{"id":56701,"date":"2015-10-01T12:06:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T12:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=56701"},"modified":"2016-09-22T14:27:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T14:27:26","slug":"profile-robert-sheehan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2015\/10\/01\/profile-robert-sheehan\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Robert Sheehan"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAFTA-nominated Robert Sheehan takes a break from Shakespearean frills and velvety pants to share with Wonderland<\/em> all about his new film The Messenger<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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We all fell for Robert Sheehan and his Irish charm when he graced our screens as Nathan Young in Misfits<\/em> – he’s had a busy few years since and the rising actor continues to make an impression with his latest role in The Messenger<\/em>. The film is directed by David Blair (Best Laid Plans<\/em>) and sees Sheehan playing protagonist Jack, alongside Joely Richardson, Lily Cole, Jack Fox, David O’Hara and Tamzin Merchant. His character is reluctantly tormented by the dead and has been in and out of psychiatric units all of his life – he is considered an outsider by others and branded delusional. The Messenger<\/em> follows him on a haunting journey of coming to terms with his turbulent past and playing the intermediary between the dead and their beloved.<\/p>\n

Below Sheehan talks with us about working with ‘Darth Blaider’, starring in a Shakespearean epic and very exciting upcoming projects involving Dustin Lance Black and our covergirl Hailee Steinfeld. Also, if like us you want to see him in action you can catch him at the Rose Theatre Kingston in The War of the Roses<\/em> until October 31.<\/p>\n

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So I watched The Messenger<\/em> this morning\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

This morning? You might be the first person ever to watch it in the morning!<\/p>\n

I know it made me think a lot for the morning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was like a strong cup of coffee was it?<\/p>\n

Yeah exactly! What attracted you to this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well I guess the same as what you\u2019ve concluded there to some extent, I found it a quite thought-provoking script. I found that Jack the character was written very cleverly – it\u2019s interesting actually because the writer Andrew Kirk – I eventually got around to asking where the idea came from and he said his mother, or possibly his partner\u2019s mother, I can\u2019t remember, had dementia and she started talking to relatives that had passed away as though they were in the room. Everybody was completely mystified at first but it happened consistently and weirdly enough out of that somewhat tragic setting this idea sprang forth about a young man who this is happening to. I just loved that, the fact that this idea sprang from so deep a root you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

I think that definitely comes across that it came from somewhere like that. He\u2019s a really complex character\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny isn’t it when you\u2019re in a strange state of mind and you\u2019re being challenged by adversity or tragedy or somethings going on in your life you can sort of go for a walk and all of a sudden become the most creative you can be\u2026 it\u2019s an odd characteristic of us humans. Cyborgs. So that was interesting and yeah you\u2019re right that kind of sang off the page and Jack was a very very strong character.<\/p>\n

My favourite scenes were\u00a0between you and Joely Richardson\u00a0– very powerful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah – it was tough for Jack in those scenes because she\u2019s so good at her job as a psychiatrist character that she sort of is hitting the nail on the head you know, she sort of has a conclusion and an answer for everything that he throws at her… She clearly has him down to some extent and he feels himself being reduced down to the typical addict or typical patient you know, so yeah that was very interesting. When Joely came in she came in near the end of the shoot for probably about a week we were all in a very tense place\u00a0because of the nature of the story… She was sort of dropped into this tensity that was going on and it was lovely we did some really electric little scenes and now we are doing this thing on stage.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing it right now that\u2019s why I\u2019m wearing a frilly shirt and velvety pants and I can hear Joely\u2019s lovely voice hollering over the tannoy which you probably can\u2019t hear. We\u2019re doing a project called The Wars of the Roses<\/em> which has been directed by Sir Trevor Nunn. It\u2019s a big old gigantic epic Shakespearean adaptation of the Henry VI<\/em> plays and Richard III<\/em> play and those four have been very cleverly focused and edited down into three – Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III<\/em>, which was that period of the time \u201cthe wars of the roses\u201d that those three men were seated on the throne. It\u2019s about all the exploit of how they got there and how they were usurped and so on and so forth. It\u2019s just a piece of theatre of such epic proportion.<\/p>\n

It will be very interesting to see how it\u2019s adapted into three plays.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, there\u2019s so much in the first three Henry<\/em> plays. Back in the early sixties John Barton and Peter Hall decided to focus those plays and essentially make it possible for them to come and see this entire period of time in one day so we\u2019re doing three show days twice a week from the 3rd October.<\/p>\n

Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah – which we haven\u2019t tackled yet. We\u2019re currently rehearsing the second play having performed the first one last night and the night before. So it\u2019s sort of a strange rollercoaster of a project but it\u2019s lovely because old Trev whose directing was stood at the back of the ROC for the three plays back in 1963 and he\u2019s now reviving them on stage for the first time so it\u2019s a real project of the heart.<\/p>\n