It’s the day after Clare’s epic All Ireland win and Ennis resident Simone Kirby is understandably in jubilant mood.

“I watched it in London where luckily it was being shown on BBC2,” she enthuses. “It was just incredible! We only arrived back at midnight so missed the first wave of celebrations, but we’re going in tonight to welcome the team home. I’d say it’ll be hopping!”

Adding to the actor’s joi de vivre are the rave reviews the Kneecap movie has been getting ahead of its August 8 release. “You make films that have a much higher budget and think, ‘This is going to be massive!’ but they flop,” Simone reflects. “Then you make a little indie movie and suddenly it’s an award-winning buzzy thing. When I got to see it for the first time at Sundance in America, I was blown away by the response from the audience. I didn’t expect them to get it – the humour in particular – as comprehensively as they did. I think it’s to do with the energy the lads bring, which is really infectious.”

Kirby admits that prior to an out of the blue email from director Rich Peppiatt, she had no idea who Kneecap were.

“I watched a couple of the guys’ music videos and thought, ‘God, they’re excellent!’ The point at which I said, ‘I want to be part of telling their story’ was after I saw them being interviewed. They just came across as being very interesting and different.”

Kneecap premiere at The Lighthouse Cinema. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

It also helped that most of her scenes are opposite Michael Fassbender. Had Simone come across him before?

“Obviously I’ve seen his work over the years but, no, I’d never met him. There was a first Zoom when myself, Rich and Michael talked through the characters, the back story and one really important scene in particular. Michael and I also talked on the phone and back and forth-ed on email, so by the time we physically met we felt we knew each other. He was very open and invested in the movie with his production company, DMC Film, coming on board as well.”

In order to squeeze the guys in, Simone had to go AWOL from shooting season two of Hidden Assets.

“The week they absolutely needed me in Belfast was the same time that they were planning to do the Hidden Assets exploding car scene in Limerick, but they very kindly rearranged it so I could go and do the Kneecap film,” she explains. “I had to work on the Belfast accent, which I was more comfortable with than the language because the Munster Irish I speak a little of is very different to Ulster Irish. When the boys talk as Gaeilge, I can barely understand them but we got the job done!

“At its core, it’s a political movie about the Irish language, which I find really moving. It’s also about Belfast now rather than harking back to the 1970s and ‘80s. This is what a young, vibrant city feels like.”

The character of Dolores draws inspiration from Móglaí Bap’s own mother, Aoife Ní Riain, an Irish language stalwart who tragically took her own life in 2020.

KNEECAP (dir. Rich Peppiatt, 2024)

“We were supposed to have a couple of Zoom calls before we met, which I think Naoise (AKA Móglaí Bap) found quite hard so he backed out of those,” Simone reveals. “I was very aware going in that Rich and Michael – who had had a chance to speak to him – were really looking out for him. Naoise and I then had about 45 minutes in my trailer to just sit and chat and get to know each other a little bit.

“Once he’d met me, he relaxed and felt a little safer because it’s a huge thing to give over that story to the film – and to let a complete stranger come in and play your mum when you’ve been through so much. It might have been all about them being in a movie and not really taking into consideration what it meant for this young fella. We ended up getting on like a house on fire and became pals.”

Of all the things Kneecap can be accused of, sexism isn’t one of them. “I know that doing those sex scenes Jessica did feel really supported,” Simone concludes. “There were a lot of conversations around them and there was an intimacy coordinator. Now that we have those there’s a different level of care.

“The boys are playing the leads and you’ve Michael there, but the rest of the characters holding them up are female and they all get their big moments in the film.”

Kneecap is out in Irish cinemas now

To read our full interview with Kneecap on the film, their upcoming Electric Picnic set and their daring debut LP Fine Art, get your copy of Hot Press below: