Colin Farrell, 'Banshees' cast talk Oscar contender's rare depiction of male friend break-up: 'It's a punch in the stomach'

Given the rabid success Martin McDonagh has had with films like 2008’s In Bruges and, especially, 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (recipient of seven Oscar nominations and two wins), it would be fair to assume the 52-year-old British/Irish playwright-turned-filmmaker can crank out award-worthy scripts with relative ease.

So it’s notable (and refreshing, honestly) to hear Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, the stars of McDonaugh’s latest winner, The Banshees of Inisherin, reveal how much of a work-in-progress this year’s surefire Oscar contender was at different points in time.

Farrell first read a draft as far back as seven or eight years ago, he told us in a joint interview with his Banshees and In Bruges costar (watch above). Gleeson didn’t quite understand the motivations of his character in those early drafts. “It wasn’t quite developed in that way,” Gleeson says. “But when it came back, it was sensational.”

Banshees is the best thing McDonaugh’s done yet: It’s a delirious, hilarious, charming, moving and only slightly violent (especially compared to his past films) tale set on a tiny Irish island in 1923, with a Godot-esque plot that couldn’t be simpler on the surface. One day, seemingly out of the blue, the dim but lovable Pádraic (Farrell) is told by his best friend and drinking buddy Colm (Gleeson) that he no longer wants to be friends. Worse, Colm tells the dumbfounded but tenacious Pádraic, who won’t let their friendship go so easily, that if he keeps pestering him, he’ll chop off his fingers, one by one, every time Pádraic tries to talk to him.

“It’s a punch in the stomach,” says Barry Keoghan, who plays the “village idiot” Dominic whom Pádraic reluctantly turns to for company. “It’s so sad … it’s just kind of devastating.”

It’s also part of what makes Banshees so brilliant: We’re used to seeing romantic break-ups portrayed on screen, but when have we ever seen about male friendship where one man breaks another’s heart?

“It’s not just a romantic thing that we need people,” Farrell says. “To have people in your life that you can lean into, that understand you, that feel like, beyond words, they see who you are. It's a huge thing. And if you feel that level of comfort, and if you feel that level of deep simpatico with someone, and that person decides one day to remove themselves from your life, it’s a gaping hole.”

“The devastation is huge,” adds Gleeson. “And it’s not really discussed very much. So there aren’t really any conventions to deal with it. If you go up [to someone] and say, ‘I’m getting divorced, I’m completely devastated.’ [They’ll understand.] But you can’t really go up to somebody and say, ‘Listen, my friend doesn’t like me anymore’ without feeling a little bit odd.”

—Video produced by Jen Kuscak and edited by Leese Katsnelson

The Banshees of Inisherin is now playing.

Watch the trailer: