Handsome Devil charmed the pants off us at the Toronto International Film Festival last Autumn, and so needless to say it was our pleasure to spend some time with the film’s leading stars; newcomer Fionn O’Shea and the consistently impressive Andrew Scott, meeting in a Canadian coffee shop near the Entertainment District.
In this John Butler film Fionn O’Shea plays Ned, an outsider who vies tirelessly to convince his dad (Ardal O’Hanlon) not to send him to a boarding school where rugby seems to come first, and education second. Picked on by many of his peers, and even the ignorant sports coach Pascal (Moe Dunford), Ned is disenchanted when his new roommate is jock – and star of the rugby team – Conor (Nicholas Galitzine), as the two polar opposites clash right from the offset. But as time progresses, and with a little help from supportive English teacher Mr. Sherry (Andrew Scott), the pair realise they have a little more in common than they had envisaged, though while their friendship boosts Ned’s reputation at school, it has the potential to truly destroy Conor’s.
We spoke to Scott about returning to his Irish roots and collaborating with Butler yet again. We also discussed the appeal of Irish comedy, and whether or not he based his character on any of his own teachers he had growing up. With O’Shea we wanted to discuss how surreal it is having made a movie playing at such a prestigious film festival, and whether or not the two of them had any time to act like tourists, and enjoy themselves in the Canadian city. We also wanted to talk about future projects, and for O’Shea we discussed The Siege of Jadotville, where he’ll be starring alongside Jamie Dornan and Mark Strong, whereas for Scott we spoke about Denial, which was also playing at TIFF and had its UK theatrical release in January just gone.
Watch the full interview below…
Handsome Devil is released on April 28th, and you can read our review from TIFF here.
