Celtic kitsch
The joys of being Irish
The new Dublin
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ACTOR GABRIEL BYRNE TALKS ABOUT HIS LIFE IN A SEMINARY AND HIS RISE TO IDIOSYNCRATIC STARDOM. BY RICHARD COVINGTON | Gabriel Byrne is one slippery chameleon. In the past few years he has appeared in a dizzying array of roles -- bouncing between a fearsome d'Artagnan in "The Man in the Iron Mask," the enigmatic mechanic in "Smilla's Sense of Snow" and the rhyming mobster in "Mad Dogs." In the midst of his rising career, the black-haired, rumpled Byrne also managed to produce "In the Name of the Father," to write, direct and produce "The Lark in the Clear Air" and to publish his memoirs, "Pictures in My Head." Not only is he a jack of all acting trades, but he's master of a few others as well. His breathtaking versatility may be his own worst enemy. At 47, with more than 40 pictures behind him, the immensely talented Byrne has yet to star in the leading role he so richly deserves. Instead, he's built his reputation with quirky, indelible performances among ensemble casts in roles that range from the crooked ex-cop in "The Usual Suspects" to Winona Ryder's impassioned boyfriend in "Little Women." The eldest child of an unemployed Guinness factory worker, Byrne developed an affection for romantic literature from his mother, a nurse who read Victorian poetry. At 12, Gabriel entered a seminary in England, hoping to become an African missionary and escape the dreary Irish weather. Expelled at 17, he enrolled at University College in Dublin to study archaeology, went on a few digs, then ended up teaching Spanish in an all-girls school. One day, he filled in for a student in a play with a neighboring boys school and "got bitten by the acting bug." After hooking up with Jim Sheridan's Dublin theater troupe, Byrne was spotted by John Boorman, who gave him a small role in "Excalibur." But it was not until his portrayal of a hard-bitten gangster in the Coen brothers' "Miller's Crossing" that his film career took off. Byrne married actress Ellen Barkin in 1988 after they met on the set of "Siesta." They divorced in 1993, but remain on friendly terms and share joint custody of their two children. In between takes on the French set of "The Man in the Iron Mask," Byrne discussed the threat of American movies and the promise of Irish ones, the boom in Irish culture and the decline of authentic film actors. What originally attracted you to "The Man in the Iron Mask?" Randall Wallace, the director, had a very specific idea in his head of the cast he wanted. From the beginning, he saw me as d'Artagnan. He's quintessentially a romantic character -- the prototype of the man of action, but also the man who's willing to die for love. I think it was Orson Welles who said that every actor should have a secret with every part that he plays. So every single scene that d'Artagnan plays in, he carries this secret with him that is only revealed at the end of the film. You find he's been carrying this thorn in his heart for years and he's been unable to tell anybody about it. Did that psychological aspect of the character appeal to you? Yes. One of my favorite periods in literature is romanticism, mostly the English romantics. It's the image of the romantic hero on the cliff with his hand to his forehead, tortured by life and love and so forth. Now it's unfashionable to admire that kind of man. Feminists today would say, thank God that kind of sullen, cruel, self-obsessed, tortured individual is no longer held up as an example of what men should be. At the same time, there's something darkly and irresistibly attractive about that kind of a hero. It sounds like the Caspar David Friedrich painting of the romantic on the cliff. With the wind-blown hair and the hero looking out to a lost world to be regained. That's exactly the image I was thinking of. I love that painting. D'Artagnan is a cousin to that man on the cliff, although he's directly involved with the struggle of life. He's cousin to romantic heroes like Rochester and Heathcliff. Are "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" books that you still care about? I've never fallen out of love with books like "Wuthering Heights" or "Jane Eyre." When I read them both for the fourth time, I absorbed them whole and unquestioningly. "Jane Eyre" was the first book I ever read. It was read to me by my mother and we went to see the movie of it, Orson Welles' "Jane Eyre." I think I was 8 or 9 at the time. I can still see the image of that black horse on the heath, rearing up in the half-darkness, from that angle, with Jane looking up in the mad eyes of Orson Welles. It gave me nightmares for years and years afterwards. You went away to England to a seminary at age 12. Wasn't that pretty young to leave home? It was young. They were very clever, the order of priests. They went into the classroom and they appealed to our imaginations. Outside, it was an overcast, wintry day in Dublin. You're sitting there and you're 11 or 12 years old and they're showing you pictures of Africa and horses, mountains and blue skies. They never mentioned it takes 10 or 12 years of study and celibacy. All you thought was: I won't have to sit at this desk anymore. They sold an escape into Africa. I don't resent the time I spent there because they gave me a great education and a wonderful appreciation of all the things I was deprived of. What were you deprived of? I was deprived of everything -- especially girls. How long did you stay? Five years. Then in 1964, I went to see the Beatles playing in Birmingham, then Manfred Mann, the Rolling Stones. We [aspiring missionaries] would go to these concerts dressed completely in black. There were all these screaming girls, then you went back to the quiet of the seminary. We thought, there's something not quite right here. I went to London in 1965. I can't describe to you how bizarre it was to go from the cloistered silence and the routine and the regulations of everyday seminary life to New Bond Street surrounded by girls in miniskirts. Did you know right away that you wanted to leave the seminary? I suffered a lot of guilt because I'd been inculcated with the idea that once you'd made your decision, it was forever. Even if you came in at age 12? Yeah. The Jesuits have a motto: Give us a boy till he's 7 and he's ours for life. I wouldn't say we were brainwashed, but we were inculcated with powerful ideas about loyalty, perseverance and temptation.
N E X T+P A G E: How do you know when you've done a scene well? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PHOTOGRAPH: ORTEGA ALBERT/SIPA |
