'It was fantastic filming in Cork': Swing Bout film punches above its weight
Sinéad O'Riordan and Ciara Berkeley star in Swing Bout.
Páirc Uí Chaoimh is ready for its close-up in Swing Bout, a new Irish drama set backstage at a major boxing event.
The home of Cork GAA is doubling up for a boxing stadium in the new movie - and for the filmmakers behind it, the Páirc proved to be a godsend, featuring as the primary location in the film.
“I built a production model that was going to be localised to a few specific locations,” says the film’s writer-director Maurice O’Carroll. “We needed a corridor, a dressing room, a media room - basically what you'd see underneath the stadium. It was a clever production model and we thought it would be cheap to make, but we found it was becoming very difficult.”
On approaching stadium bosses to enquire about the possible use of a location, they were given the green light to film the movie there, negating the need to build elaborate sets.
“We went to Páirc Uí Chaoimh to see if we could use one of their corridors and they were so brilliant to us,” says the filmmaker. “They said we could use the stadium in January. There was a 21-day window where we could have access. It was an incredible experience. We can't speak highly enough of Páirc Uí Chaoimh. It was fantastic filming in Cork, a lot of goodwill as well.”
Swing Bout, a drama-thriller set backstage at a major boxing event, follows Toni Gale's (Ciara Berkeley) journey from the dressing room to her ring walk in a night of deceit, betrayal, and life-altering decisions.
The young boxer has dreams of becoming a world champ - but as she battles for the chance to land on a major card, she becomes tangled in a game of corruption involving the sport’s promoters. The film marks the second feature from O’Carroll, working with producer and actor Sinéad O’Riordan, from Ballyphehane.
Swing Bout feels like a breakthrough role for Ciara Berkeley, compelling as the young boxing protagonist at the heart of the film.
“What it was that attracted me to her was this immense inner life going on behind her performance that stood out above everyone else. She wasn't just playing a boxer and the lead character in the film, it's all about her inner life, and we needed someone that could portray that,” says O’Carroll.
“The minute we called action, she turned into a monster walking down the corridor, and the director of photography looked at me and showed me his arm, and he had goosebumps going up his arm, and he said: ‘I could film her all day long’.”
It’s Berkeley’s first major feature, following her theatre work and a supporting role in TV hit Normal People. It was inspiring, she says, to be part of such a big show, which kickstarted the careers of co-stars including Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
“It was such an amazing experience being with so many other Irish actors, all starting off on this massive book everyone is obsessed with, and now it's being turned into a massive TV show. Some of the talent attached to it were still kind of unknown, but it had so much potential.”
Berkeley’s Irish family moved to the UK in the 1980s, and the actor moved here and has been based here since 2017. “After moving to Dublin, and seeing the amazing explosion of screen acting over here, drawing on the legacy of shows like Game of Thrones being filmed here and building on it by more Irish stories written by Irish people starring Irish people, I fell into screen acting and fell in love with it at the same time. I did a couple of acting courses with [casting agent] Louise Kiley, and that’s how the Normal People role came about.”
Both Berkeley and O’Riordan prepared for their roles by training in a gym with fellow actor and boxer Terry O’Neill. “It was really tough at first because I think we both felt not boxer-y at all,” says Berkeley. “It was a really cold night in October, and it was just full of these massive guys, all beating the crap out of each other.
“We were like: ‘This is crazy. I don't know how we're going to do this’, but Terry was brilliant. And then we had quite intense one-on-one sessions where he was teaching Sinead how to play a coach, and then me how to box with a coach, and also shadow box at the same time, which is weirdly even harder than learning how to box.”
