Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin has been one of the best films of 2022. It landed several accolades along with nine Oscar nominations and was highly praised for its direction and performances. Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Barry Keoghan, the movie follows two lifelong friends after one of them puts an end to their relationship, which is followed by alarming consequences.
During an appearance on Variety’s Directors on Directors, the film’s director McDonagh shared one of the things that shocked him while filming, as he shared that he does not plan a script.
Martin McDonagh Was Shocked While Filming His Oscar-Nominated Movie
Director Martin McDonagh joined Taylor Swift on Variety’s Directors on Directors, after the singer announced that she would be making her feature directorial debut under Searchlight Pictures. The duo discussed their work before Swift asked the filmmaker about the symbolism behind Colm cutting off his fingers to keep Pádraic away from him in The Banshees of Inisherin.
While the singer believed that it was a metaphor for a part of their life stifling their “aliveness,” McDonagh “thought it was funny.” He shared during the conversation that he never plans “out a script beforehand” and was “kind of shocked” when Brendan Gleeson’s character came in and made that threat.
The actor explains that these unexpected developments add a bit of a surprise element to the story and make it even more intriguing for the audience. He said,
“If you don’t know that they’re gonna happen, hopefully the audience won’t see it coming too.”
He also explained that Colm’s threat is meant to express the severity of the situation to Pádraic, played by Colin Farrell. He describes it as a desperate attempt from Colm to get through to Pádraic and convince him never to contact him again by being overly harsh and threatening.
Martin McDonagh Wanted to Reunite With Colin Farrell And Brendan Gleeson
Martin McDonagh worked with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in the 2008 crime drama In Bruges. And he shared during an interview that he wanted to reunite with the star cast of his 2008 film. “We had so much fun on the first one,” he said during an interview with Deadline.
He shared that he was looking forward to working with “the boys again,” but he did not want to collaborate on a project that would be “anything lesser than Bruges.” The filmmaker shared that he did not want to disappoint fans of In Bruges and did not want to “replicate” the same story as before.
So, he decided to cast them as two lifelong friends in conflict. “If In Bruges is a love story between their characters, this is the end of that. The end of love,” he told Deadline.
The Banshees of Inisherin is available on Max and Hulu.
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