Actor Rory Keenan – about playing Mark

‘‘Mark is married to Katie, a friend of Jonathon, and I suppose he is a fixer he knows how to fix things and get things and use whatever resources they have available to make things easier for them. He is a very practical, optimistic kind of guy and it is almost as important to himself as it is for the group for them to remain optimistic. His mantra is that things will be ok and get better, whether or not he actually believes that I don’t know, it is just something he needs to hear and I think other people need to hear. Towards the end his line of argument becomes thinner and there is also the thing between Jonathon and Katie, I think he doesn’t confront it probably because it is something he cannot fix and if he cannot fix it he probably doesn’t want to acknowledge it. It is a heartbreaking situation for him with his friend and his wife, aside from the fact that life is hard enough at this particular time, he probably needs that optimism to get him through each day which probably turns into denial.’’

The Script –
‘‘The script was great, what I liked about it was that it was very unIrish. The setting here is almost Scandinavian, it was just a story and it could have been set anywhere which is lovely. I liked Mark because he goes through a genuine struggle aside from the major one at hand and it’s a bit of a sad ending aswell.

It is essentially a story about four people in a very enclosed and suffocating environment and in that way it is very much a performers film so we have a lot of responsibility to make this real or interesting to look at and make people care about the people and the film so in that sense it is definitely a challenge.

As far as I see it and if I was sitting watching this film I would imagine that it’s not giving any statements, any socio-political message, I think it’s a small story that just happens to take place at this time. You can take any messages you want out of it but I think to do that would take away from the story and what Conor is trying to do.‘’

Filming –
‘‘Conor Horgan is a very actor-friendly director in that he is very open to input and we got time to rehearse which is very rare in films and I think it helped. The strength of this film is how performance driven it is and the star of the show is really the setting and surroundings because it is just beautiful here.

What I was most surprised at was how similar the set was to how I had imagined it to be, it was almost as if this film was written for here and it went a long way in helping the mood and getting us tuned to where we were supposed to have been for so long. You really get the sense through shooting the film how bad things could get. It does make you think that to keep sane is almost as important to keep warm and dry.‘’

The Catalyst Scheme – ‘
‘It is a brilliant opportunity for me and for all of us, it is a great opportunity for first time directors to get something on screen and it is great for actors as well.’’