Zohran Mamdani's PL Years & a chat with Éanna Hardwicke on playing Roy Keane in Saipan

18:59Charlie Eccleshare:We'll be back after the break.

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20:02Imported by Mast Jägermeister, U.S., White Plains, New York. Two teams, one cup. The primetime stage is set for the TGL presented by SoFi Finals, Los Angeles Golf Club versus Tigers Jupiter Lynx. Keep up, it's playoffs. Tune in Monday, March 23rd, 9 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2 and Tuesday, March 24th, 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN ESPN and on the ESPN app.

20:27Oh, look at that. That is wonderful.

20:35Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. A reminder, for just$5.99 a month, you can sign up for Dreamland. For that, you'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes, plus two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show, and other bits as well. There are 15 episodes available now of Dreamland. It ranges from a comprehensive look at match of the day To a history of football video game commentary To the ludicrous language of the transfer window Just go to dreamland.footballcliches.com to sign up Episode 16 is going to be on the way soon as well Right, about a year ago, I would say We got an inkling of the idea that there was going to be a film About the incident between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy Before the 2002 World Cup That inkling, that idea has turned into Saipan the new film that's out in UK cinemas this Friday, January the 23rd, about their infamous confrontation during Ireland's preparations for the 2002 World Cup.

21:28Charlie Eccleshare:It's a story we follow with keen interest right from the very start. I have seen some fascinating reviews of this film, Dave, namely from Jonathan Wilson, who is always very much in the spirit of football cliches, but he's also a man who enjoys pointing out plot holes in silent witness space on the career of former Southampton striker Neil Shipley. so this review perhaps is only going to go one way but it starts off superbly um it says all history is to some extent narrative you cannot tell a story without in some way editing it reducing it compressing it which means that anybody telling a story about a historical event particularly one from a relatively recent past risks outraging those who have studied it or who remember it often those complaints are pedantic trivial but sometimes they are not that's just the start of things.

22:13Charlie Eccleshare:I'm glad Wilson got his teeth into this, to be honest. He then goes on to cite Charlie 15th century Florentine painter Filippo Lippi, mid-19th century English artist John William Inchbold. But this was definitely my favourite bit of the review. He says Coogan's portrayal of McCarthy is generally fine, even if there is an alarming moment where it seems as if Jimmy Savile is celebrating an island goal. Aina Hardwick is excellent as Keane, but when this was filmed, Coogan was 16 years older than McCarthy was in Saipan. He's also three inches shorter than Hardwick whereas McCarthy is three inches taller than Keane that changes the dynamic significantly rather than a man of 30 shouting at a physically imposing man one generation older the scene in the restaurant becomes a young hyper fit extremely intense athlete berating a shorter man nearly 30 years his senior and whatever the merits of his argument that just looks like bullying love it I wish when we were speaking to Edna Hardwick we'd said um and just to cite 15th century florentine painter Filippo Lippi I mean I'm sure you'd have heard this you know throughout but just see him maybe he would have gone keen on us if we had that really would that really would have overcome you know the natural hurdle you get with these situations is am i asking them something they haven't heard before which is which is always the impulse you want to satisfy um but anyway in something of a novel first for football cliches and without wanting to sound too much like i'm handing over to the showbiz correspondent on the itv evening news we caught up with saipan directors lisa baros de sar and glenn lyburn and anna hardwick who plays roy keen in the film to talk about the challenges of making a football film with almost no football in it umbro logo woes irish identity method dog walking and that climactic pre-world cup scene enjoy all the games changed oh undoubtedly and we need to be prepared it's not use having a stop over in saipan if it's gonna have a bad effect with lads why would it have a bad effect well we're traveling for over a day for a start i mean that that airport nonsense was chaos there's no in front of me.

24:04Humility is important, right? When I was captain, Big Jack would always tell me. Right, Big Jack. Big Jack was an English fellow who looked at Paddy Irish lads in the head. We talk a lot about football on film and on television, and we're sort of obsessed with the details of it and how difficult it is, seemingly, to get it right and all the many pitfalls that there could potentially be. So this is a perfect topic for us, really. Yeah, just wondered how much of a challenge it was. This is obviously a very well-known story to a lot of people. It was covered in fairly forensic detail at the time.

24:38How much were you looking to retell that story or to add something new to that existing narrative? I think it was told so often at the time and in so many different forms. That was in a way one of the most interesting things about the story is why it made such an impact on the culture, because it had the most kind of seismic impact in Ireland in particular, but also echoes and waves all around the world. And, you know, at its heart, it's two people on an island involved in this very kind of slow motion collision. But the shockwaves that it sent over the island of Ireland and beyond were so significant that even at the time, everybody was talking about why it was making such an impact on the culture.

