Photographed by: John Russo
Produced by: Photohouse Productions
Interview: John Russo
Styled by: Linda Medvene
Grooming: Jenny Nelson for The Wall Group
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Video: Ken Waller Media
Growing up, were there any actors that really inspired you that moved you to want to be an actor?
JR: Yeah I mean when I was young, I was a huge Bruce Willis fan, I really wanted to be an action movie guy when I was really young. And as I moved into my teens and my English teacher in school was very, he was very film focused. And so he sort of programmed every year for us in school maybe three or four films that we would watch. And I remember watching Jim Sheridan’s film The Field and thinking that Richard Harris and John Hurt were both so extraordinary in that movie. And that was at a very young age, that was at twelve or thirteen. That same year we watched La Haine, which is a Mathieu Kassovitz film. Vincent Cassel and Said Taghmaoui, those guys were fantastic in that movie. We watched Glengarry Glen Ross and I was blown away by everybody in that film, like Jack Lemmon is unbelievable in it and Al Pacino playing Ricky Roma of course. So those were the kinds of films that I was watching as a teenager and I was very blessed to have someone in my life who was showing me that stuff at such a young age because it was very influential on me.
You have Power Ballad coming out. How did that come about and how was your experience working on it?
JR: I had worked with that director many, many times before and so I came on in sort of a cameo capacity I guess. And look, I just always love to work in Ireland, it’s great. I love working with the same people again and again and I am very proud to say that Irish crews are fantastic to work with. And there’s a sense when you are working on a film in Ireland that everybody is there because they really want to be there and they really appreciate the opportunity to be making films. And that’s not the case everywhere. So I think that’s pretty special. And yeah, it was just, I mean it’s always great to be able to go to work and wake up in your own bed in the morning, very rare if you live on the island of Ireland and are an actor. So I really appreciated that a lot.
What do you think are some of the keys to create longevity in an actor’s career?
JR: Time spent away from the industry, critical, absolutely critical. I think that you generate the bandwidth needed to be able to work in this industry by being completely outside of it and living life. I think that the most important place where you can hone your craft as an actor is in the real world. It comes down to your capacity for empathy and compassion and your curiosity and interest in society and in people and in places. And how broad do you cast your net when you are looking for cultural context? How diverse can you be when you are considering whose shoes to put yourself in? That’s really, really, really critical. And I think that yeah, that all comes from living life in the real world. So I would say that that’s probably the number one thing for me for longevity in your career. And so one of the more challenging things I think for a lot of actors and certainly it was for me throughout my 20s, was building good habits. Like actually being able to consistently be on top of good nutrition, sleeping well, just keeping regular hours rather than being up at four o’clock in the morning all the time. These are things that, you can do that stuff for a certain amount of time and I guess in your 20s and probably even your 30s to an extent, but all that stuff catches up with you and your really have to look after your physical and mental health because you want to have longevity as an actor I think. Some people get away with it, but I think the best practice is you fucking look after yourself, you know what I mean?
You are a down to earth guy. Sometimes fame changes people and not always for the best. How do you remain grounded in your career and in your life?
JR: Well again, I think on merit of the fact that I live in the community that I grew up in and everybody there knows me and nobody really gives a fuck about the fact that I am an actor. (laughter) Of course when I go home to Ireland, people are going to talk about The Mummy and tell me what they think about it or whatever, but when I go into my local shop or I go and sit down in the pub, people want to talk to me about what’s going on in their lives. And I am really blessed that my community has known me from the age of three years old all the way till now. And I think that as long as I connected with my community and I think as long as I am able to contribute to my community and to really be a part of it, I think that would always keep me grounded, no matter how much of that sort of element of fame would come along. I also think it’s partly about the way you carry yourself as well because I know some really, really famous people who I can go out and sit down in a bar with them and have a beer or I can go and have lunch or whatever and people don’t, it’s like people don’t see them and they don’t come up to them, because those people carry themselves just like normal people. And so it’s almost like they kind of go sort of incognito because it’s just the aura that they are giving off is that they are just like anyone else. And then sometimes you meet people who are very, very self-consciously famous. And those people are looking around to see who is looking at them all the time. If you are looking to see who is looking at you, people are going to look at you I think. So it’s funny, there’s definitely like a chicken and the egg element to that, isn’t there?
One hundred percent. At the end of the day, we are all just people.
JR: Literally man. And I will say that I’ve been blessed to meet more of those kinds of nice people in the industry than the other kind.
Thank you.
END