Robert Sheehan talks to John Byrne about filming Killing Bono and working with the late, great Pete Postlethwaite.
First off, it must be said that Robert Sheehan is one of the nicest fellas you could meet. Despite becoming something of a poster boy and sex symbol for his role as Nathan in Channel 4’s The Misfits, the 23-year-old from Portlaoise hasn’t had a head-turn, nor is he likely to lose the run of himself at any stage. He just wants to act, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Currently rehearsing a play at London’s Old Vic (where Kevin Spacey is Artistic Director), his most recent big screen role was in Killing Bono, where he played Ivan McCormack, brother and fellow band member of Neil McCormack.
The siblings attempt to become rock stars but can only look on as their secondary school friends form U2 and become the biggest band in Ireland and then the world. The film also stars Ben Barnes as Neil McCormick and Martin McCann as U2 singer Bono, and features the late Pete Postlethwaite in his final acting role.
JB: So, Robert, what are you up to?
RS: I’m rehearsing a play at the moment. It’s The Playboy of the Western World in The Old Vic in London. Old Kevin Spacey’s in there at the moment doing Richard III. I’ve met him, and he very nicely sent me a letter when we started, saying welcome and all that, and then he came in for a kind of meet and greet. I went to the see the play and it was astonishing. Amazing, man. He’s like a one-man generator.
I said to him that he was using an awful lot of energy up there on the stage, and he goes: ‘Yeah, man. It’s like riding a tornado every night’. He’s up there and he’s howling and hobblin’ around with this hunchback.
Killing Bono is out on DVD. It must feel like a million years ago since you shot the film?
It was nearly two years ago. January 2010 we started.
Certainly the most poignant thing about the film was that it was Pete Postlethwaite’s last role. Presumably you’ve mixed feelings about that?
On one hand it’s such an awful shame that it was his last performance. A man of that calibre, and he was so lovely, a sweet man and so effortlessly amazing. There’s not enough good things to say about him, I think. And at the same time it’s like feeling almost lucky that I got to do a scene even, or be in a scene with him. To share a space and act with him was a real honour. There are few of his calibre: the likes of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, names that last on through theatrical history. I think he’s going to be one, as well. He’s one of the finest stage actors there has ever been.
It looked like Killing Bono was good fun. Did you enjoy the shoot
Yeah, it was great oul’ craic. We got to ponce about in silly costumes and try and pretend to be rock stars all day. In the strange and contrived way in which films happen, they hired about 300 16-year-olds to come in and scream on cue, and that did great things for the ego.
What was ironic as well, in a way, was that the first thing we did was to go in and record our vocals – as best we could. It was in quite a lovely recording studio in the north of Ireland. It was ironic because Neil and Ivan, the real two, tried their whole careers to get into a situation where someone like a record label would bring them into a recording studio and record their vocals. We were doing it first thing.
Killing Bono is out now on DVD.
