Normally, this is Batchild's job, so I hope I'm not stepping on any
toes here. Interesting analysis of Scorsese though.
http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irishinamerica/news/mcsorleydepartsjune0105.asp
McSorley Departs Scorsese's 'Departed'
By Sean O' Driscoll
An award-winning Irish actor has been sent home after four days of
shooting on Martin Scorsese's new Irish American gangster movie The
Departed.
Gerard McSorley, who starred in major Irish movies including In The
Name of the Father, Veronica Guerin, Bloody Sunday and Omagh, expressed
surprise this week after he was told that he was no longer down to play
a senior police officer in the movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio,
Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
McSorley was sent home to Dublin after four days of filming while
speculation mounts that he may be replaced by Martin Sheen.
McSorley told the Irish Voice he had "very, very interesting, very
creative" conversations with Scorsese. He had been filming in
Brooklyn and had travelled to Boston to meet with members of the Boston
Police Department as part of his research into the role.
"I just don't know and I don't even know what I'm going to do
right now," McSorley said.
He said that his own obsession with promoting a film about the 1998
Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland, in which he played the leader of the
victim's group, may have cut into his preparation for the Scorsese
movie.
"For Omagh, I had about two months, for Veronica Guerin, I had about
three months, but here I was rushed over in a week to get my visa in
Toronto, go to Boston on the train, come back and start filming," he
said.
While in Boston, McSorley taped and took photographs of senior police
officers in preparation for his role. He also spoke with the film's
script writer, Bill Monahan, about expanding the character's profile.
McSorley believed that the character could be a Northern Ireland cop
who became disillusioned during the Troubles and left for the U.S.
about 1974.
They had yet to decide whether his character should be captain or
similar rank, but he was to be a "good guy" who becomes a foil in
the movie's plot.
The Departed explores the lives of two police officers in south Boston.
One, played by DiCaprio, goes undercover in an Irish American gang,
while another, played by Damon, is a highway officer who gets corrupted
by the same gang.
McSorley said that he had been treated "spectacularly well" by
Scorsese, but felt that having an assistant on set would have been a
great help.
"Scorsese is amazing, he lives for film, for art, and he is so
literate. He knows his Joyce and Irish literature and it was a joy to
talk to him," he added.
McSorley said he believed that Scorsese was familiar with his work as
the director spent so much timing watching films and learning about
technique. "It's what he lives for," McSorley said.
McSorley stayed at Manhattan accommodation the film company arranged
for him and enjoyed his spare time cycling through Central Park.
He only heard that he had to go home through his agent. "They
didn't put anything in writing and I can't understand it. I'm
just very tired at the moment," he said.
McSorley, who is originally from Omagh in Co. Tyrone, said that filming
the movie Omagh was such an intense experience that it may have
overshadowed projects that followed.
He said that, before The Departed, he had taken a car to France to
promote Omagh and had given "everything" to the movie because he
felt an obligation to tell the story of the victims of the Real IRA
bombing, which killed 29 people and injured over 200.
McSorley has much experience playing crime and police roles in Irish
movies. He is known to many from In The Name of the Father, in which he
played a corrupt cop who interrogated Daniel Day Lewis's Gerry Conlon
and threatened to kill his father.
He also played a good cop who questioned the actions of the British
Army in Bloody Sunday, and was highly praised for his role as crime
boss John Gilligan in another biopic, Veronica Guerin, about the
murdered Dublin journalist.
He also played Michael Gallagher, head of the Omagh Victims' Group,
in the movie about the bombing and its aftermath. The film won the
press award at the Toronto Film Festival last year.
The Irish Voice was unable to reach the film's publicist at the time
of going to press.
Movies