Daryl McCormack: 'We had a lot of giggles, but not about the sex stuff'
Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack in Good Luck to you, Leo Grande.
Emma Thompson is a woman in search of sexual adventures in her new movie - and a Munster actor plays the man tasked with helping her find her mojo. Daryl McCormack is Leo Grande, the sex worker hired to help widowed schoolteacher Nancy (Thompson) experience the heights of passion for the first time.
It’s the kind of subject matter that could draw nervous giggles from any actor - but Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’s great strength is its lead actors know they have a bigger story to tell.
“Emma, and I, we had a lot of giggles, but not actually about the sex stuff,” says the Tipperary actor. “We were enjoying each other's company and we just found so much joy in working together and playing these characters.”
Almost entirely set over the course of their meetings in a hotel bedroom, the movie is a tender, funny and astute tale of one woman’s late sexual awakening.
McCormack’s Leo is as much a therapist as a sex worker as he coaxes Nancy - who has only ever experienced rudimentary sex with her late husband - to experiment with her own sexual pleasure.
It’s not all about the sex. Director Sophie Hyde, working from a script by comedian Katy Brand, unravels a tale of intimacy, sexual politics, power dynamics and the need for human connection.
“The script was so evident that it wasn't purely on the physical,” observes McCormack. “Katie did such a good job of intertwining the verbal intimacy, the mental intimacy, the somewhat spiritual intimacy, along with the physical intimacy that kind of combines and really crystallises almost at the very end, they've gone on such a journey together.
“And I think Sophie had a great instinct for how they fed their way into each other, and how they fed their way out of each other, those moments where they're getting close to something, a release or freedom or breaking through a certain barrier, internally, and then something happens and that barrier's put up again.”
Leo speaks in McCormack’s own soft Nenagh lilt. As far as Hyde, who shot her previous film Animals in Dublin was concerned, it was a no-brainer.
“I love the change that's happening,” she says. “It really bothers me the kind of weird accents that get put on. At the same time sometimes a character needs to be from a certain place, and actors are great at doing accents when they need to. I never had any doubt that Daryl should do it in his Irish accent, partly because it's a beautiful accent, and I wanted to Daryl to feel as free as possible to do the performance because there's so much dialogue. I liked what it did for the character.”
McCormack, for his part, has noticed he gets asked to audition more in his own accent in recent years. “I think it works both ways. I definitely find there's a major freedom in your own voice. I also find you can have a freedom when you have to go into a certain voice or a certain accent that doesn't belong to you. Things like accents can help access and hide yourself behind the character.
"I think a lot of people are being asked to just use their own voice a lot more regularly, which is nice, because I think it does feel then that the world is just global, that people move, that we don't need to be on the land that we speak from. I think that's really exciting because it means there's moving parts.”
Leo Grande certainly feels like a star-making turn for the Tipperary actor - but he’s already been going places. Having cut his onscreen teeth as Pierce Devlin on Fair City, McCormack has been developing a growing body of work, most recently as Isaiah Jesus on Peaky Blinders. An untitled series with Sharon Horgan for Apple TV is in the works, and he will film the upcoming feature drama The Tutor with Julie Delpy and Richard E Grant.
Growing up in Nenagh, he watched the growing international success of Saoirse Ronan and first started to consider whether an acting career might be a possibility. “I was always a massive fan of Saoirse Ronan, I still am - she's an incredible actor,” he says.
“I think because she's around my age you were always like: Wow, Irish people could be in Hollywood? Can be at the Oscars, can be doing these amazing films? Sometimes it is hard when you come from a small town to see that kind of potential because there mightn't be anyone from your town who's gone on and done that. But at the same time, all of the things I needed to do to keep my interests and get started, they all were there for me in Nenagh. Whether it was a choral society play or a musical, everything I had was there.”
Born in Limerick to an Irish mother and African-American father, McCormack lived in Tipperary until moving to London five years ago. Like many Tipp youngsters, he dreamed of representing his county on the hurling pitch.
“I had my heyday when I was 14 you know, that was my peak!” he smiles. “And then every other boy got big and developed into young men. I had a short lived career but I had potential. I almost made county - I actually had a trial for county. But I played so many (other) sports as well. If I just had taken a few of the other ones away, I might have made county.”
Hurling’s loss is acting’s gain, and McCormack credits his “amazing” mum with supporting whatever creative pursuits he wanted to try as a boy. “Anything I wanted to do, even if it was very short lived, she would have helped me do it and drive me into classes and stuff. There was a while where I was doing dancing and acting, singing, I was trying to make my way for a while. I think performance in general was a passion of mine, whether it was music, dance, or acting. I was just dabbling in a few different things.”
Critics have been full of praise for this latest movie role, but you get the sense that McCormack remains focused on further building his career. “It's such a long process, and it's just not lost on me that my main aim is to make a body of work that I can be proud of. I definitely want to celebrate this moment as well, and I'm so proud of the film we made.”
- Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is now in cinemas
