Amy Huberman on new comedy Fran The Man, and the humour she inherited from her late dad
Amy Huberman stars alongside Ardal O'Hanlon and Darragh Humphreys in Fran The Man. Picture: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images.
Amy Huberman and her co-stars aim to tickle our funny bones in , the tale of an assistant football manager facing his biggest match yet.
Underdogs St Peter’s Celtic have drawn a hot ticket at the FAI Cup. But when Fran Costello fears that some of his players have taken a bribe to fix the match, he turns super sleuth. Directed by Stephen Bradley and written by Richie Conroy, the movie sees Darragh Humphreys reprise his role following the popular cult series which ran from 2009 to 2011.
It was only when she told people she was starring in the mockumentary style movie, says Huberman, that she realised what a popular character Fran was. “It’s like all those cult things that have a big following. When I mentioned it, people would say: ‘They're making a film. They're making a film of Fran.’
"They already have such a loyal support. This has been such a huge part of Darragh's life for so long and it's probably been a long time coming for them as well. So there was such a joy in seeing those guys who were involved with the original, our producer, Collie [McCarthy], Richie the writer, have this other life that Fran gets to explore.”
The movie - in which Huberman plays a local woman named Jackie Charlton who Fran takes a shine to - was filmed in south Dublin over a 17-day period.
“We filmed it down in Sallynoggin not far from where I grew up. My middle fella plays football, and he had a match where we filmed a couple of weeks ago. That place will always have a special place in my heart now,” says Huberman.
“I just love the format of the setup of the mockumentary style comedy. It’s that awkwardness, the comedy of people saying things at a time where they possibly shouldn't be saying it. There's also a layer of formality that every now and again, you realise there's a camera there. The fact that someone else is listening, openly and actively listening to what you're saying that should be just between two or three people, makes me laugh. It gives it a different sense when you're in the scenes that just really made me chuckle.”
The film gave her the chance to work again with director Stephen Bradley, who she worked with on . The Prime Video series - presented by Graham Norton - was built on the premise of comedy stars making others laugh without cracking a smile themselves. “God love him, because there was so much espionage involved in that. We all didn't know each other was doing it. It was like the Hunger Games of not making each other laugh.
“You don't know what's going to happen when you put that mix together. I passed him at certain stages, coming in and off the set, and I was like: ‘How is that man doing it?’ It was like trying to herd cats, direct wild cats, but he's very calm in a storm like that, and knows exactly what he wants and needs out of it, and also enjoys comedy. Somebody who's directing a comedy, who just enjoys the fun of it, is a real joy."
When Huberman is not starring on our screen stories, she’s pretty adept at telling them. - the TV series she wrote as well as starred in - found a wide audience, while she has also enjoyed a successful career as a novelist.
But three years ago, she stepped away from her writing role. She had fallen out of love with the process at a challenging time in her life - but is glad that her passion for telling stories has since returned.
“I just had to step away from writing for a little while, when my youngest was very young, and I just didn't want to write,” she says. “I felt like, actually, I couldn't write. I didn't want the responsibility of it. It was just after my dad passed away as well. I wrote right up until he passed away. I think that whole thing became kind of enmeshed a little bit, and I didn't know how to remove myself from it and start again.
“Certainly you may start something and put it aside, but I love it as well. So it's very hard for me to step away from it once I’d started it, and I kind of needed to be ready again.
“There are a couple of things that I'm working with a few people on, and it's the beginning stages, but it's lovely to be excited about it again, because for a while I was... I'd written Finding Joy, and then wrote the book, and then had another baby, then my dad.”
She recalls recently having a eureka moment while listening to a podcast with an author she admires, and remembering what she loved most about the process in the first place. “I was actually just listening to a podcast with that great writer, Anne Lamott, who wrote . I was walking around, and Julia Louis Dreyfus was interviewing her, and I was just saying out loud on my walk: ‘It’s so true’. She said: ‘Writing is its own reward’.
“You look at so much of writing as this end product. But there is such an enjoyment in it, if you're in the head space to do it. That really resonated with me, because if you can slow down and enjoy the piece by piece of it, it's a real joy.
"I feel glad that I've gone back to a stage where I wanted to do it. Now I just have to actually do it! It's all well walking around agreeing with Anne Lamott.”
It’s three years since her beloved dad Harold passed away, and Amy says her father’s quirky sense of humour remains part of her DNA. “He just enjoyed fun things. The stuff that I would choose to write about, it really tickled him. I would run stuff past him. I can still see him in my mind’s eye now, he just had this laugh, and his shoulders would be going.”
When Harold passed away, she says, she and her brothers Mark and Paul wrote down all of the funny things he used to say. “He loved a repeat joke. My husband [Brian O’Driscoll] slags me for that: ‘Oh yeah, she got one laugh. She’ll roll that out’.
"But I can't help it, it’s been passed on genetically. Anytime I left the house I’d be like: ‘Bye dad’. He'd go: ‘Bring me back a parrot!’ It was so him, and some of it didn't even make sense. He just had a great sense of fun.”
- is in cinemas from Friday, April 11
