Dublin-born actor Peter M Smith has spent the past year playing Thin Lizzy front man Phil Lynott in the stage play Moonlight but it's time for something completely different with his new movie, Code Red: Spain.
In the new bilingual action film from director Jason Figgis, Smith plays Solomon Pierce, a former special ops solider who is teamed with an old army buddy to protect the wife and son of a vicious mob boss in a remote Spanish villa as she prepares to turn state witness against her husband.
It’s a bravado, no-budget production and Smith has an understated charisma as Pierce, a strong, silent type who turns out to have a heart under his bulletproof vest.
The cosmically laidback 47-year-old actor recently moved back to Dublin after living in Spain for ten years and he has already won praise for his portrayal of Lynott, starred in Netflix drama Who Is Erin Carter?, and can shortly be seen in guy Ritchie’s new film, In the Grey.
Code Red: Spain is something different again for him and growing up in Drimnagh, he dreamt of one day playing an action hero. "I was plonked in front of the telly when I was a kid," he says. "We all grew up watching the eighties junk which was absolutely great.
"But my thing was High Noon and The Good The Bad and the Ugly and you always fancied yourself doing something like that. You grow up to be six foot two and you’re athletic. In this business you get to cosplay whatever you want and you might just get away with it."
The prolific Figgis, who directed Smith in Moonlight and has also made movies such as The House at the End of the Lane, isn’t shy about making nods to his influences in his latest project.
The movie was shot in Almería in southeastern Spain, the same locations as Sergio Leone’s celebrated Spaghetti westerns, action heroes like Jason Statham Wesley Snipes, Sly Stallone are namechecked, and there are framed posters of Scarface, The Godfather and Pulp Fiction on the wall of the villa.
It also has a knowing sense of humour with most of the laughs belonging to Paul Sparkes, who has previously appeared in Vikings Valhalla, TV soap Red Rock, and Outlander.
He plays Thomas Twelvetrees, a bullet-headed military specialist - nay, fetishist - who’s always ready with a quip and given to singing old folk songs in moments of grave danger. He even quotes Spandau Ballet lyrics.
"Paul is a great guy and that’s how he is in real life," says Smith. "He’s a big guy, quite athletic. He was raised in Dublin but he is very much a Londoner so he’s got that Irish attitude but with that London wide boy twist and Jason picked up on who Paul is and wrote his character accordingly."
The sparky bantz between the gnarly old soldiers are fun, with the more cynical, hard-bitten Pierce riffing off the devil may care Twelvetrees in a completion of macho cliches and braggadocio.
Shot over ten days and with a budget of just €170,000, the tension is ratcheted up as we hurtle towards a tense siege as the Cortes crime family zone in on the villa.
"We didn’t have 50 million quid to spend on special effects so the line-writing and the delivery all has to be first class." says Smith.
It all leads to a pretty bone-crunching fight scene when Pierce finally faces off with a truly villainous Cortes family capo. What was that like to shoot? "Painful," Smith laughs. "I spent a couple of weeks preparing. I’d be quite agile and sporty and that helps and I know how to throw a punch.
"What you see is what you get - there was an awful lot of contact in those fight scenes. I was trading blows with a good fighter and I had a couple of marks for a few weeks."
The film is dominated by two very alpha male characters but Francesca Kingdon, who plays estranged mob wife Estelle Fiori-Sanchez, is no shrinking violet. The English actress has previously played Yasmin in ITV drama Footballers Wives Extra Time and appeared in Madonna’s directorial debut Filth and Wisdom.
She also writes and produces and is Smith’s partner in their film and TV development company Zero 3 Productions.
"Estelle’s character really reflects Francesca," Smith says. "She is an actual footballer’s wife in real life. Robert Huth, who’s won the Premiere League three times, is her husband. She is not backwards about coming forwards. We have a very good partnership; we know each other twenty years. She’s well able for me and I'm well able for her."
Zero 3 Productions is very busy right now. There’s another Jason Figgis movie in the works called Looker and they’re also developing Twelve, a crime drama about a black Irish detective on the trial of a serial killer who doesn’t actually kill anyone but talks other people into the act.
The film also stars Hilda Fay and Patrick Bergin and, in an interesting and dramatic case of acting against type, Fair City actor George McMahon plays the serial killer. "Everyone will know him as Mondo but I think there’s more to George than that - he reminds me of the actor Jason Bateman," says Smith.
"What we will show of George will change perceptions around him. I’ve known him for 25 years and he’s going to eat this part alive."
Smith is just back from a run of Moonlight at The Apollo in London and intends to settle again in Dublin following the break-up of his marriage to his wife Jessica, with whom he has three daughters.
The play, which imagines Phil Lynott in a Beckettian limbo, nursing a pint in a Dublin pub alongside Behan and Wilde, returns for another UK run later this month and is on again in Dublin's Vicar Street on the 11 and 12 of June.
"I love Moonlight. It’s been very good to me," Smith says. "It’s been great to exorcise Phil Lynott and get him off my chest because I’ve been speaking to people, including Jim Sheridan, about playing him for years. I feel that playing Philip has opened me up to audiences and I am very grateful for that."
Code Red: Spain is streaming on Google, Amazon, Apple, Vudu and Tubi.
