Gleeson plays by new rules in football film

BURLY actor Brendan Gleeson has called on his coaching skills in the new soccer film Studs to kick a team of no-hopers into cup-winning heroes.

The former teacher plays a driven renegade manager who ditches the league in the hunt for cup glory, using a few rogue methods along the way.

“The line I’ve come up with for him is a flawed Messiah,” Gleeson said.

As manager Walter Keegan, Gleeson takes the helm at Emmet Rovers and steers the team to glory in the rags to riches tale being filmed in west Dublin.

Studs hit the stage in 1986 and was adapted into the €1.1 million screen production by director Paul Mercier. Mercier has come off the theatrical bench for a rematch with Gleeson - the pair last worked together when Studs hit the stage in Liverpool.

Producers expect the film to be ready for cinemas by next year’s World Cup in Germany.

Gleeson claimed the heroic script is full of biblical references, with one character named Isaiah.

“There is an other-worldly experience to it. The cliché is sport is the new religion and it was there in the initial play,” he said.

But with actors battling against eager local football sides, filming does not always go to plan.

Mercier said: “When you ask the goalkeeper to let the goal in he just won’t let it in. What his body was doing was not what his mind was doing.”

Filming in west Dublin is set to run for another week-and-a-half.