The very funny Chris O'Dowd is the brains behind new Sky show, Small Town, Big Story.
It's about a Hollywood production that rolls into a small Irish town and throws the spotlight on a secret that's been kept hidden since the eve of the Millennium.
Mad Men's Christina Hendricks stars alongside Chris in the Ireland based comedy.They discussed how the idea came up with his wife Dawn O'Porter and how many Gs they split whilst working together!
Small Town Big Story is coming to Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW on February 27th Report by Jonesl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
It's about a Hollywood production that rolls into a small Irish town and throws the spotlight on a secret that's been kept hidden since the eve of the Millennium.
Mad Men's Christina Hendricks stars alongside Chris in the Ireland based comedy.They discussed how the idea came up with his wife Dawn O'Porter and how many Gs they split whilst working together!
Small Town Big Story is coming to Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW on February 27th Report by Jonesl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Usually go to each other when we're struggling.
00:02Oh, I don't know if I did split the G with you.
00:03It's really filthy.
00:04Can I say f***?
00:05Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:06Can I say f***?
00:07Can I say f***?
00:08This is nuttier than a squirrel's holiday.
00:09Isn't it?
00:10I mean, what is going through your brain, mister?
00:14Oh, I don't know.
00:15Mostly drugs.
00:16No, I suppose it was a combination of loads
00:22of different themes and ideas that I wanted to explore
00:24as well as trying to get home.
00:26And then when you bring in wonderful collaborators
00:28like Christina kind of elevates it to another level
00:31and Paddy and Eileen and all of the wonderful Nick Murphy
00:36and all of these terrific writers.
00:38And it just seemed like kind of a graduation
00:43of Moon Boy exploring a lot of different themes
00:45that we've met along the way.
00:48It's brilliantly bonkers, isn't it?
00:50But like, do you ever have a sounding board
00:52where you have these ideas at the middle of the night,
00:53perhaps you have too much cheese.
00:55You write things down and you're like, how does this sound?
00:57What's the reaction from people around you?
01:00Well, myself and Dawn were in lockdown at the time
01:02in Canada when I started writing it.
01:05And I don't know if we were going through
01:07the best phase of our marriage.
01:10So I dragged her to Canada to do a movie
01:12with the kids with us and then they went into full lockdown.
01:15So it was a stay at home order for five months.
01:17And so I was kind of bouncing off the walls, right?
01:22And so I didn't have much of a sounding board.
01:25And I think that's why the ideas are a bit stranger.
01:27Because nobody said, no, that's stupid.
01:30At some point, somebody was like,
01:31I think you should lose the cosmic stuff.
01:34I'm like, well, that's the show.
01:35But you and Dawn told me too, when you both write,
01:37you sort of don't necessarily tell each other in the time
01:41because you don't want to have it dilute
01:44what you're thinking and you share it
01:46maybe a little bit later.
01:47We usually go to each other when we're struggling.
01:49Oh, okay.
01:50When we're like, this is garbage.
01:51What the fuck am I gonna do with this?
01:53How do I make this novel come together
01:56and all of that kind of stuff,
01:57maybe we'll throw some ideas around then.
01:57But usually it's post-struggle.
02:00So did Dawn say, let's have some birds that fly out
02:02and fall from the sky.
02:04Let's have a dog that really scares Christina.
02:08I think it was.
02:08But it all lends to the story.
02:09I mean, it's all these little clues
02:12that are sort of all brewing
02:14and stirring up this sort of strange feeling
02:17in this small town.
02:18Yeah, and what was your experience like of Ireland?
02:21Had you been much?
02:23Were you a bit worried about
02:24kind of entering the world of the Irish?
02:27I wasn't worried at all.
02:28I was really excited.
02:29I had only been to Ireland for one long weekend.
02:33I had taken a holiday and I had heard of a beautiful place,
02:36Ashford Castle, I'd always wanted to go.
02:37And so I went for a few days.
02:39So that was my entire experience of Ireland,
02:41which was, I was just plopped in a place and taken out.
02:44So I was really excited because I just,
02:48I had spent a bunch of time in Scotland the year before
02:52and I spent a lot of time in England
02:54and I was like, I keep getting called back
02:56or there's a reason.
02:57And I was just up for the journey.
02:58So yeah, I was excited.
02:59He's the reason.
03:00Yeah, this time he was the reason.
03:01How many G's did you split though?
03:03This is the question.
03:04How many what?
03:05G's were split.
03:06Oh, I don't know if I did split the G with you.
03:08What's that mean?
03:09It's really filthy.
03:10No, it's splitting the G.
03:12No, you take a, on a pint of Guinness.
03:14I'm like, wow.
03:15Okay.
03:16Interesting.
03:17G Street.
03:18It's a cherry popper.
