[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Frank of Ireland.]
From creators/writers Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson and Michael Moloney, the comedy series Frank of Ireland follows Frank Marron (Brian Gleeson), an unlikely hero who still lives at home with his mother, unsure of what he’s doing with his life. At the same time, his loyal best friend Doofus (Domhnall Gleeson) is along for the ride, as Frank wrestles with growing up and getting his life together.
During a virtual press day for the funny new series, Brian Gleeson spoke to Collider for this 1-on-1 interview about how this project evolved, what inspired the character of Frank, working with his family on set, dealing with COVID, weaving film references into the season, and what he’s up to next.
Collider: It’s one thing to decide to write something with your brother, but it’s another thing entirely to figure out what that will be, and then actually write it from start to finish. When you sat down to work on this, what did you want it to be? What were you hoping for, and is it anything actually close to that?
BRIAN GLEESON: It was a very long process that started in 2015. I’d worked with Domhnall a few times before, but we never really thought we could write something together. That’s interesting because the real reason show got made was that it was us and Michael Moloney, who’s a very, very funny man. Once the three of us got together, something clicked where we had a lot of fun. I know this is a very vague answer, but I don’t know how Frank came out, really. Going through old emails, you could see that the building blocks were in place very early on. There was definitely something there. Domhnall and I are brothers, and Domhnall and Michael knew each other since childhood, and our references were the same, going back through the years. Frank was born out of not wanting to grow up and wanting to remain a child because we’ve known each other for so many years. It really came out of that.
In all of the time that you were working on this, were there big changes that happened? Did anything really evolve, along the way?
GLEESON: For sure. Our father is in the sixth episode of it. At one stage, we thought it’d be fun if Frank met an older version of himself, but we didn’t really have a place for it. But by the time we worked out Episode 6 and what it means for the whole show, in terms of the theme of it, we actually went, “Ah, this is the perfect opportunity for an older version of Frank to come in.” Little things like that helped. We shot a 12-minute promo, a year before we shot it, just to find that tone of it and that was very instructive. We have the movie references, as well, so it was tricky to find the tone.
What were those days on set like, with your brother and your father?
GLEESON: It’s fun. Some of the best days I had were just doing ridiculous scenes where we were making sandwiches behind deli counters. We were doing ludicrous stuff. You don’t really have a lot of time to reflect in the moment because you’re just trying to get it made. We were on a tight schedule, and then we shut ourselves down in March 2020, when the pandemic happened. So, when we got to shoot again, later in the year, we were obviously very grateful. We just wanted to make sure that we finished it. With all of the different safety protocols in place, we just had to think a lot more about it.
What was that like to go through, from a production standpoint? When everything shut down, everyone thought it might just be for a couple of weeks, and then wondered if production might ever start again. Was there a moment in time where you weren’t sure if you’d ever be able to finish this?
GLEESON: To be honest, it affected all of us and how we made the show. If you had asked us, “How do you make it safe for people?,” we wouldn't have known where to begin. We were on the receiving end of the information and trying to sort through it. All of the different producers and production coordinators and things had to face this incredibly new reality. Channel 4 and Amazon were very good in saying, “Look, you have a week left to shoot, but take two weeks to finish it, so that you’re not rushed in any way. When things are rushed, that’s when mistakes happen, and we can’t have that happen.” We were better not to go back until we were sure how to finish it properly.
How would you describe the sense of humor and tone that’s at the center of this?
GLEESON: I suppose you don’t want it to be just one thing, but it is physical. There are a lot of callbacks in the language and the dialogue of it, with the funny wordplay. It’s a visual medium, so you have to see the laughs visually. We really tried to hae fun with the physical element of it and made sure that we were throwing ourselves around and having fun that way.
What led you to your ending for this and your last episode homage to Memento?
