"One of the reasons I don't drink anymore is because of the hangovers," says Michael Smiley. "As you get older the hangovers last longer and they eat into your soul a bit and it becomes less flippant.
"When you’re younger you say `god my head is killing me’ but when you’re older, they last so long you’re curled up the sofa like Nosferatu."
A confirmed teetotaller for years, the Belfast-born actor is talking about playing Ward Clancy, a troubled father who turns to the drink in new black comedy Obituary.
Ward is the father of Elvira (Siobhan Cullen), an obituarist for the local paper who turns to drastic measures to avoid going broke when her editor tells her he can no longer pay her a regular wage.
"When we meet Ward, he’s in a state of emotional flux," says Smiley on the phone from London, where he lives with his wife, the journalist Miranda Sawyer, and four kids.
"His wife died giving birth to Elvira so he’s completely devoted to his daughter but there’s other stuff going on in the background which will be revealed. Ward is completely devoted to his daughter and loves her very much. She’s the only real metronome in his life, the only real anchor in his life."
He adds, "Ward is on the run from himself and has found solace and a great hiding place in the pint, which is quite a middle-aged Irishman thing. When things are out of control the one place you can go is the pub which is full of other men whose lives are out of control."
"I love the originality of the script, I like the premise. I like the thrust and the idea of Ireland turning out a story like this that is the polar opposite of Wild Mountain Thyme."
And he had a pretty good trick for getting into character. "By not remembering the fun and trying to remember the pain, I can get into Ward’s head, between coming down off a drink and getting ready for a drink. That space in between becomes less and less and less and then you’re just topping up.
"I think that Ward is not drinking to get drunk, he’s drinking to maintain a certain level because we don’t see him staggering around singing The Fields of Athenry with someone in headlock. He’s topping up all the time."
Obituary is certainly an oddity. It’s macabre, quirky and drenched in inky black humour. "I love the originality of the script, I like the premise," Smiley says. "I like the thrust and the idea of Ireland turning out a story like this that is the polar opposite of Wild Mountain Thyme."
60-year-old Smiley is loquacious and philosophical and he’s also a very prolific actor with a very long and eclectic CV. He moved to London with his first wife in 1983 and began doing stand-up in 1993, while working as a cycle courier. Early roles included playing Tyres O'Flaherty in Channel Four sitcom Spaced with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.
Appearances in Kill List (2011) and The Lobster (2015) followed and he is now firmly established as a go-to performer with roles in Luther, Black Mirror, Doctor Who and, closer to home, Irish Canadian series Dead Still. And of course, he played cosmetic surgeon Cornelius Evazan in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016.
Obituary was filmed in a wet and windy Ballyshannon and Bundoran last winter and Smiley says he loved returning to Ireland to work.
"I fell in love with Ballyshannon," he says. "We used to go to Bundoran when we were kids. The flight of the Catholics across the border during the twelfth fortnight. My dad would get out the Morris Minor and we’d head off to Bundoran and then we’d go to Tramore and back up thought Skerries to the north. I hadn’t been to Bundoran since I was eight.
"I had vaguely been to Ballyshannon but when I went back, I fell in love with it. The people were great. We had lots of supporting actors from the surrounding area for funeral scenes and they were all bang on it and it’s so near the border so on days off I’d nip over to Belfast."
He’s also full of praise for his co-star Siobhan Cullen, who can also be seen in RTÉ comedy drama The Dry. "Siobhan is amazing. She’s funny and irreverent, she’s an Irish girl and she gets the joke and makes the joke and has the craic and rolls with the punches. We all sort of found each other’s rhythm and I loved working with her.
"I always gets excited and nervous around good actors and she was certainly one of them. I loved working with her. She’s carrying that show. Part of my joy of coming home again to Ireland is working with quality actors."
A long-time resident of London, when asked if he pays much attention to what’s going on in the north, Smiley says, "Yes and no, yes and no because if I do pay too much attention I become really depressed to see that nothing has changed and it’s still this childish backwards and forwards `nah, nah, nah' politics.
"It’s only when I go home and meet up with people and see what’s happening in Belfast culturally that it gives me hope. I’m always interested in talking to local people about what’s going on.
"I did a series called Something to Ride Home About where I cycled around the six counties and then the nine counties and the idea behind that was less about the politics and more about the people.
"Politics and religion are a man-made thing that keep us in our place but our humanity and love for people always comes through. I’m working on my own ideas of how we can understand and be loving toward each other. I’ve got children and a wife, a circle of family who work on love, we don’t work on fear."
Alan Corr @CorrAlan2
Obituary begins tonight on RTÉ One at 10.15pm with all episodes available to watch on the RTÉ Player afterwards.