03:19On the Guinness logo, on a pint of Guinness,
03:22it's supposed to be this inherent idea
03:24that you take a slug enough, big enough
03:25that when you put it down,
03:26the creamy top is halfway through the G
03:29and it's called splitting the G.
03:30But I don't know if we drank Guinness in the end.
03:31There was a lot of red wine drank.
03:33Yeah, I'd love to be around a Guinness.
03:35I think G's all round after this.
03:37It's a pretty stay today.
03:38And what about what you learned about each other's
03:40kind of cultures and where you're both from?
03:42Was there much that you picked up?
03:44Well, I certainly was learning how he talked.
03:48I mean, we had a couple of moments on set
03:52where he came up to me and he was like,
03:53I'm going to rewrite this line.
03:54Can you say, can I say that?
03:57Can I say that?
03:57Oh yeah, yeah.
03:58Can I say f**k?
03:59Can I say f**k?
04:00He was like, can you say f**king idiot?
04:02And I was like, gotcha boss.
04:04You know, came down.
04:05I'm like, you f**king idiot.
04:06And he's like, yeah.
04:08So can you say f**king idiot?
04:10And I'm like, I was like, oh, f**k, like f**k.
04:14And he was like, yeah.
04:15And I, you f**king idiot.
04:17And he's like, could you?
04:19And I said, I thought that was just your accent.
04:21I didn't know you were asking me to say it like that.
04:24So there were some times where I didn't know
04:26if it was a note or just your kooky way of talking.
04:30You sometimes forget that Egypt isn't commonplace
04:32around the rest of the world.
04:34Well, it sounds like Egypt as well.
04:36I didn't know if he wanted me to like,
04:37try it with an accent or something.
04:40I was baffled, but we sorted it out.
04:42How was your Irish?
04:44Well, I didn't do an Irish accent.
04:46Can you do one?
04:49For what?
04:50To what end?
04:53I mean, I'm a bit of a parrot.
04:55So if I'm in a place for a long time,
04:58I can't help but try.
04:59I'm so, I find other people's accents delicious.
05:02So I kind of like practice at home on my own
05:04or I mumble under my breath
05:05trying to sort of get what they're doing
05:07because I'm just fascinated by it.
05:09But we did discuss early on
05:11whether we wanted her to have an accent or not.
05:13And-
05:14It works with that one.
05:15I think so.
05:16Yeah, we decided it could be distracting.
05:18It could be a delicious thing, Chris.
05:19How does that feel, that your accent's delicious?
05:21I'll take it.
05:22I'll take it.
05:23It's been called loads of things.
05:24And do you feel like this is like a journey
05:27that you've had since you started out
05:29where you feel like it really is you?
05:31You've created something that's totally and utterly yours
05:34that you've always kind of aimed to do?
05:37I don't know if I ever had the aim,
05:38but I certainly feel like I've,
05:41we, for the most part,
05:42have been able to make the show
05:43that we wanted to try and make.
05:45And then you kind of, if you're smart
05:47just like if you're cooking in a kitchen
05:49and somebody suggests other little recipes
05:51and other things,
05:52oh, you should try a bit of this in it.
05:53And that's kind of the way I like to work anyway.
05:56But it does feel like it's very specifically my world,
05:58I guess,
05:59because it does deal with a lot of things I'm interested in
06:01and it truly features my hometown
06:04and all that vibe, I suppose.
06:06It feels like Chris.
06:07A little bit.
06:08I mean, if you've watched Moonboy
06:10and you've seen this
06:11and you've seen the projects he's working on,
06:15it's a wonderful thing to be able to look at a project
06:17and go, I bet that's Chris or dad.
06:19Like that's a very unique
06:20and not very many people do that.
06:21So come on, it's super Chris.
06:24I guess it is.
06:25It's quite Chrissy, yeah.
06:26Super Chris.
06:27You see a llama coming down from the sky,
06:29that's Chris.
06:29Yeah.
06:30That's her dad.
06:31He's got a dad all over it.
06:32That's an alpaca.
06:33Well, they do all feel like every now and again,
06:35I'll kind of bump against something
06:36and I'll go, God, I'd forgotten at some point.
06:38And the reason that that's there
06:39is that outside my hometown,
06:42I was there a few weeks ago,
06:43I went to see my cousins
06:44and they still live out there
06:45and they're kind of very rural.
06:46But right opposite them is a big field
06:48with loads of alpacas in it.
06:50So having alpacas around is very normal for me,
06:53but somehow when you put it
06:54in the middle of a main street like that,
06:56it doesn't seem so.
06:57With a spotlight.
06:58Yes.
06:59And this looks kind of like that neighborhood
07:02and all of those kinds of things.
07:03It's strange.
07:04I'd want to watch that show
07:05with that guy looking at me in that.
07:06That's a great poster.
07:07Exactly, and it was fantastic.
07:09Thank you very much.
07:10Really appreciate your time.
07:11Cheers, Lucy.