GLEESON: The more we wrote this, the more we understood Frank and his predicament. Because of that reason, Frank is stuck in this cycle of living. He hasn’t moved on, but he needs to move on. He needs to grow up, but he can’t. Once you have that realization, it’s about what suits that idea the best. Memento and the idea of Frank in a cycle and that being the theme of Episode 6 slotted in perfectly.
Did you have a list of film references that you wanted to work in, or were there things that didn’t make it in because you couldn’t figure out how to make them work?
GLEESON: Yeah. It wasn’t always movies. At one point, he was listening to history podcasts and was inspired by that, and that was reflected in the episodes. But one of the first conversations we had was about the idea of the Taxi Driver thing, and that made us really laugh. And then, the more we wrote, the more we realized that Frank compares himself to these movies and matches himself up to these heroes or anti-heroes, and that’s how he views his life. Out of that, it made sense to have a movie in each episode, but it certainly wasn’t the main idea.
You do some crazy things in this show, and you have nobody to blame but yourself, when you actually have a hand in creating it. Did you ever have moments where you were like, “Why did I do this to myself?” or do you feel like everything is fair game when it comes to comedy?
GLEESON: In Episode 2, when Domhnall changes in the laundress, we were laughing a lot about that. It was the middle of February, it was very cold and Domhnall was like, “What am I doing? We have no one to blame, but ourselves.” So, we definitely had those moments of realization on set, but actually, it was more fun than anything else. Getting beaten up in the cage, in the octagon, was certainly a tough day. That scene, with a character called Nicola, who’s played by Liz Fitzgibbon, she’s a great actress, but she’s also a kickboxer, and there were a couple of kicks delivered that took me a few days to recover from.
What would you say are the advantages of working with family, and are there any disadvantages to working with family?
GLEESON: Well, we all know that you’re honest with your family more than anybody else and they can certainly pull your triggers in ways that no one else can. Because we had this goal of finishing the show and we wanted to do it together, there were no bad times, at all. Obviously, there was some stressful moments, but I was really grateful that Domhnall was on set every day, as well as acting in it. He’s very knowledgeable with shots and story editing, and things like that. Especially with the kind of madcap stuff we were doing, you always have to have a conversation with yourself about whether you’re pushing it too far, so I was grateful that he was around and we could have those conversations. The answer was that we were always pushing it too far, but we made the mistake, so we might as well live with it. No, I’m only joking. I was grateful to have him buy there, and Michael as well, just to chat over the scenes.
Now that it’s finished and you can look back on this series as a whole, can you be proud of it, or are you somebody who is your own harshest critic and you just see all the things that are wrong with what you do?
GLEESON: It’s so funny, your perspective is lost, from the very fact that you’ve been with it from the start. You never have perspective on it, really, and you’re never ever able to view it as a fresh product. I would love to look at it again in months or years, and try to get some perspective on it. But I’m definitely proud of what we did. If you can make people laugh with a show like this, that’s the important thing.
Is it easier for you to watch your brother or your father than it is to watch yourself?
GLEESON: When you know someone really well, maybe they have to work harder to impress you with what they’re doing because you know how it works. That makes it more impressive. If you convince the people closest to you that you’re actually somebody else, just for the duration of the show, then you’ve done a pretty good job.
What’s next for you? Do you want to write something else?
GLEESON: I just can’t have plans. The truth of it is that I’d love to do a show, and then do something different the next time. This year, I’m doing a show called Extinction, written by Joe Barton, who did Giri/Haji and he’s showrunning the next Batman TV series for HBO. He’s a very talented writer. That’s what I’m doing. That’s the next show I’m in. Frank has taken up the last five years, but especially the last couple of years, it’s just been that. It’s only now that we’re just thinking about saying goodbye.
What kind of character are you playing in Extinction?
GLEESON: It’s totally different. It’s about a time travel, secret service team. It’s very high concept. They’re all very sophisticated and cool, which is a nice change from Frank.
Frank of Ireland is available to stream at Amazon Prime Video.