What exactly appealed to you about this culture clash of big-time Hollywood and small-town Ireland?
In terms of a small town in the eyes of a Hollywood executive — that didn’t interest me so much. It was more the perspective of the people as they look out at the world. The show, entirely, is about identity. The whole town is having an identity crisis . . . and the thing about retelling the past through Celtic storytelling is that we make most of it up as we go on to suit our purposes — which is what Hollywood does to places where it goes. So, this is a microcosm of that — don’t believe everything you see or hear.
Amidst all its satire and its UFOs, the show is also very much about secrets and the weight of the past . . .
In a lot of ways, it is secrets that shape our identity as much as things that are actually known. What is it they say? “Character is your personality in the dark.” There are a lot of people carrying burdens . . . because we all live with these shames that have been put on us by other generations. Christina’s character, who lived in this small town and left, she’s coming back with all this baggage. Without all the cosmic stuff and all the film stuff, I think that’s what people will relate to: somebody coming back to her small town with a little bit of an axe to grind.
How did your initial concept of this story evolve during filmmaking?
I thought it was going to be a half-hour comedy. It would have had a different pace and structure if we had gone that way. And then, as we developed it, the [U.K.] broadcaster wanted it to be an hour — which I was really keen to do, because I felt we needed more time. On previous shows I’d done, we were working on about four jokes per page, but I didn’t want it to have that kind of a rhythm. I wanted it to be fun and light, but I wanted to do two or three jokes per page, and have them be stronger. That means I can have these beautiful landscape shots, move the camera a little more and tell it at a pace that was more absorbing.
In general, what’s the difference between writing comedy or dramedy and writing straight-up drama?
If you’re writing a drama, it’s really narrow. It’s like, “This happens and then this happens, but this happens.” Whereas [with comedy] sometimes I’ll think of a particularly funny moment and I’ll have to build backwards to make it work — build an entire episode around that moment . . . I remember there was a story about a Seinfeld writer that explains comedy very well. There was a guy on a plane with a bit of turbulence. A drink fell off the table and into his lap, and his beautiful beige trousers were left with unfortunate spillage in a bad area. A normal person would be going, “I have to somehow get the water out of these pants.” The comedy moment is going, “Well, what I need is more water for the rest of the pants.” You have to think of the wrong thing to do and follow that path.
The entertainment business is such a rollercoaster. Even with all of your success to date, do you ever feel secure?
At no point does anybody come up to you and go, “This is it! You’ve done it!” Maybe with awards, but even then it’s like, “Well, what’s next?” . . . I remember in my younger life, I had to “fake it till I make it” a lot. In this particular industry, I’ve found that’s quite easy — because everybody’s so full of s***!
Small Town, Big Story, streaming on Stack TV
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Irish cut-up Chris O’Dowd has charmed and amused us on U.K. sitcom The IT Crowd, mind-bending Apple TV+ dramedy The Big Door Prize and, of course, his breakout rom-com Bridesmaids. Most recently, he headlined a truly stunning episode of sci-fi anthology Black Mirror.
CURRENT GIG:
O’Dowd writes and directs this series about a Hollywood executive (Christina Hendricks) who returns to her Irish hometown to shoot a fantasy flick called I Am Celt. Here, she must confront past trauma, ex-boyfriends and UFOs. O’Dowd also guest-stars as I Am Celt’s eccentric author.