25:23So that was one of the kind of our routes into the story. It attained the status of myth as soon as it happened. And that is such an unusual thing to happen. And it almost felt like it was it had become a founding myth of one of a kind of modern version of Ireland that was just emerging at the time. And so that felt really fascinating. So I think when we when we approached it, we approached it as as a myth in a way. This is what did it mean to the culture? Why? What were the narratives that people were interested in? And I suppose we wanted to tell our version of that myth and look at what felt urgent about that for an audience today.

26:00And a lot of that was to do with themes of national identity and, you know, masculinity and, you know, how we all managed to kind of self-sabotage our own dreams. And all of those themes are very kind of urgent and are in the global picture that we all look at with often horror in many ways these days. But, you know, so that all felt really fascinating. And one of the things that was really the resource that we had, you know, was huge because it was so talked about. We had so much radio archive. We had so much visual archive. We talked to this amazing academic called Marcus Free, who had kept a lot of contemporary newspaper articles about the time.

26:42So we were able to kind of delve into how people, not just how people were talking about it, but how they were talking about the conversation about it. So there are all these layers which were really fascinating. And it was spoken about through the lens of they had psychologists come on to the radio shows. They had legal experts, business experts, people looking at all these different lenses through which to sort of analyse why it meant so much to everybody. So that was, as well as the story, that was part of the story. Yeah, and it has to be said as well, I mean, Ireland has sort of grown to a halt during this whole time.

27:13I mean, it stopped everything. News programming was changed. changed everything was given over to the saipan incident um as it's become known and and families were divided and continue to be divided to this day in actual fact when this was announced you know people were saying oh god no don't bring that up we've only just got back together again it's gonna open these wounds so um yeah i mean it was size as lisa said it's seismic in ireland

27:38Charlie Eccleshare:this particular incident everything you've just said and and the first couple of minutes of this film completely reframe the whole saga in my british head because from our perspective especially at the time it felt like a roy keen story and we all roy keen was a huge figure in english football it was all very much from his perspective and what i really grasped in the first couple of minutes of the film when it kind of recaps the reaction to it all was was the effect of it on the irish national psyche a huge anxiety about themselves bordering on embarrassment at some point which i thought it was quite quite troubling to me i thought i didn't know how to feel about that.

28:12Charlie Eccleshare:Was that really the kind of reaction at the time or has that grown since? It really was the reaction at the time. And I think this was one of the really interesting things about it. And people talk about now why it meant so much. And it was at a moment when Ireland was, you know, the Celtic tiger, what was happening around that time. Ireland had the most successful economy in Europe. You know, you have this Ireland and for the first time have this world class, you know, on the world stage alongside any of the greatest stars of football at the time. So there's national pride involved in that and Ireland seeing itself, you know, it's a post-colonial Ireland, right?

28:51So it's, you know, there's a lot of history there about Irish identity. You know, we grew up in Northern Ireland, the question of identity is always an open one, you know, it's never a settled thing. So and that sense of how, and there was a slight generational divide here too, I think, is how seriously do we take ourselves? How much pride do we have in ourselves as a nation? And, And, you know, and I think that Roy represented something that felt very appealing to a more confident young. It wasn't necessarily always that kind of age of age, but to a more confident, to Ireland's more confident idea of itself and his idea of standards and what that represented felt very important and something to sort of to crystallise that identity in a kind of global frame.

29:35And certainly, you know, just reading around. And I think what's really lovely about Steve's kind of Steve Coogan's connection to Mick McCarthy as a character is that you have an opportunity to tell that story of what being Irish meant to someone of the diaspora, you know, and how, yes, Mick was English. but at the same time he was grew up in England because his family had left Ireland for economic reasons a generation or two back so it's a very potent identity and I think that you know one of the other fascinating things was to look back it's you know 2002 is a long time ago but also very recent and to sort of see how things that we would feel quite uncomfortable about now we're very current in the conversation you know Irish jokes certain kind of stereotypes that were very current and obviously as filmmakers we we're using a story to focus themes that we're interested in but they were very alive for the culture at the time you know how we think about ourselves do we kind of if we're just going to the world cup to just go there give it a lash you know be there for the songs and the dance and the people that everybody you know enjoys watching but doesn't expect to win where does that stereotype come from and can we kind of challenge that now and How much does that stereotype bother us?

30:51How much are we still, you know, are we okay with that? All of that stuff felt like it was really played out in those, in the kind of journey of those two characters. I wanted to ask you about the two central performances, with Steve and with Aina playing McCarthy and Roy Keane. Two figures in McCarthy and Keane who, there's been plenty of people who've done impressions of both of them over the years. The sort of pitfall would have been to avoid falling into parody and making it too much of an impression. but both of them really nail the sort of details of both of their characters in different ways i think and and to start with with aina like the thing that i was really struck by was just how well he nailed that sort of low level quiet seething intensity menace that roy keen has it is quite menacing in in what is a film that does have plenty of levity as well he's actually a really menacing figure throughout.

