Chris Walley: From the Young Offenders to a Victorian mystery thriller
Chris Walley in Lies We Tell.
Chris Walley has a first holy communion journal in which he wrote about his desire to be an actor. When he was as young as seven, he and his two friends would rehearse their own plays and perform them for their classmates.
There was never anything else he wanted to do and as a child, it was born out of a desire to make people laugh. “I think I just liked the attention when I was younger, making people laugh and people watching me,” he says. “I was kind of lucky in that way, there was nothing else I ever wanted to do. Obviously that can be a big thing for young people, trying to figure out what they're going to do with their life. I never really had that question.”
The Cork actor has made us laugh many times since, courtesy of his star-making turn as the bold Jock in The Young Offenders. Peter Foot’s hit movie and the following TV series brought the Irish sense of mischief to a global audience - making stars of its two young leads, Walley and Alex Murphy, in the process.
For Walley, it marked the culmination of those childhood ambitions, and there were many he remains grateful to for their advice and support along the way. “There were so many people who were so helpful to me,” he says of family and friends.
“I grew up about 100 meters away from my best pal, we live together in London, Éanna Hardwicke. We met at an acting class and discovered that we were neighbours. The two of us would always be kind of pushing each other growing up, and then went to the School of Music in Cork, the Youth Theatre. Incredible people like 9speech and drama lecturers] Trina Scott and Regina Crowley, did an awful lot for me in building my passion and preparing me to audition for drama schools. And then I actually did a year in the School of Music in Cork which was amazing, in the drama and theatre course there in CIT.”
Walley went on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic art, and is still based in the city. Just this week, he began a six-week run of Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan in the city’s Almeida Theatre, alongside fellow Cork native Alison Oliver. “It's a different ballgame. I haven't done a play in five years [since his Olivier-award winning role in The Lieutenant of Inishmore] and I forgot how much I love it.”
In a busy time for the actor, this week he returns to our screens in the period drama Lies We Tell. Lisa Mulcahy’s impressive feature - a new take on the Victorian mystery thriller Uncle Silas - is the dark tale of Maud, an orphaned heiress forced to fight her guardian uncle (David Wilmot) for her inheritance in what marks a terrific lead performance from Agnes O’Casey, the great-granddaughter of literary legend Seán.
Walley plays Wilmot’s son, the troubled Edward, who takes a liking to Maud but is wrestling with demons of his own. “He is very layered in the fact that he's grown up in a very abusive relationship with his father. He's a fairly damaged young man.
“It was a very interesting character to play, because of those layers and the writing. There’s just so much there that isn’t said, so much to play off of in those scenes, so much information revealed about the character through the writing. It was hard as well to go to places that were very dark.” Maud is tested to the limits in her efforts to retain her inheritance in the film, which has plenty to say about power, control and the treatment of women.
“It’s a timeless story I think would resonate whenever,” says Walley. “But having it being in a period feature just makes it all the more interesting, obviously, because of the hierarchy back then. How repressed women were and to see her challenging this imposing older man. It just makes for a very interesting story - the politics of the whole thing.”
In the last year, the actor had the pleasure of returning home to work. He spent several weeks in West Cork filming Bodkin, the first scripted TV series from the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama. The darkly comedic thriller revolves around a group of podcasters who set out to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances in a seaside town. He has fond memories of the experience.
“My dad's from Skibbereen and there's a lot of family down there and family in Clonakilty. We were mainly down in Union Hall. It's just a gorgeous part of Ireland. It was lovely to be by the sea - lovely restaurants, pubs, people. I was living with Will Forte, we had a house there,” he said, adding that he and the US star spent much of their free time sea swimming.
“He’s a very funny man and a great friend as well. We shot down there for maybe three or four weeks. And then the rest was up in Wicklow in Ardmore studios.”
Along with Lies We Tell, the actor is relishing the opportunities to mix up his roles as his career progresses.
“You want to play those characters that are very different to what you've done before and characters that are challenging, because it's well and good to play something different, but is it challenging, you know? Sometimes you can get something that's well within your wheelhouse. They can be different but they're kind of accessible parts.
“Sometimes I can be in danger of trying to manage that stuff too much and think: ‘What's next?’ I think letting it happen organically and trusting your gut and doing what feels right can be the way of not trying to manage it too much.”
Though Walley has been based in London for a number of years, he still travels home regularly to spend time with family and friends. “You get off the train and you smell that fresh air. It's totally different to the London air. There’s a different tempo back home as well. I just love Ireland - I love seeing my pals and my family and going to the beach, getting into the sea. Lovely home cooking as well - my mam is a very, very good cook.”
- Lies We Told is in cinemas from Friday, October 13
The Miracle Club (cinemas October 13): A group of Irish women win a pilgrimage to Lourdes in this Irish-set movie starring Laura Linney and Kathy Bates.
Fair Play (new to Netflix): This cleverly made thriller centres around a couple who work in high finance.
Tarrac (now in cinemas): A group of friends bid to win a naomhóg race in this charming Irish-language drama, set in West Kerry.
The Old Oak (now in cinemas): British filmmaking legend Ken Loach’s final film centres around the arrival of Syrian refugees to a former mining community.
Foe (cinemas October 20): Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan play a couple faced with a dilemma in Garth Davis’s sci-fi thriller.
