-Our first guests tonight are two talented
and award-winning actors who star in
"The Banshees of Inisherin,"
which will be in theaters October 21st.
Please welcome back to the show, two of my all-time favorites
here together, Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Well, this is just lovely to have you both here.
-It's fantastic to be back. -Hello, everyone.
[ Cheers ]
-You're both back on the show, and, Brendan, just on Saturday,
you're back in the building.
You hosted "SNL" right down the hall.
Wonderful job. -Thank you, this is weird.
You know -- [ Cheers and applause ]
Coming in, I said, "Wait a minute.
Has it not happened?" [ Laughter ]
And we meet Donna outside, and it's like,
"Yeah, okay, let's get back into this."
-Yeah, exactly. Now were you hesitant at all
to take on the hosting duties at "SNL"?
-Only to the degree of saying no.
[ Laughter ]
-Was Colin helpful? -Many times, by the way --
many times he said no. I was. Didn't I?
I sold it as hard as I could. -Yeah, in my -- he said --
-I said it was one of the best weeks you'll ever have
that you'll learn to regret eventually.
[ Laughter ]
No, but I had -- it was 16, 18 --
-It's a long time ago. -A long, long time ago.
And we were there together. -Yeah, and I can tell
it's a long time ago because you look terrible.
[ Laughter ] -I look terrible.
Yeah, exactly. -You've aged so badly.
It's all we talk about, Colin. -I comb the hairline down
on the regular, man. On the regular.
I give myself that extra half an inch, you know yourself.
But, listen, no, it was one of the best weeks I had creatively.
The chaos of 30 Rock on a Saturday, which you lived in...
-Yeah. -...and it's so --
We get so much time to prepare. Different in theater,
but when you're doing television or film,
you have so much time to prepare.
You can't really fail too badly.
You can, you just go back to one,
the camera, you cut it, or whatever.
This is all very different. And "Saturday Night Live,"
the chaos, this kind of -- the strategic chaos is so beautiful.
I knew he'd love it.
-You got roped in a couple of times.
Was it less stressful? -Totally!
-It's wonderful to be there! -Oh, I was sitting back
in the room, eating the cookies, and watching this fella
be dragged by the -- you know, to his next costume
or dodgy wig. It was fantastic.
[ Laughter ] It was fantastic.
-It's like nothing else, but it did bring me back to the '80s.
-Uh-huh. -We used to do a lot of --
a lot of running around with kind of very large hoops
and skirts and bad wigs. [ Laughter ]
With a whole bunch of people
with the Passion Machine Theatre Company.
And we used to -- the audience participation was the same,
The sense of excitement. I was running around the back
of the sets, 'cause it's so theatrical, the setup.
-Yeah. -And said, "I got this."
[ Laughter ]
-Well, you certainly -- -Were you skating back then?
Were you a skateboarder back then, as well?
-I was, yeah, yeah.
-That's something that came later in life.
-Yeah, I had a stunt double even then.
-Even as young man. You mentioned Donna.
She's the dresser at "SNL." She works here.
Wally, our cue card guy,
also was sort of your touchstone during the week.
And he mentioned you did a scene where --
the blood-oath scene, where you were sort of spraying blood.
And Wally wanted to let us know, he caught it, as well.
He actually -- this is the actual cue card,
covered in blood. [ Laughter ]
-Thank you, Wally! -Thank you, Wally.
-Oh, that was funny. He said, "Yeah, don't --"
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, very good. Very good, Wally.
-Yeah, "Oh, am I gettin' ya?" [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, you seemed to be enjoying getting everybody.
-He got you, didn't he? I saw you.
-So this is -- talking about, I guess --
So "In Bruges" happened after you hosted "SNL,"
but an equally long time ago, 14 years ago you make this film.
Martin McDonagh, who wrote and directed this,
comes back to you guys. Was this --
Was there an expectation you were gonna get the gang
back together at any point over the last decade-plus?
