Rex Ryan is terrified, but he'll get over it. He joined Ryan Tubridy to talk about his new one-man show in Smock Alley, Pilgrim, by Philip Doherty, that is still giving him the shakes even though he has performed it over a hundred times.
"I didn't think I'd be nervous. It's inevitable though. Just before going on last night, you just have these ludicrous thoughts – what if someone just throws a brick at me during the performance, what if I get sick, what if the theatre burns down? That's why I love it I suppose. The lights rock up and you just have to dive in."
The play is about a hard-edged J1 student who gets a call while in America telling him his ex-girlfriend is pregnant. He jumps on a plane bound for Ireland and reality, but the date is September 11th, 2001, and the plane is then diverted.
"This really happened… All the planes that were in the sky at that point were sent to Newfoundland over American airspace… They were grounded in Newfoundland and everyone was trapped on these planes for maybe 2 or 3 days, some having to sleep overnight on the planes, so we follow Christy and he's sent to a small fishing village called Gambo and he spends three nights in this fishing village going on a sort of wild odyssey of his soul."
Rex is also the eldest son of the late, great Gerry Ryan. Ryan asked him how he remembers his father.
"Fondly. Just a powerful, brilliant man for me personally. I was very close with him and we had some great times. I'm profoundly influenced by him. But you know it's a very strange thing me talking about my dad because I talk about a father really from my last memories when I was 21 and I'm an extremely different person now so it's almost like a different me… When I look back on it but it does seem like a different life in a strange way."
Click here to listen to Rex's interview on The Ryan Tubridy Show.