INTERVIEW WITH GABRIEL BYRNE WHILE MAKING "SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW"

Gabriel Byrne (The Mechanic)

Career Review:
Gabriel Byrne started his acting career when he was nearly 30. Up to then he worked as a school teacher in his native Ireland. He started at the Abbey Theater and later joined the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Byrne made his feature film debut in John Boorman's Excalibur. Other European films include the acclaimed Defense of the Realm and Hannah K. During this time Byrne worked for several noteworthy European directors, including Constantin Costa-Gavras, Ken Russell, and Ken Loach. In 1990, he made his American debut in the Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing.

Since then, he has starred in Ralph Bakshi's Cool World, A Dangerous Woman, Trial by Jury, John Badham's Point of No Return and Little Women. He also starred in The Usual Suspects with Chazz Palminteri and Kevin Spacey and in Frankie Starlight with Matt Dillon. Most recently he played opposite Johnny Depp in Jim Jarmusch's Deadman, in The Last of the High Kings, which he co-wrote, and in Trigger Happy he stars with Jeff Goldblum and Richard Dreyfuss.

Smilla's Sense of Snow is the second film he has made in Denmark. He also appeared in Danish director Gabriel Axel's Prince of Jutland.

Byrne divides his time between writing, producing, and acting. He was executive producer on Jim Sheridan's film In the Name of the Father, which earned several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and he also produced and starred in Into the West, opposite Ellen Barkin. His first book, Pictures in My Head, was published in December 1995 in Ireland, where it became a critically acclaimed bestseller. The book was published in America in September 1996.

When did you first know that you wanted to become an actor?
I didn't want to become an actor. I didn't become an actor till I was about 29, which is quite old for somebody to start in that profession. But I had been teaching up to that time, and I did drama classes with the kids. From then I became interested in theater and eventually in film.

The first theater part I did had no lines whatsoever. I had to walk across the stage and just raise my hat and get out on the other side. Later I played the leading part in a play called The Hostage. My first film part came with Excalibur, directed by John Boorman. He offered me a part after having seen me onstage in a play in Dublin.

Do you still do theater?
No. I haven't done theater for 12 years now. I prefer doing movies-always have. Of course, the direct contact with the audience can be exciting, but the immediate rapport between the audience and the stage is something that dies every night with the play. Some actors are addicted to it. I'm not. But I think that I may go back and do a play next year sometime, just for the experience.

What was it in the Smilla script that made you accept the part?
I read the novel about three years ago, and I really loved it. On the one hand it was a thriller and on the other hand it's an emotional story. I really liked all the characters. The character of the Mechanic is a mystery, an enigma, and to play a mystery or an enigma is difficult. I like that; you have to mislead the audience but you also have to make them believe in you and at the same time doubt you. That's an interesting game to play. Because the Mechanic should be mysterious and most of him should be hidden, so that the audience doesn't quite know him. When he says to Smilla, "Don't you trust me?" and she looks at him and says, "No!" the audience shouldn't either. I find that very interesting, but I think it's the last kind of mysterious part I'm going to play. I've already played too many!

The Usual Suspects for example.
Yes, in The Usual Suspects I was also this secretive guy. So that's it now for mysterious parts.

This is not the first time you've been shooting in Denmark.
No, I did Prince of Jutland, too, with Gabriel Axel, and I had a great time doing that picture. A lot of really good actors...and Gabriel himself. I have really happy memories of Copenhagen. So I was glad to come back again and work in Denmark-and to work with Bille, whom I had already met in New York when he was casting The House of the Spirits a long time ago. We didn't work together that time, but I met him again in New York when The House of Spirits came out. He is a very calm director. Very calm and logical. Never looses his cool, which is amazing on a film like this, because it was quite a difficult film from every point of view.

Did you like Greenland?
Greenland was amazing. It was a country I'd never been to before and I knew nothing about it. It was like being in the desert, except it was a desert of snow. And when you're in a wide-open space like that you feel that man is subservient to nature. You feel that you're really just a visitor. Everywhere else man has control of the environment, but not there. Yet at the same time you go into a supermarket and they've got compact discs and Disney toys. So it's a combination of the primitive and the 20th century. It was really interesting from that point of view as well.

You're Irish, but you don't live in Ireland.
No, I live in Los Angeles. I have two kids, so I live there to be near them. But I miss Ireland. I have a house there and I still miss living there all the time. It's tough to live in America.

What is it that is so special about Ireland-this strong feeling Irish people have for their country?
It think a lot of it has to do with history and a lot of it has to do with the nature of the people themselves. We are a very friendly, hospitable, passionate, melancholy, witty, curious, introverted kind of people. We're all those things. And it's in incredibly beautiful but also very troubled country. However, the people are what make the country, and the people are really unique. There's nobody else in the world like the Irish. It is, of course, easy for me to say that, but the German people, for example, are in love with the Irish; Irish music, everything. And the Danes came to Ireland before anybody else, and they obviously knew where they were going. They knew it was a good place over there.

Playing the Mechanic, you had to stutter. Isn't it difficult to concentrate so hard on your language and still be able to concentrate on the rest of the acting? How can you do that?
Well, I used to stutter when I was a kid, so it wasn't anything that I had to think about. I don't really stammer anymore now, but sometimes, when I'm very, very tired I can stammer a little bit. It disappeared by itself. I know people who've worked hard at it and it hasn't gone away. But I was lucky, I guess.

What do you do to prepare yourself for a part?
I just read the script a couple of times. And say the lines. Then wait for the director to say what's good or bad. But I think that the best thing is just to read the script as often as possible. I'm not really somebody who researches, because I believe that every role an actor plays is basically playing himself, even though most actors like to think that they're becoming somebody else. I don't think they are. I think they're just themselves. And whatever it is you have to play, it should come from inside you. Sometimes you need to learn about various things, but it mostly comes from inside.

Do you have a favorite movie?
I have a lot of favorite movies: Fellini's Amarcord; The Four Hundred Blows, by Truffaut; Brief Encounter, by David Lean; Raging Bull by Scorsese; The Quiet Man, by John Ford. A lot of favorite movies. I love a lot of Bergman's movies-not all of them, but I love Fanny and Alexander.

As an actor, you travel a lot, which means you're away from home for long periods of time. How do you maintain a close relationship with your children, you family, and your friends?
I try to work as little as I can, it's as simple as that. I have to work: I have to live; and I try as far as I possibly can to do films that don't take me away from home for long periods of time. Smilla's Sense of Snow is the longest film I've ever done, and for that reason I was somewhat ambivalent about doing the part, because it meant I had to be away from my kids for 12 weeks. I've never really been away from them for longer periods than 3 weeks at a time.

You know, I think that anybody who works in the movie business works very hard, and people pay a very high price for being in movies; a very high price which I don't really want to pay. Because I don't think that any movie is really worth the price of what people have to give up.

(Interview with Karin Trolle)

from "Smilla's Sense of Snow, the making of a film by Bille August published in 1997 by The Noonday Press
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York