-We got on so well, I always hoped.
I've worked with Martin twice before.
My son had done a play of his. So I knew his work.
I'd say the best day of theater I ever spent
was three Martin McDonagh plays in a row.
Druid Theatre Company did it.
-Which you were dreading initially, weren't you?
-I dreaded it. I was like, "No, geez, ah."
Existential. -It seems like this is thematic
that you just live in fear until you decide to do something.
[ Laughter ]
-No, I did. I did it. Then, it was one of the best.
I was absolutely elated.
It kind of reawakened everything that's brilliant about theater.
But working with Martin is extraordinary.
And then we kind of hit it off in "In Bruges."
Col came in, we just kind of hooked up.
It was kind of immediate.
There was no need for words, really.
-Hooked up, just to be clear... -Oh, yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-Being in America, I feel like a translation is in order.
-Yeah. -It didn't work.
-I apologize. -Leave them wanting more.
[ Laughter ]
-No, it was fantastic. So it was something
that Martin was thinking of getting the gang together
at some point. But like 14 years.
Seven years ago, I think, the first iteration,
and then another couple -- so about three years ago
it all started to be real. And it was really exciting.
And then COVID came in, and, you know, "Is it gonna happen?"
And then it happened, so it was really -- it was fantastic.
It was a dream. A dream.
-Did you find that you fell back into it right away?
-Straight away. Nothing.
I mean, I was a little bit nervous because our characters
in this film, "The Banshees of Inisherin,"
are at loggerheads, you know?
Loggerheads. [ Laughter ]
-Ha ha, loggerheads!
-Where's Freud when you need him?
[ Laughter ]
To stay quiet.
Where is he when you need him to stay quiet.
-"Hooked up," and all of a sudden
you come out with "loggerheads."
-The characters are at bourbonheads.
And you know, "In Bruges" was about our two characters
falling in love with each other. -Yeah.
-You know, with all this madness and chaos going around,
and a friendship that was being built
against even our awareness. And this is about both of us
being keenly aware that it's the dissolution of a friendship.
So we -- I'm only happy for the first 30 seconds of the film.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-You really are. -And then he tells me --
And I'm really happy, by the way, in that 30 seconds.
-Yeah. -You know, it had to last
the rest of the 90 minutes.
And then he tells me he doesn't want to be friends
with me anymore. So it was this dismantling
of stuff, so I wasn't sure.
Me and him had a chat the first day of rehearsal.
"Look, are we gonna have to not be fully in character
or not talk, but do we want to kind of --
-Keep a distance.
-And thank God, neither of us felt we needed it.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, you didn't want to go that method.
-Do you know what I mean? No, no, we don't need that.
We didn't need it. It's sometimes better, you know,
you come from a place of love,
and then you can take it down consciously.
Take it apart consciously and still look after each other.
'Cause some of the stuff was very dark in this, as well.
Same as "Bruges," some of it. It's hilarious when you
read it first, and it's funny when people
watch it, apparently. [ Laughter ]
But there's a middle section of doing it
that can get a bit tricky sometimes.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-You know? -Yeah.
-Now you guys might have heard that I'm a fan of "In Bruges."
-A little. -I've heard that.
-We've talked about that a fair amount on the show.
And I don't know -- I feel like I didn't really
fully admit this to you, Colin. Because I mentioned once that
I had told my wife I wanted to go to Paris,
and then I tricked her into going to "In Bruges."
[ Laughter ] -Good trick.
-I don't think you know the extent that we went.
We tried to re-create frames of the film.
So, like, there's you, in the movie, and there's me.
[ Laughter ]
And so there, Brendan, don't think you -- there you are.
-Oh, yeah! -And there you are, there I am.
-Your poor wife. -Yeah, yeah.
You have no idea. -Was she a director?
-There's Ralph Fiennes, and there I am walking across --
You think "poor wife"?
You want to know how bad it is for my wife?
