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Heart To Hart
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Ian Hart is a man of many parts, but few, he tells Paul Byrne, have been as challenging or rewarding as playing Brian Keanan in Blind Flight.
That Ian Hart was willing to wait two and a half years for the cameras to finally roll on Blind Flight reflected his belief in the film. And his passion for the story it told. The story in question is that of Belfast teacher Brian Keanan and British journalist John McCarthy's four-year incarceration by Beirut terrorists in the late '80s, Hart playing the former and Linus Roache the latter. A notoriously prickly individual, and self-confessed grumpy idealist, Brian Keanan must have been a difficult man to inhabit.
"In certain aspects, yeah," nods the Liverpool-born Hart. "When you do a characterisation, it's going to be condensed, so it's not exactly him. Certain aspects become heightened, so that narkiness comes across strongly. But it is part of his character, and it comes across strongly in his book."
A hit at this year's Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Blind Flight is largely a powerful two-hander between Hart and Roache, the gradual friendship between the Brit-hating Irishman and the amicable Brit being the driving force of the film. Imagine Beckett rewriting The Odd Couple.
Based on Keanan's An Evil Cradling and McCarthy's Some Other Rainbow, first-time writer/director John Furse actually began writing Blind Flight before either book hit the shelves. That Furse had the co-operation of both Keanan and McCarthy (the latter remaining throughout the shoot) ensured the film's authenticity.
"It was great being able to talk with Brian, and with John, about how things really were," says Hart, "but there also comes a point when you have to step away and make decisions about what's going to help you make this character come to life. You have to be left to your own devices eventually."
Shot in Tunisia – for the outdoor scenes – and Scotland and Northern Ireland for the interiors ("We shot for two and half weeks in Carrickfergus in what looked like a disused factory on Mars"), for both Hart and Roache, stepping outside the set was often a surreal experience.
"The thing is, you're doing it in Glasgow in the middle of winter, and you're shooting in Belfast in the middle of winter, and it's supposed to be Lebanon in the heat," smiles Hart. "That was one of the most marked differences; when you come out and there's snow on the ground. You have to keep your own headspace somewhere else. It wasn't a hindrance, by any stretch, but it was weird."
Having recently appeared in The Gate for the 2002 production of The Homecoming, Hart has worked in Ireland regularly over the years, shooting such movies as Nothing Personal, Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy. Having made his breakthrough playing John Lennon in both the BBC drama The Hours And Times and the movie Backbeat, hits such as Ken Loach's Land And Freedom and Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone have helped establish Hart as one of England's finest actors.
"There aren't that many great films being made out there," he finishes, "so, when something like Blind Flight comes along, you grab it with both arms. It's certainly something worth waiting two and a half years to make. This is still ten times better than any other job I could ever have, and it's put a roof over my family's head, so I'm laughing, you know what I mean?"
"Just tell Neil Jordan to get his act together and give me another part. I want to visit Ireland again soon."
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As Unknown