31:44You'll be Aina and you'll realise he's very unmenacing as he is.

31:47Charlie Eccleshare:I can't imagine him being any other way now. It's so weird. The great joy of a good actor. He's extraordinary. You know, he's, I think that was one of the things in casting Roy that was really important. You know, Aina also is from Cork. He grew up in that, in very close to where Roy grew up. He, you know, he grew up with understanding the character of Roy as he was in the culture. So he's definitely got the accent. Yeah. We know that. And he has a huge amount of, you know, love for the character, you know, as a kid growing up, all that. So he has that idea in his bones of who Roy is. But it was absolutely important to make sure that we cast someone who could come into a room and, you know, in that character, change the electricity and the energy in the room, which is something that Roy clearly does.

32:34And that's just that innate power that he can convey is the most important thing about casting that character. With Steve, with Mick McCarthy, Mick McCarthy is the sort of guy that everyone thinks they can do a Mick McCarthy. And I think Steve didn't lean too hard into that side of it. He sort of had a bit of restraint as well with the performance, which I think really helped. Yeah, I think that there's a big difference between doing an impression and, you know, finding a character within a role. And Steve... We all know Steve can do the impression. that's a given but then it's the other is the performance is a different thing and yeah I think Steve was very I think he was very conscious of that and we're never looking for an impression in these situations the essence of somebody's character looking for more than the Exactly and Steve is obviously a genius and a comedic genius and a very brilliant actor and he better than anyone understands the difference between those two things and it's about inhabiting the character from the inside and I think for him and Ena we were that was where they were their skills came to bear you know because if you're doing an impression it probably ends up being more of a superficial engagement with the character whereas you want to go deeper than that so dave mentioned right right at the start the kind of pitfalls with football films that it's a very hard thing to recreate faithfully how conscious were you of that and is that partly why there isn't tons of kind of football action uh which i personally think is is massively to the film's advantage okay well that's good um we actually shot a lot more football there was more football shot and we cut it um because we actually do you know it's interesting when this script first came through the producers um who we'd been talking to for years about doing something they sent the script through just kind of cold and it arrived in her inbox sent to lisa and sent to myself and and lisa was in her office uh which is just next door to mine and she shouted in and said there's a football script in we're not making it so well okay i'll read it anyway just to be sure i do not dislike football in any way i'm definitely not immune to the joy of football i just would not i mean i did think for one wild moment of coming on this podcast pretending to be an expert but that is the answer yes i'm a lifelong football fan but yes but yeah i think lisa thought it was going to be more about football um and then i read it and said oh i think you should read it it's it's about football but it's also about lots of other things and um so and i think that was apparent in the edit as well as we went through you know we realized that we didn't need a huge amount of football action i mean we cut in i suppose the stuff that we shot in our saipan was great footage it just sort of became repetitive and it sort of didn't mean much often as much as anything because there's a large section of it where there are no balls um so they're just kind of running around and then actually the other football footage that we did put in was a lot of that fifa stuff so stuff from the world cup which is of course amazing footage so you want to move the the story beats along and sometimes the football while a joy and we did have some you know our actors were incredible and you know the people that we cast to play the ireland football team very specifically all could play were great yeah um and i think what they we didn't actually use a lot of the football footage but what they kind of brought to the whole production as a team and understanding that world was so important you know yeah i mean it has to be said if we cast the team and for each person they did an audition tape so they did a reading of lines or whatever and then they also we got them to do a little kind of football edition tape so they you know keepy ups or something like that well you know to actually see them pick up the wall i mean um so that they could you know we can and actually yeah oliver cooper smith who plays uh jason mcateer actually did the crossbar challenge he he he actually i don't know how many takes it took him but but it was it was it was super impressive he had the role

36:32Charlie Eccleshare:instantly this is tremendous i love this detail uh further to charlie's question it's it's kind of incumbent on this podcast to ask the following thing i'm going to blame this really i'm going to pin this on the listeners as much as the podcast itself how much do the finer details of all the footballing kind of iconography not just the action but the kits the the training kit everything about the 2002 world cup preparation for ireland play on your mind as as directors because these little things don't pass by a football fan's attention football fans have astonishing memories and astonishing eyes for detail yeah we're totally aware of that you know we have massive respect for everyone who was involved and you know certainly part of the story is that the fans and the viewers were part of that team as well and part and all the world cup viewers so that was really important to us so that just to sort of craft that as because that's a satisfaction for people watching or an annoyance for people watching if you don't get it right you know and it affects the authenticity of they feel is the experience we had an amazing costume designer we did i mean to be fair to lara actually our costume designer we had quite a short lead-in to this so i mean to kind of get kits was tricky and you know with a short lead in um i think we had six weeks pre-production so it's a lot longer to get kits made so she she worked miracles one thing you will notice the kits the badge is not the the branding is not what it was but that and that wasn't actually the people who made the kits did in the end come back and say we were clear to use them but they came back a little bit too late for us to be made so but we were honestly we tried to be meticulous with everything possible and even though i'm not an expert there were a lot of people in the production including glenn who you know were absolutely forensic and knowing all the details so we tried and if there are things that we got wrong it may be because in certain cases we couldn't get clearance for certain goes or whatever but and to be fair everybody did clear that all those companies did clear the stage but it just came slightly too late which was frustrating charlie i guess um film filmmakers can't legislate for uh podcast listeners who who noticed that the pool in a trailer is the same swimming pool that they was a hotel they stayed at once i mean you just can't legislate for stuff like that that's on them yeah beyond that we you know we do reasonable efforts i would saying that we were right.

38:59I know, I did see in the comments somebody saying that Aina's Roy accent wasn't right. And of course, he's from Cork. And we did try to go to Saipan. We did make an effort to go to the actual hotel. There was a week in pre-production where we thought we were all going to decamp to Saipan because we realised we were researching the hotel and we realised that the hotel had just closed down. So it was completely empty. And we thought, we'll just use it as a studio we'll just go there everybody will go there and we'll just shoot the whole thing there but then for all the reasons why it was a bad idea for the ireland team to go to saupan exactly that's wonderful to bring a whole bunch of you'd all start falling out horribly cameras no actors we wouldn't have finished we'd probably still be there i think we've got to um let you go in a second but i just wanted to ask one more question and that was this This is obviously a true story, a story that everyone broadly knows the ending to.

39:58But obviously you're taking us inside rooms that not many people were in. So how did you deal with that challenge of the story being very widely known, but also having to try and find out new details? Did you try and speak to Mick and Roy? Did you speak to people who were in the rooms and try and really dig into some of those details? Part of our research was to, I mean, it is very interesting because there was so much media around it. But what happened in the room when the argument happened between the two characters at the end of the story, there is, as far as we know, no recorded material of that.

40:33But there are a lot of accounts. So we read a lot of accounts, some of the autobiographies of the footballers who were in the team, reports from the time. There are a lot of different versions as well. So in a way, as with any dramatisation, you know, this is not a documentary that we've made. Obviously, there is a dramatisation of what happened to these characters. And so you just create that with, I think, as much respect as you can, bearing in mind that it is also the story of some people's lives who were very seriously affected by it in a lot of ways. To be fair to Lisa, she did read six footballers biographies.

41:10Good on you.

41:11Charlie Eccleshare:You deserve every award going after that. Do you want for the team enough? I also read Triggs' autobiography. I didn't realise that he had written. Oh, Christ. Yeah, that does exist. I would recommend it. I would read. If this is day one, what chance have we got? You're a bit overdressed. I've seen the pitch, Mick. Okay. So, it's not great, but they'll do for what we need. Like since when have we needed a rockery? I mean seriously you're asking lads to risk injuring themselves in it why I should have spoke up during the meeting it's day one right relax we don't have the kits we don't have the drinks we don't have the sun cream we don't have footballs we're just doing drills we can manage without that stuff without footballs

42:04it'd be better if we had footballs

42:06Charlie Eccleshare:I know with films like this attention always seems to be turned directly towards the cast and who's been cast in which role. And my first thought was, what must it be like to be cast as Roy Keane? I mean, how does it feel when that news reaches you? I mean, surreal for many reasons. Like, I remember this World Cup so well. It was like, the iconography of it is still imprinted in my mind. And Roy loomed so large, like, I'm from a mile up the road. Right. You know, to have one of the most influential footballers in the world from your small city was just a huge thing. So to tell my family that like 20 years later, this, you know, this figure who was, you know, massive in our household that I'd be making a film about him.

42:52It was, yeah, it was bizarre. You're just like, in what world did that happen? The second was I thought about anyone who's ever played football with me and they're thinking, not a chance. Like, I think this will be hilarious to anyone who ever played under 14 soccer with me. Because I suppose my talent peaked probably around age 11. And I think it probably peaks for a lot of people around then. And then it was just a huge privilege because I was a massive fan of his and I kind of, I was probably wary of it until I read the script and realised that it was not at all what I worried it might be. It wasn't a biopic.

43:25It wasn't a kind of a straight retelling or a, you know, because what's the point in that? It was Paul Fraser wrote this really, I think, incisive script that was surreal. It liberated itself from trying to be a straight kind of retelling And I just sort of captured something about how the psyche of athletes like and how, you know, I'm a football fan, but I wouldn't be an expert by any means. But what I found from the script was like, God, these guys, you know, your body's under so much pressure, but also like you are doing this on the most, you know, this is the biggest stage there is in the planet.

44:00You know, the World Cup, it is, it is, it doesn't get more sort of high stakes than that. There could have been that pressure to have to be Roy Keane.

44:08Charlie Eccleshare:But as you say, and as the film kind of unfolded for me, the script really did stand out. And you get the really sort of subtle nuances of Light and Shade with Roy Keane. And pre-Pundit era Roy Keane, we're so used to him now being fairly expressive for him. In that era, he's pretty minimalist. There's not a lot to it. Like his words sort of hang in the air a little bit. Even his little sort of jokey asides, of which there's quite a lot. But they come across as really authentic for him. he's actually quite a funny bloke but he's always on it like in that sense he's always he always has an opinion about something that he has to get out i think he hit the nail on the head yeah i for me it was always about going like how do you make sure that you keep the um the commitment level at its absolute highest because i think like you know you could pick out so many details from a person's character to sort of be kind of inspired by and you know and it was always just going to be an inspiration because i know there's you know i don't think there's any such thing as a straight imitation but that was definitely not what i was interested in doing um and for me it was the idea that he he his his preparation and dedication is just like is relentless and is always is always always sort of top notch and so i i thought like you've got to bring that attitude because that is about as far away from yourself as you can get so like it was about that and then realizing that of course they were a group of young men playing in a world cup and while you know things didn't turn out the way we would want them to they they really liked each other they had a great time and i think roy's sense of humor is quite is is quite well known now you know it was equally brilliant back then i thought he's you know he's very very witty and kind of incisive sense of humor and it was nice to find those moments in the script because obviously it's going to be about this sort of collision yeah so i yeah it was it was it was about finding the two poles of that right yeah we all think we have a relationship this was with these public figures and to some extent you know being recognizable as that public figure is important but it's also i really i was really keen that it was about pardon the dreadful pun that wasn't intentional i was really keen that it was uh about the private lives of these men as well and that you know we're not um not the private lives but you know the behind the closed doors that we're not just playing sort of public figures that's a really interesting aspect of this story is that the football watching public you know like especially in Ireland as well everyone is familiar with this story it was a huge story at the time there are bits of it particularly the climactic final argument between Mick and Roy that we're aware of certain phrases that Roy used because they've come out in autobiographies and come out over over the years but there's also lots of bits that haven't come out and there's sort of so you're having to sort of probably and interpret what you think might have happened you know because no one knows for certain apart from the people who are in the room and there's bits of the film where on the other side you had footage of Roy Keane walking his dog standing in the airport queue doing the interview on the balcony in the hotel so you were able to look at those and it's like do you recreate those scenes note for note do you put your own thing into it and then there's also the stuff you just have to kind of imagine up yourself that's a great question because I think it's I think it's a mixture of all of them right you like obviously i had so much sort of footage to go on it was a really well covered story at the time like even obviously there was a lot of interviews given by people involved press conferences and private interviews and so i had a huge amount of like like kind of visual stuff to go on and i tried to think of it as you know you think of the sort of the real person and then you've you know you start from yourself and you work your way somewhere along that kind of tightrope and and you just end up where you end up it's funny there's no real like decision like decision making process after that just kind of like you try and see it as they saw it you try and say it as they said it and but with things like the phone footage or like the interviews of the moment in the airport yeah i thought that's one where it's important to sort of be accurate then because i suppose to some extent you are playing with people's expectations of of who they think this person is but then my feeling is always like if you if you get to do that then you know you also get to be a little bit more instinctive and free about the the behind the closed doors stuff knowing that we are only telling our version of this mythologized event knowing that you know your paul has done an incredible job at researching the film but you know that after that it is just going to be our version of the story and that i guess the fact that it's not a biopic the fact that it's not the rape the roy or the mixed story i think kind of freed us to do that as well yeah and you touched on it there and i guess that's the the kind of challenge for you is that balance between it being an impression is it about getting the essence of the character and that's something that Lisa and Glenn were talking about earlier that you're getting that kind of balance right when you were trying to kind of nail the essence of Roy Keane at that time what were the kind of key characteristics that you really wanted to kind of draw out and embody in your performance I've watched everything read everything and listened to everything I could and then to some extent you're doing a kind of an outside in thing where you like you observe the physicality you try and step into that and you see what that does to you within so i don't think i ever isolated particular qualities i i think i just went just like just put yourself in the driving seat of that person just like put yourself in that place and my kind of mantra throughout was like okay you've got great you've got all this stuff to watch and to listen to but then always go back to the idea that this is just this is a man from Mayfield who has found himself at the highest levels of the game playing in a World Cup finals captain and his team and things are less than ideal and like just go back to the very very like human story of it and actually kind of forget the public figure so it was both it was like an outside in thing and then being like and now just trust that it's it's yours and it's in your instinct and don't ever try I think I was always able to be like don't ever try and play a character because just trust that if you've sort of prepped that it's in there but then the trick i suppose is i felt like there's a huge amount that separates us as people you know i don't have that sort of athletic amazing disposition that roy has to just you know prepare and commit to the to the highest level relentlessly that was the thing i tried to remind myself of every morning just like you know preparing the way he did and because if you kind of drop that energy then it'll get a bit sloppy or something.

50:31But the things that really became apparent to me as we filmed were his dedication and his commitment to putting himself in uncomfortable places, whether that's physically just putting your body in the line. I think that really stood out to me. And also, you know, just, yeah, I guess his sense of humour as well. And that we mentioned that earlier, but that became more and more important as we filmed that that was part of it, you know, that we didn't narrow the scope. scope of the story um into how it ends on the ending i think the perhaps the biggest compliment i can pay the film is that i was so into it leading up to that final confrontation between roy and mick that i was willing roy keen to apologize and to and to not do what i knew he was going to do but that scene obviously you know it's the culmination we all know about it it's you know in in that sense as a film where the ending is pretty much known by everyone was watching it is a challenge in itself right but how was it filming that that climactic scene did you really have to get yourself up for that big you know confrontation i did it's funny uh those are the scenes that people always go up to in the day and they go god that must have been hard you think no that's the easy bit well it's it's it's hard in one sense well i suppose you know that story's been covered in lots of people's as you mentioned lots of people's books and there's lots of different versions of events it was kind of you know it was a tricky it was an interesting job for Paul to like stitch together all of the different narratives and for Glenn and Lisa to stitch together all the different narratives and hold them all in one place.

52:04I found it really liberating doing it because I suppose one of the things, one of the many things the film's about or deals with is maybe, I don't know, authenticity or anger and like how that, when that's justified, you know, like when you are justified in your kind of rage against something. And I find that a really interesting thing to play or really kind of liberating thing to play is that you know that sense that um all of the wrongdoings or the injustices or the things that have pissed you off or you know at that stage a 14-year career 13-year career like that's um that was really yeah it was really exciting to kind of that prospect of playing that because i thought we never get to do that in our day-to-day lives like how often do you get to literally sit in a room and go, right, this is what I actually think of you and this and this person.

52:54I love that dream scenario. It was a dream scenario. I've never done it, maybe for 30 seconds, I've never done it for a couple of minutes. You know, 35 takes for eight hours. I felt great after I felt like I'd been to therapy and had a massage and a holiday.

53:12Charlie Eccleshare:We've seen this story play out so many times in retrospective documentaries or review programmes and package the chronology up so often. And whilst it is a sort of modern era, there is only so much that those programmes have to play with in terms of footage and interviews and things like that. So an oddly sort of iconic part of this story occurs towards the end and you've downplayed your footballing ability as an actual human being. But I'll tell you what, your dog walking's pretty good, Aina. You've got the urgency of the walk amongst the cameraman down very well. I mean, I don't know how much you practiced over the years, but I was really impressed.

53:48That was a funny day because I felt really close to the headspace, put it that way. I felt like sort of fed up, frustrated, but also defiant. And I think that was the key to that walk was the defiance in the face of your own frustration. Like, I'm not going to hide. I'm not going to shy away. I just think it's a perfect moment, you know, to go all of the presser outside my door. And I'm going to go walk my dog. And there's no story here. Just walking the dog. He needs walking. But actually, we were filming on a road. We were filming on a road. And there was this guy looking across at us. And for whatever reason, I decided he was angry at the fact that we were shooting on his road.

54:31And so I kind of stared him out of it. And I was like, you know, probably leaning too much into it. And I was just kind of staring him out of it. Like, what's his problem? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you're really getting into it now. this was the end of the shooting you know it really it was it was in there and then did a take and he came out 20 minutes later with a tray of tea and biscuits and he said god you look like you were you look like you're cold and we ran into the driveway and tea and biscuits and um i say that only to say uh to that i was yeah i'd i'd run away at myself a little bit at that point can i ask one of the really interesting themes and this was something lisa and glenn touched on as well was this idea of Irishness and Roy touching on something, you know, this idea that, you know, in his view, the Irish were there at the World Cup as a bit of a joke, as a bit of a like, oh, they're here for a good time, they're here for a laugh, but not to be taken seriously.

55:21And that is, you know, that remains to an extent a preoccupation in Ireland. I just wondered for you, you know, you're in obviously an incredibly international profession, have been hugely successful. Was that something that resonated with you? Is that something you care about particularly. I mean, that was the thing for me when I, from hearing about the project to reading the script was, you know, a year and I didn't, I had no idea or expectation about what it would be like. And when I read the script and sort of saw all these very disparate elements held together, this very kind of surreal story in many ways.

55:53When I then spoke to Lisa and Glenn during the auditions, I was just kind of blown away by their vision for it and what they saw in it and how it was this, in some ways, minor event. It was quite, I suppose, like, it was quite major for the week in terms of, in Ireland, and also because it was the World Cup, it was all over the papers across the globe. But in many ways, it's a minor event. The stakes are kind of low in the grand scheme of things. But obliquely, how it tells this story about where Ireland was as a country on the world stage, I think was fascinating. Like, I really don't, I don't think that can be overstated.

56:25Like, you know, it split people down the middle and it split generations and it split families. And again, it's, you know, it's that cliche of it's only a game, right, in the end. But then it feels like nothing is more important. And it did feel at the time, I guess, like it spoke to where the country was at, maybe where it saw itself. Whether you see that in a post-colonial kind of lens or the fact that we're just a small island competing on the biggest stage. And I think it's a really interesting and grey argument because the Irish team of the 90s was, you know, obviously our greatest footballing kind of, that was our greatest footballing decade.

57:02And that, I suppose, you know, Jack Charlton was the coach and an English manager coaching an Irish team. And while there was a, you know, there was a, I guess, a feeling that the brand of football we played wasn't maybe the most exciting, it was the most successful we've been. And I think therein contains a whole kind of conversation about, you know, do we see ourselves as contenders or do we see ourselves as just there to make up the numbers? And I think that conversation persists in sport, culture, politics, economically, you know, this is like, this is something that has for my lifetime been a massive question and a really big, important, you know, important thing to me.

57:39I feel now, actually, we live more in a we live more in that front footed version of our idea that like sort of quite unapologetically standing up, whether that's our politics or culturally, our rugby team over the last 10, 15 years. You know, there's there's a sense maybe of more like stepping into that kind of ambition on the world stage. And I think it's it's interesting to see a film made about something that happened 23 years later, because it's just it's just enough time to notice that, you know, how things have changed. Yeah. And I don't think that's straightforwardly Roy or Mick's kind of version, by the way.

58:13I don't think that it's like, you know, either of their vision. I think it may be as bits of both. Just finally, before we let you go, how was it working with and acting opposite someone like Steve Coogan in this role? Yeah, it was brilliant. I mean, I was like super fan, super fan of Steve's. And he was one of the, I mean, definitely a massive influence on me becoming an actor. I actually met him on my first day of college in one of those bizarre like twists of fate. He was giving a talk and I went up to him afterwards and he was lovely. He gave me some good advice. He said, you should learn to write because it's a hard life as an actor.

58:49and obviously he's written much more successfully than I have or most have but it was brilliant it could have been I was I was really nervous and I think you know there's a sense that maybe when you're acting with someone who you're a massive fan of and you think is brilliant it can get a bit um you might crumble under pressure I kind of was I think I was worried the first two takes of us maybe first seeing that that was going to happen I thought I'm I'm going to be intimidated by you know the fact that I just think he's brilliant but um that quickly goes away and It ends up feeling really, really normal.

59:19And you have to intimidate him in the film. That's the role. It would have been very easy to play a different sort of dynamic, right? But we worked really well together. And I remember we had this sort of, one of our first conversations was in a car park just after a rehearsal. And we kind of said, oh, that went all right. Yeah, yeah, no, it was good. Yeah, yeah. I think that thing you said about the scene, I think it would be good to do. And yeah. Are you going to the dinner later? Yeah, I'm going to the dinner. Oh, cool. I see you there. and we kind of had it it was about like a 30 second chat we both looked at each other and went I think that's probably the dynamic we're looking for so we got on very well and I just you know I had a really fun time really creatively satisfying but also just a really fun time and I managed to not ask him about the trip until the very very end and then I asked him all my questions then

