Meaney: Parked And DS9
3 min readColm Meaney explained why he took on the role of homeless Fred Daly in Parked, plus what made Star Trek: Deep Space Nine special.
In Parked, Meaney portrays Fred Daly, a homeless Irish man who ends up living in his car after returning from England only to find that jobs are non-existent back home in Dublin.
When deciding whether to take on a role or not, Meaney reads the script twice, from two different perspectives. “Well, firstly I try to read a script from an audience’s perspective first,” he said. “I thought it was a beautifully written story and they were beautiful characters. Then, I would re-read it again from the point of view of the character. For me, the real clincher for Parked was that Fred was a kind of character that I hadn’t played before. It was going to be a challenge. I tend to be quite a ‘big’ actor – my performance can be a bit out there! And I admire actors who really go for it with their performances – [Al] Pacino is my hero!
“But, I knew this role would require something very different. It is a subdued and internal kind of performance. I discussed the role with Darragh a lot and I asked him to keep an eye on me and to not let me go too far. So if he saw any acting that was too external for Fred’s character, he would sit on me.
“Fred is eccentric in many ways, but it is all internal. Playing Fred was a challenge for me. This is the main reason why I wanted to take on the role.”
Shot mostly in a car park on the Dublin coast, filming conditions were difficult. “It was tough,” said Meaney. “I think it is probably one of the toughest I’ve been through. It was really, really fucking cold. It was wet. We had the snow, we had sleet, we had hail, we had rain, we had everything! And working on this kind of budget, we had very minimal creature comforts and we were lucky to have an old moldy trailer to hide in when you could.”
Parked will be released in Ireland on October 14 and will make its way to the U.S. in March of 2012.
Meaney also spoke about his other past projects, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Meaney’s first foray into sci-fi. “Before I did it, I never really understood the whole genre to be honest with you,” he said. “But, I grew to appreciate it as we were doing the Deep Space Nine show because we got to deal with a lot of subjects that they wouldn’t let you deal with in a contemporary show – episodes about homelessness, genetic engineering, and about racism. Racism between intergalactic species of course, but it is still about how to understand someone who is different than you. They might have three heads or a tail, it’s a bit odd, but it is basically about relating to someone who is different than you. Issues like that were dealt with.
“If you go into the future you can deal with these issues or if you go into the past,” said Meaney. “If you are working on a contemporary script, people can be very wary of tackling these issues in case they offend their audiences.”
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Since kids read these reviews too, his language could have been toned down or instead of typing the F word as he said it, it could have read, ‘it was really cold”. Public cursing is an epidemic and needs to be reeled in.
Why would kids read these reviews? Is there a 9 year old out there thinking “Hot piss! I want to read about Colm Meany’s latest project!”?
I am 6 years old and this is the first thing I have ever read. Brought it into my class to show my reading skills.
I didn’t realize it had a swear word in it.
Now I have to redo the first grade! Thx meany!!!
Again, why would kids read these reviews? Has the definition of “kid” been changed recently? If you’re under 13, you’re not supposed to be on here anyway. Every 13 year old I know has seen and used swear words. Public cursing isn’t an epidemic, it’s cursing… in public. I have no plans to go back to the glory days of the Puritans where an off color word warrants the stocks and pillories.
Possibly my all-time favorite Trek actor. Huge talent.
I think that people who support violence should be horse-whipped.
What do you mean be on here. This is a public web page, you don’t have to register or show proof of age so there is no age requirment. Did you read the above comment from a 6 year old? Enough said. Bring back the days where public cursing was frowned upon. I want to know about his projects too but either he or the person who typed it on the web page could have left that word out or rephrased it. Kinda shows they don’t care much about public cursing themselves. FYI. A kid is anyone not an adult, under 18.
I agree. Cursing, especially the “F” word, has become so commonplace that most people overlook it. Personally, I find excessive use of “colorful language” extremely offensive. If your education is so lacking that you cannot find a way to express your self without resorting to cursing, then you should return to the first grade for a refresher course in the English language.
Get a fucking life, cunts!
“Feck off.”—Colm Meaney
Shakespeare often had cursing in his plays, so nice theory. Guess what kids? Life’s offensive. The very act of living is going to offend some sensibilities. Perhaps you should spend less time getting offended, and more time finding out why people curse in the first place. It would be wiser than using an old, bloated cliche as your answer.