Anthony Boyle Didn’t Have To Do Much Research For Say Nothing

As I delve into the captivating narrative of Anthony Boyle, a Northern Irish actor who has left an indelible mark on the small screen with his riveting portrayal of IRA member John Joe Hughes in the FX series “Say Nothing,” I can’t help but be awestruck by his ability to breathe life into such a complex character. Born and raised in Belfast, Boyle’s connection to the story is not just professional; it’s personal.

In the initial phase of his acting career, Anthony Boyle deliberately avoided portraying characters that were stereotypical Northern Irish tough guys, a common character in media from the British Isles and somewhat similar to himself given his upbringing in West Belfast. After leaving school at 16, he held various odd jobs like bartending and guiding ghost tours before attending drama school in Wales. His big break came as the refined, blonde son of Draco Malfoy in the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which he performed first in London, where he won an Olivier Award, then on Broadway. Subsequently, he took up a series of roles on American television shows: as a member of a group of young fighter pilots in “Masters of the Air” this year, and as John Wilkes Booth in “Manhunt,” both available on AppleTV+. As Boyle approached his 30th birthday in June, he expressed a desire to return home and take up roles that were more authentically Irish.

I’ve returned home in quite an exciting fashion: In the FX series Say Nothing, I step into the shoes of Brendan Hughes, a Provisional Irish Republican Army officer famously known as “the Dark” and revered as something of a folk hero in Northern Ireland. A mural of Hughes, I share with you, adorned a wall along the Falls Road near where I attended school and where my father continues to work security. The series, similar to the book by Patrick Radden Keefe it’s based on, sheds light on the life of Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew), who joined the IRA as a teenager. Dolours and her sister Marian were key figures in two car bombings in London in 1973. They were imprisoned and force-fed in British prisons after going on hunger strike, and later in life, grew disillusioned with the peace process. In the show, my portrayal of Hughes intersects with Dolours’s life as a compelling radical ally in the struggle for a united Ireland. Embodying a character like Hughes felt remarkably relatable to me; unlike most other roles, I didn’t need to learn a new accent or delve deeply into historical research. I’ve visited many of the same pubs Hughes himself frequented.

The Pluck of the Irish

In-person, Boyle exudes a similar lively and contagious humor that makes his portrayal of Hughes so endearing. Arriving late for our morning interview at a restaurant near Central Park was apparently due to transportation issues according to FX’s PR representative, but I suspect it might have also been due to a post-premiere party from the previous night. He shared with me that he took his cast to Flaming Saddles, a Wild West-themed gay bar in midtown, clearly enjoying the mental picture of his co-stars surrounded by men in tight pants.

Boyle is lightly frazzled by jet lag: He’s flown to New York in the midst of night shoots for another Irish project, Steven Knight’s film House of Guinness, in which he plays Arthur Guinness, an heir to the beer fortune. (Arthur supported British rule of Ireland, Boyle points out, so he can play both sides of the aisle.) The current state of his ’stache, more tweezed than Hughes’s rebellious bushy caterpillar, is owed to that role. After rocking a mustache in Manhunt, Boyle wonders whether his calling card lies above his upper lip. He tells me, “My agent said to me last night, ‘Next role we’re doing, you can’t have a mustache.’”

He got Say Nothing through his friend and co-star Petticrew, also a Belfast native, with whom Boyle appeared in what he describes as a “terrible” chess-themed production of Romeo and Juliet as a teenager. “I watched a scene last night where Lola says something to me and I go, ‘You’re a cheeky wee bitch,’” Boyle recalls. “That wasn’t in the script, but that’s just how we are with each other.” One of Say Nothing’s directors, Michael Lennox, had worked with Boyle and Petticrew on a microbudget short film made before Boyle went to drama school. “I was promised 100 quid, and they didn’t pay me,” Boyle says. “I got this role, so it paid off, but — put this in the interview — I still want that 100 quid!”

The history Say Nothing covers is fraught, and Boyle initially expressed concerns that “two American lads,” Keefe and the show’s creator, Josh Zetumer, would try to find a simple narrative in a story about the Troubles. “I said to them, ‘I’d love to do this, but I don’t think we should try to define what “this” is. This is a messy, checkered history,’” Boyle says. “It will work if you just ask questions and connect to the humanity of it.” His fears, he adds, were assuaged in reading Keefe’s book — the work of “an amazing journalist and an incredible writer” — and in the way that Zetumer’s script captured what Boyle found to be a distinctly Northern Irish sense of humor. “With a lot of people who have been displaced, they end up very funny because there’s so much trauma,” Boyle says. “If you never got a pot to piss in, it helps to be able to laugh.”

In Boyle’s childhood, he belonged to a Catholic family. One day, as his mother instructed him to fetch milk and eggs, there was a gunfight between the British troops and the IRA on the street. With perfect comedic timing, Boyle humorously recounted the incident: “He said, ‘But Mommy, they’re shooting outside.’ She replied, ‘They’re not aiming at you.’

As much of a jokester as Boyle can be, he understands the pain underneath those jokes as well as Say Nothing’s political weight — the tightrope it walks in its depiction of the IRA. In the fourth episode, which hangs on Boyle’s performance, Hughes is pressured to accept the execution of informants to whom he’d previously offered mercy if they double-crossed the Brits. “During wartime, people do awful, horrible things,” says Boyle. “I still don’t know what I think about it. I put my heart into it.”

The series moves through different time periods, portraying interviews given by an older Dolours (performed by Maxine Peake) for a Boston College oral history about the Troubles. These interviews were recorded under the agreement that they would not be released until after the participants had passed away. In these recordings, she renounces the IRA’s tactics and leadership. Hughes (played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor in his older role) was also involved in this project before his death in 2008. In the show, he shares similar reservations, particularly concerning the actions of politician and former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, whom the show “Say Nothing” consistently portrays as a ruthless IRA leader (a depiction that the FX series reinforces at the end of each episode, noting that Adams himself has repeatedly denied any involvement with the IRA).

Director Boyle eagerly anticipates hearing the reactions of his hometown crowd regarding the show. So far, he’s managed to secure one endorsement for the series – a thumbs-up from his parents. During a FaceTime call when he first arrived on the set of “Say Nothing,” a recreation of West Belfast streets on soundstages outside London, he found himself transported back to the past. For him, it was just another movie set; for them, they experienced a flashback of their real lives. A few weeks prior to our interview, Boyle shared the completed series with his parents. “My mom recalls one of her earliest memories as the Brits raiding the house and my dad being pulled down the stairs by the British Army,” Boyle explains. During a comparable scene in “Say Nothing,” they had to halt viewing because she was so affected by reliving it. “It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, almost perversely, as I felt we had accurately portrayed the events,” Boyle says. “I hope that those watching from West Belfast, who may have had similar experiences, will identify with it.” The people of West Belfast are the audience he truly cares about.

2024-11-19 16:54

Anthony Boyle Didn’t Have To Do Much Research For Say Nothing

The Pluck of the Irish

The Pluck of the Irish

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