Made in Munster: ‘I was down to a euro’ - Watch The Young Offenders actors tell of struggle to make it in acting
Friends and Young Offenders actors Shane Casey and Dominic MacHale speak to about struggling to make it but why they are not seeking out fame.
Shane Casey’s best friend had just been to see him in a play. “We went out for a game of ball afterwards, at two o’clock in the morning,” says Casey with the kind of sing-song, stretch-vowels you only get in Cork city.
“My friend said, ‘I forgot it was you — I get it now’.
“I was like, fuck, that’s your best friend that knew you all your life. I was shit at sports, I wasn’t good academically at all, I wasn’t even a good painter. And here’s someone saying you’re good at this — it was a big moment in my life.”
Dominic MacHale had a similar moment thanks to his brother.
“He went to UCC, I went to see him in a play in the Granary and I was just transfixed. He literally had everyone in here in the palm of his hand when he spoke, I was like, I want to give that a go.”
The two actors, street-famous now as Billy Murphy and Sergeant Healy in The Young Offenders, have been close since they met at Cork’s Graffiti Theatre Company over ten years ago.
I pick Casey up first and then MacHale to drive them to the Irish Examiner offices for our interview and the easy banter when they meet again suggests they’re picking up a conversation that has been going on for a decade.
They’re boyish, open, reflective and laugh-out loud hilarious. I’m almost embarrassed, listening back to the interview, at the number of times I guffawed like a donkey at one or other of their sidebar comments.
Having sorted out why they got into drama in the first place, I ask the big question — does the Irish Mammy like it when you tell her you’re going to be an actor?
“The Irish academic father certainly doesn’t,” replies MacHale, whose father, Des, will be familiar to generations of Maths students in UCC, not to mention readers of his creation, The Book of Kerryman Jokes.
“Dad worked in UCC for 35 years, he was very much about education, education, you do your degree and a PhD probably.
I remember one morning I was getting my breakfast ready and he was sitting at the table reading the paper going, ‘I think anyone who tries to make a living from acting is an idiot.’ I was like, Jesus Christ! I stormed out of the room, I was a bit sensitive about it then.
Des has come around since then, but he might have been on to something.
Both the actors talk about the sacrifices they made by not choosing a ‘proper’ job, with MacHale, who studied Microbiology in UCC, referring to friends getting mortgages and cars and realising he would have to forego that for a while, or maybe forever.
Casey has his own story. “I was down to my last euro, handing out crackers and cheese, inside in Tescos, this woman is helping me set up a tray for cheese or whatever and I get a phone call from my agent saying, you’ve just got the ad — one euro in my pocket — you just got the ad you auditioned for.
So, that meant I could ring someone and say, could you sub me until Friday? Funnily enough, that cheese and crackers gig was very beneficial for meeting people, because I had months of meeting people I didn’t know.”
I ask them if it was harder to break into the acting game, coming from Cork. “Shane gave me a bit of advice about going for auditions in Dublin,” MacHale replies.
“He said you almost have to go in there with a little bit of contempt, because they can be a bit patronising.
"‘Oh did you travel all the way from Cork today on the train, lovely, lovely, and you’re going back down after the audition is it’,” he mimics with a thin smile, suggesting Roy Keane wasn’t the only Cork person who can remember travelling up to Dublin with a point to prove.
The two actors make a good double act. MacHale, who features in the whip-smart Cork comedy troupe CCCAHOOTS, is relaxed, affable, urbane with a wicked dry sense of humour.
Casey is a more taut, animated, a born story-teller with a Robert De Niro glint in his eye. I wouldn’t fancy being the person that had to tell him he should give up acting and get back to his original career as a painter on building sites.
“I went into a local welfare officer, which is a kind of ironic name,” he says, angrily enough, while MacHale and I fall around the place laughing.
“She said, Shane this acting thing isn’t really working out for you. I said, you know what, the painting wasn’t really working out for me either. I went back and started writing this play, you talk about the Cork chip thing, that’s where Wet Paint came from, in essence it was art having to come out from you.”
Wet Paint, which is currently on tour around Ireland, is partially about men having honest conversations. “I was concerned about that,” says Casey. “I wanted to put that into a play.
“Having lost friends or family or whatever from suicide, that put me on default mode that I was worried about my friends a lot.
"Wet Paint is a comedy first off, I don’t want to be beating people over the head with the subtext, that’s a small element, where a guy has something wrong with him and he’s afraid to say it, and in essence, another guy goes, ‘are you alright?’”
It’s something the two guys often ask each other when they meet up.
“It’s an honest friendship” says MacHale. “I know if Shane asks that question, he’s not looking for ‘everything’s cool’, he’s looking for the actual answer, are you really doing ok?”
Professionally, they’re both doing more than ok. (Although the morning after they aired the famous bus episode of The Young Offenders, which elevated Billy Murphy to superstar status on the show , Shane Casey was still painting on a building site, “in the cold, in my shitty yellow jacket”.)
They have just finished filming season two of the show, which is due to go to air before the end of the year. MacHale has a good take on why it has worked its way into your hearts.
The characters are not really good at what they’re supposed to do. Sergeant Healy is not a very good detective, Billy is not a very good criminal, the two lads aren’t very good either, Mairead is not going to win Mother of the Year, they’re all flawed, they’re all trying to be good, and that’s very endearing.
Did he think it was going to change things?
“No, I don’t think in Peter’s [Foott, creator of The Young Offenders] most optimistic visions he could have predicted where this would go.
"Now, I can end up doing an impromptu photo shoot in the pasta aisle of Tesco, one person plucks up the courage to say, are you Dominic MacHale, then somebody else comes charging down the aisle and you’re in front of the penne with a big crowd.”
They are both adamant that fame is the wrong reason to get in to acting.
Talking about his admiration for the League of Gentlemen, MacHale says, “You fee like these guys aren’t doing it for the fame. They’re doing it because they really enjoy it or they’re very good at it. If you’re doing it for the fame, you’re not going to get the fame, or it will be short-lived.”
They’re happy to see the effect their work has on other people. “Paschal Sheehy from RTÉ, funnily enough was one of the first guys who said it to me,” says Casey.
“He said, I sit down with my son religiously to watch this every week, it’s become a great bonding experience for us as a family.
"There’s a lot of that therapeutic sitting down to watch the show because you can’t get kids off their phones now.
“And my mum told me that a woman came up to her recently and told her that she’d lost her husband, and she puts the DVD of The Young Offenders on at night to cheer her up when she is feeling lonely.
“That’s better than any cheque, because it’s validating your work.”
Wet Paint is currently on a national tour, including a run in Fr Matthew Hall from Oct 14. Tickets at eventbrite.ie.
CCCAHOOTS popular Improv Panto runs again this year in Cork Opera House during December, see corkoperahouse.ie for details.
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