Actor Gerard McSorley has confessed he begged for a part in the powerful
new film Omagh - and got one of the most emotional roles of his life.
The 52-year-old star said he was desperate to be in the film about the 1998
bomb outrage because Omagh was his home town.
In the searing drama, which will be broadcast on RTE on Saturday and on
Channel 4 on Thursday, May 27, McSorley plays bomb victims' group spokesman
Michael Gallagher.
And he gives a blistering performance as a quiet and dignified family man
trying to come to terms with the sudden and senseless loss of his beloved
son.
The People has seen the controversial two hour movie and it is a powerful
and moving account of the events and aftermath of August 15 1998.
To prepare for the dramatic role, McSorley met with Michael Gallagher whose
son Aiden was killed in the blast along with 28 others and two unborn
babies.
He revealed: "To my delight I met with Michael and his wife Patsy and
daughters Sharon and Cathy and was able to spend time with them.
"He is a very quiet and unassuming man but also very forthright. He has an
air of quiet authority.
"He is the sort of man who you imagine never raises his voice.
"But he is very smart and very direct. He has a gentility about him and
humour.
"He is a delightful man - and very courageous for doing what he is doing."
The actor, who starred as Irish gangster John Gilligan in the Veronica
Guerin film, said he did what any other actor would have done during their
meetings.
He added: "I tried to drink up as much information as I could.
"There was also so much available on video because Michael is a very public
figure and I obsessively watched him.
"I met him two or three times before filming but he never suggested how he
should be played. I just used my powers of observation.
"At the end of the day you are never going to be the other person. You have
to create your own character otherwise it would be just mimicry.
"I was watching videos and listening to him on the radio. I was walking
around listening to tapes, listening to his voice obsessively."
The cast and crew saw the completed film for the first time last Sunday
along with relatives of the victims and survivors.
"That screening was a very important event and it was charged with emotion
and grief," said McSorley.
"It can't have been easy for them but it went well.
"I spoke to Michael afterwards and he thought it was very successful and
powerful. He said it was true to the grief he, Patsy and his two daughters
experienced."
The actor also revealed he could understood some of what the Gallagher
family had been through because he had lost his own son Peter to suicide
the same year as Omagh.
The young man killed himself after splitting up with his girlfriend.
"I can empathise with any parents who have lost a child. I lost my son two
months after the Omagh bomb.
"But I was very careful not to let my personal feelings enter into the
telling of the story.
"If I had done that it would have been too
self-indulgent and my character could have become self-pitying and he is
not like that.
"But I understand the very complex emotions and grief you go through losing
a child."
The actor, who has starred in practically every major Irish film in recent
years including Braveheart, The Boxer, Some Mother's Son, In the Name Of
The Father, Angela's Ashes, Michael Collins and Ordinary Decent Criminal,
said as soon as he heard there might be a film about Omagh he wanted to be
involved.
He said: "I heard Paul Greengrass who made Bloody Sunday was thinking about
it so I sent him an email, which was not like me normally as I am not
ambitious.
"I said, 'If you are making a film about my home town I would be there in
any capacity, even making the tea'."
Months later the film got the green light - and McSorley was given the main
part.
"It meant a huge amount to me, being from the town, to be able to use my
skills to tell the dreadful story of that horrible atrocity," said
McSorley.
He said he could remember the day vividly.
"I was in Belfast doing a BBC play and I had just got back to Dublin when
my sister, who took absolutely no interest in politics whatsoever and who
lived in Hertfordshire, called me up and told me to put on Sky News.
"I could tell by her dark tone that something horrible had happened.
"I sat there staring at the TV in a catatonic state of mind. I went to
Omagh the following day. Nothing could have kept me away.
"I have friends there but I had the good fortune that I did not know anyone
directly who had been killed, maimed or injured. But it is still my home
town."
The actor, who has two other children, Kate, 21, and Ben, 25, said the film
would never have been made if it did not get the backing of the victims'
families.
"There will be lots of different reactions to it. There was a school of
thought that it was too early to make but it went ahead because the
victims' families gave their support in general.
"It is a faithful representation of the grief that Michael Gallagher and
his family and the
self-help and support group went through
"Hopefully they will see it as a worthy telling of the story. It puts a
human face on the tragedy and as Michael Gallagher says it means it is not
just yesterday's news."
The actor said he couldn't think of another role which would carry the same
emotional weight.
"It would be hard to imagine a role which carries such a weight of
sorrow,"said the actor.
"But I think it was a very successful role because there was a beauty in it
because of the depth of emotion and honesty.
"The script we were working from was just so believable. And it was based
on a lot of first hand research."
Acclaimed journalist Don Mullan was the co-producer of the film. He also
worked on the TV drama Bloody Sunday and was the author of Eye Witness
Bloody Sunday.
"Don and others were up there interviewing people long before we started
filming. And they worked with incredible sensitivity," said McSorley. The
script came from these first hand accounts."
Paul Greengrass, who was behind the Bloody Sunday film, co-wrote and was a
co-producer on Omagh.
McSorley got to know him while himself working on Bloody Sunday and was
able to approach him as soon as he heard a film about Omagh was being
considered.
Incidentally, The People gets a worthy mention in the new film for first
exposing the fact that the security forces knew in advance there was going
to be a major terrorist attack but failed to act on the information.
We revealed how informant Kevin Fulton tipped off Special Branch but no
security blanket was thrown around Omagh.
In the film the Northern Ireland Ombudsman is seen confirming our findings,
telling the victims' families that Fulton did indeed pass on vital
information to his Special Branch handler as the People revealed.
She then blasted the RUC for their incompetence in handling the initial
threat and the subsequent aftermath of the bomb.
McSorley is currently making a film in Berlin and Nairobi with Ralph
Fiennes and Rachel Weisz called The Constant Gardener in which he plays a
corrupt businessman.
