'He typifies so much of what I love about Cork': Éanna Hardwicke on being Roy Keane
Éanna Hardwicke as Roy Keane in Saipan. Picture: Aidan Monaghan
The summer of 2002 conjures many memories, but in Ireland it will always be remembered as the moment Roy Keane pulled out of the FIFA World Cup in Saipan.
The country was left deeply divided following Keane’s fallout with Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy in the build-up to the tournament.
The team captain ultimately left the Ireland camp before the World Cup began in Japan and South Korea after a very public falling-out with McCarthy, leaving the manager to hold together a crumbling situation without his talisman, amid intense negativity from both the press and fans.
A new film starring Éanna Hardwicke as Keane and Steve Coogan as McCarthy explores the intense and complex rivalry between captain and manager.
Directed by Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, recounts one of the most fractious fallouts in the history of sport.
Hardwicke, 29, a Cork native, says he feels a special connection to playing Keane, having grown up just “down the road” from him.
“It’s not just an Irish story,” Hardwicke says. “There’s something very emblematic about Cork City that I love and adore and, like most Cork people, I probably think it’s the centre of the universe. Roy typifies so much of what I love about that city.
“There are broad strokes, of course, those clichés about place and where you’re from, but I feel very lucky to have grown up there. To get to play someone who lived just down the road, barely a mile from where I grew up in Glanmire, is bizarre. You don’t get to do that very often, and it was really cool.
“And it was nice, too, because Steve played Mick, who’s second-generation Irish from the north of England, that’s a very specific regional identity as well. So we both got to bring something personal to it.”
Hardwicke, who starred in and is currently appearing in at London's National Theatre, says the thing he admires most about Keane is his relentless drive.
“The kind of self-discipline you need to be an athlete is something I admire and don’t have,” he says. “But the good thing about making films is that you get to try it on for a sustained period – five or six weeks.”
He adds: “I did try to channel that, because I think one of his most admirable qualities is that absolute, relentless drive. So I tried to take it to maybe 80%.”
The film attempts to portray both men’s perspectives, celebrating their distinct styles of leadership.
“What I learned from watching it is that it’s not just a debate — it’s more than that,” Hardwicke says. “It’s about an approach to life. Some of my favourite moments in the film are very subtle: a shared joke, kicking a ball on the training pitch, or the way Steve has Mick relate to the players in quiet, understated ways.
“That really gets to the heart of what I loved about playing football as a kid. Yes, there’s winning, but there’s also the incredible experience of being part of a team and sharing something together.
“That’s a subtle art for a manager, and I think Mick did it brilliantly. And when you put that alongside Roy’s straight-line, relentless approach, it makes for quite a combination.”
Speaking to the at the film’s premiere at The Everyman Theatre in Cork last month, Hardwicke described the “two-pronged approach” he took when playing the football legend.
“The film was never a biopic, and I knew that we were always telling our own version of it so I had a two-pronged approach where I watched, read and listened to everything I could and I took all that in and then at some point, you just go, ‘I’m just playing the man in this script, I’m just playing a person in this situation and I’m just doing my version of it,” he said.
“I loved the process, I really did. It was a very satisfying, creative process.”
Belfast-based directing duo Leyburn and Barros D’Sa, whose work includes , a biopic about Belfast music figure Terri Hooley and Ordinary Love, starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, say the script read like a classical tragedy.
“I don’t come from a football background, that’s fair to say,” says Barros D’Sa, “but what really excited me when I read Paul Fraser’s script was that I didn’t know the story, and it immediately read almost like a classical tragedy.
“You have these two very strong characters, told in a comedically absurd and enjoyable way, both passionately wanting the same thing, yet aspects of their personalities make it impossible for them to ever fully agree. It’s set up in a way that feels fated, driving them toward an inevitable collision, a dramatic climax.
“Then you have this Greek chorus of the press and the Irish public, all contributing to the storytelling, amplifying the themes, and, at a crucial point, stepping into a protagonist-like role to influence events toward the end. All of that felt really compelling to me.”
She adds: “I think this story, as we learned more about it, made it clear that what happened on Saipan quickly became mythical in Ireland.
“It became a dynamic narrative through which Ireland could explore its values and identity at a time when the country was transforming into a modern European nation.
“And Roy, as a character, in a way became the avatar for that. Mick represents a different kind of Irishness. As is clear from reactions then and even today, identity, especially having grown up in Ireland, is something that’s always very much in question.”
Coogan, who was nominated for a BAFTA for portraying Jimmy Savile in and reprised his role as Alan Partridge in , was both directors’ first choice to play McCarthy.
“Steve is an absolute legend and, honestly, a genius — and I don’t use that word lightly,” Leyburn says. “We’ve grown up watching Steve in all his various incarnations and have been huge fans. When the script first came to us, the first person Lisa and I thought of for Mick was Steve.
“And I know Paul Fraser, who wrote the script, actually had Steve in mind while writing Mick, which just shows how embedded he was in our thinking for that role.
“Whoever played Roy had to embody that strength, but it’s an interesting role because it’s layered,” Leyburn adds.
“There’s the strength of being the captain, but he also needed a twinkle in his eye. We all know Roy was serious about what he does, but he also has a sense of humour and real emotion.
“And Éanna brought all of that wonderful layering to the performance. We were so excited to work with him, and the fact that he’s a native of Cork was coincidental but brilliant because he grew up with Roy being almost omnipresent in the city.
“We couldn’t be happier with what Éanna brought to the role.”
- is out now.
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