1:00:13Charlie Eccleshare:well I absolutely I loved it it's just everything I hoped it would be football films are tricky and this isn't this isn't a football action film but it captures something everyone thinks they know but has never actually heard and um i love it so yeah just congrats because it's just superb the latest thank you grace okay we've heard from the directors we've heard from anna harwick who's a very convincing roy keen i thought we've even heard jonathan wilson's compelling review of saipan dave what were your thoughts on the final product after the big build-up that we've given it over the last year or so i really enjoyed it and i think you go into films if you're a football fan and if you're a sort of football fan like us as well you're going to go into something like this really hoping to not be disappointed and hoping that they get the tone right and that they get the details right and i think for the most part they did that and it was interesting to hear the directors there talk about some of the details that they were conscious of but maybe they couldn't get everything over the line there's always going to be there's just going to be practical implications when you're making a feature film you're not going to be able to do everything which perhaps is something we should bear in mind at certain points but but it has been interesting to see like jonathan wilson's review which is there's some humor in there but he's also making some serious points about tweaking little details actually does change the whole picture quite quite dramatically like the the there's a scene in the film where roy keen gives an interview to a newspaper journalist and it's kind of portrayed as the newspaper journalist stitched him up and the interview out before they said they were going to and there's some dispute as to whether that actually happened like that in real life there's there's lots of things that's going to be disputed and i think it is fair to sort of hold the film to that scrutiny but i think with literally with this and with any film now i quite like films and listen to loads of film podcasts and stuff and sometimes the problem i have with them is you can really overanalyze a film to death and you can talk about its motivations and did it get this right and that right but on a basic level did you enjoy it yeah when you watched it did you actually have a nice time and for me it's exceeded on that level and there's maybe loads of things you could talk about it could have done differently but I as a football fan I watched it I enjoyed it and and with any football film even some of the bad ones there's always a there's always just a bit of like oh they're made a film about something that I'm into yes yeah definitely yeah it can be a simpler hook as that for sure Charlie I'm personally delighted by a kind of potential new wave of films dedicated to infamous but semi-undocumented football incidents that have had a mythology kind of grow around them so on that basis given that there's so much that we you know so much of the detail that no one will ever know about especially the climactic incident between them is it that incumbent on this film to get everything right or can it kind of blossom into a kind of well here's what we here's what we could speculate may have happened and how funny it would have been yeah i think there is i think that is sort of fair enough and i do think as well having spoken to the directors and aina you definitely got the sense that they really really cared about the story and all of that which i do think really helps i don't think it was that you know i don't think many decisions were taken kind of frivolously which yeah i think does add to like one's enjoyment and appreciation of it that's certainly how i felt after speaking to them when we first started talking about this film ages and ages ago dave once we got over the the shock of steve coogan playing mick mccarthy which was always going to be the headline for us at the very start the next question i always had about this project was how much of a balance was it going to strike between straight drama like it's not that serious a story really in the grand scheme of things and And how much kind of offbeat kind of stuff around it are they going to throw in?

1:03:39Charlie Eccleshare:And I really like the balance that they struck there. You know, there are some kind of scenes where they're arriving in Saipan and getting off the bus and stuff. And the John Delaney figure, who is head of the Football Association of Ireland, he's presented in serious caricature, really, even as ridiculous as the actual man is. So there are elements of it that actually had a bit of license to go a bit crazy with it. It's not a thriller. like it's you know there is some there are obviously some really serious scenes and i i think the best genuinely the best thing in the film details aside which is some of a dramatic point of view is the the climatic scene with the the sticking up your bollocks which and i was just waiting for him to say that as well because there was a part there was a part of me when i was watching it was thinking oh are they gonna actually they changed it is he not gonna say stick up your bollocks yeah and and then he did you know he did and nailed it and i i think aina hardwick's performance as roy keen i think is the best thing about the film like he just really as we said to him when we spoke to him he really nails the intensity of it just the mannerisms very believable and i think coogan's performance as mccarthy i struggled with it a little bit i don't think it was bad he's obviously a brilliant actor but i just it's more of a thing with me for steve coogan in general i've watched the trip so much that it's like i'm watching steve coogan do another one of his characters it's hard to shake that off isn't it charlie this kind of this kind of difference between impressions and just being a character yeah you are constantly aware that it's steve coogan acting kind of yeah we're so familiar with him but that's but that you know that he's kind of a victim of his own success in that way yeah yeah um yeah we broadly loved it i think that's fair to say um i'm glad it exists really glad it exists and i what kind of next if they had to if they were going to go on a run of films like this day what would they choose next i mean cantona's kung fu kick that could be definitely a thing my suggestion would be a nice tight legal courtroom drama bosman played by uh george clooney bosman himself played by clooney yeah yeah i think stephen graham could do a good john mark bosman they're both yeah yeah round both grizzled yeah um bosman is an incredible shout by the way what because he's got courtroom experience?

1:05:56What is that? Knows the room. Could they do a kind of the wags in Barden-Barden 2006 as a more kind of light-hearted summer romp?

1:06:04Charlie Eccleshare:Oh, yes, you'd have to do that in a comic. That would be like the in-betweeners, the people behind the in-betweeners doing the wags into that. That would be great, actually. The lollipop. That would be really good. What would you, well, you just call it, yeah, we'll follow, we'll keep with the theme. That's called Barden-Barden. We've got Bosman, we've got Saipan. What else have we got? We've got anything a bit more modern? you need the passing of time though don't you really for a lot of these I don't think City's 115 charges is going to become a film could you do one about the 1970 World Cup when, what was the city of Bobby Moore got arrested Bogota, yeah Pickles, the story of the dog Jesus Christ finds the trophy no stop, that's it Saipan, you've nailed it, nobody else needs to do anything thanks to you Charlie Eccleshire thanks to you David Walker thanks to everyone for listening We'll be back on Tuesday.

1:06:53Charlie Eccleshare:See you then.

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