being made.
But you still insist you re not embittered by your experience working in the Irish film industry?
I m not embittered. But it has heightened my own sense of my own work. And given me the balls to stand up and ask these questions. And say what I want, in terms of any future film projects. On my last book tour of America I was approached by people in Wisconsin, who want me to work with them on a movie about Native Americans and I said, one proviso: if I write it in any form, I ll also be directing it. I m not going to write out a recipe for another chef! That s the main lesson I ve learned from my experience in the Irish film industry.

Brendan O Carroll plays the Olympia Theatre, Dublin from October 10th-14th.