We didn't have a dog with us. [ Laughter ]
-Oh, no! -This gorgeous woman.
[ Applause ] -Beautiful.
-That gorgeous woman... -Beautiful.
-So I was very excited because, you know, obviously,
my expectation in having loved the film,
I intend to, as gorgeous a place as you could shoot this.
-Are you gonna go -- Did you ever?
-I mean, I would love to go to --
Now, where was actually Inisherin?
-Well, that's the thing. Go where?
So Inisherin doesn't actually exist.
It's not a place.
-So just get there and keep going.
-A mythological isle. -Yeah, exactly.
Anywhere on the west coast, really.
We shot on two islands.
One was one of the three islands
that constitute the Aran Islands,
and the island that we shot on was Inishmore,
the biggest of the islands, the biggest of the three.
And was just extraordinary,
and it has a population of 750 people.
On any given day during the summer,
2,000 tourists come and go.
So it's abuzz during the day, and then, at night,
it becomes a more sincere version of itself, in a way.
A magic, magic place. It doesn't feel
like it's changed too much in forever, you know?
-And we were kind of embraced on it, in a way that was...
-Yeah. -...just total.
So, you know, like, there's quite a toxic environment
that can develop on the island in the movie.
Not at all what happened on Inishmore.
They were just -- They took us in,
and we'd kind of pass each other on the road
in the way it was happening in the film.
It was such a crossover.
-"How are you, Brendan?" [ Laughter ]
-So between that and Achill Island,
which was the other place we had locations,
they're magnificent places.
And we got extraordinary weather.
It was like as if they wanted us to make this movie over there.
-And you -- there are a great many animals in the film.
Are they local hires or did you bring them over with you?
-They were definitely local hires.
They were first-timers.
Yeah, but they were just extraordinary.
That looks like CGI to me, but they were there, I remember.
[ Laughter ]
Extraordinary. -Yeah.
And did you find -- I mean, you --
I feel like you do the brunt of the animal acting
in the film, Colin... -Yeah.
-...and I feel like you did a great job.
I felt like you really had a connection with those animals.
-The animals had a connection with me, didn't they?
One connected its hoof to my kneecap.
[ Laughter ]
The other one connected its teeth to my thumb.
[ Audience groans ] True.
[ Laughter ]
There's three animals, outside the human animals,
three animals that are, like,
livestock or domesticated animals that we worked with.
There was Morse, who was this gorgeous sheep dog.
Gorgeous. -Beautiful dog.
-Smart, wise, terrible judge of character.
It bit me. [ Laughter ]
-It did not like to dance. -Did not like to dance.
-You do have a dancing scene with a sheep dog.
-I do. -Yeah.
-I do! It was emotional.
[ Laughter ]
-Jenny -- Jenny the donkey.
And she gave me a good ol' clatter on the knee.
[ Laughter ]
And then -- And then Minnie,
who didn't have a big part but then kind of
worked her way up the affections of the director,
at the writer/director Martin.
And he ended up giving her a lot more than she originally had.
-Yeah, 'cause originally -- -To the betterment of the film
but to the detriment of my safety because --
because she wouldn't stay to your right.
Do you remember the scene, Barry with the kettle?
-I do. -On the way to the church.
Do you remember the drop-off there at the cliff?
-I do. -That's where she starts
to back up towards the cliff. [ Laughter ]
And the bit that we were doing, as well, that day,
she was a bit -- -She was a little bit --
Yeah, she was a bit diva-ish. [ Laughter ]
-Colin, I have to say, are you worried at all
about the fact that, you know, three different animal species
seemed to chose to attack you over Brendan?
-Yeah, it was concerning. [ Laughter ]
-Well, Colin -- -I still have no answer for it.
-I think, you know the way you always hurt the one you love?
-Yeah. -Oh, I like that.
-What a nice framing of it.
I have a lot more to ask you guys.
We'll be right back with more
from Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell.