an actor's life

It’s started to rain outside, but inside the Auld Shillelagh on Stoke Newington Church Street, with a pint of Guinness in his hand, and two films – Touching the Void and the indie comedy Nine Dead Gay Guys – being released this autumn, it’s no surprise that local resident Brendan Mackey’s feeling rather content.

He’s come a long way from amdram productions in Northern Ireland. ‘My first acting experience was at school, aged 11. I played a cowboy, with just one line, but everybody laughed. I had no idea what they were laughing at, but I got a big cheer and that was it for me!’

At 19, Mackey auditioned for RADA, won a place, and went on to be awarded the Anthony Hopkins Scholarship. ‘The amateur dramatics scene in Northern Ireland is mostly musicals, so my first play was Chekhov’s Children of the Sun, playing Igor – a blacksmith, a wife beater and a drunk! I was so determined to get the character right that I kept going to the ashtrays and smearing ash all over my face.’

But despite loving theatre – he tells me he’d love to play Edmund in King Lear at some point – Mackey’s real calling is film. Nine Dead Gay Guys has Mackey playing a lad from Ireland who pitches up in London and ends up servicing the needs of old men in order to fund his alcohol intake. Playing the lead with Glen Mulhern, another Stoke Newington resident, the film also features a great performance from Steven Berkoff in a cameo role.

‘People get a bit panicked about it when they hear the title, but really it’s just a crazy caper!’ In fact, Mackey is too modest to mention that Nine Dead Gay Guys has already won two awards – the Audience Award at the Montreal International Comedy Festival and the Best Film Award at the Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

After the high camp comedy of Nine Dead Gay Guys, Brendan was ready for a change of pace and found it working with the Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald on the documentary feature Touching The Void. Mountaineer Joe Simpson’s autobiography Touching The Void has been a runaway success, translated into 14 languages and selling over 500,000 copies, and the eagerly awaited film reconstructs Simpson’s epic journey and narrow escape from death.

By all accounts, filming at 15,000 feet at -50° was an extremely gruelling experience, with cast and crew on the mountain for eight weeks with no break. ‘We were climbing 24 hours a day. You’re totally ensconced in that environment because you don’t see anyone else, there’s no town, there’s no electricity at night and the helicopter only comes once a week to deliver food. You know you’re really on your own, which is great, but it’s really hard work!’

Mackey also got cabin fever in the middle of the night. ‘The crew and cast were all sleeping in bunk beds in one big dorm and I just started cursing and shouting “Get me out! Get me out!” I tried to open the window but it was completely covered in ice so there was no way I could open it. In the end, the head of the British Climbing Team had to lead me out of the cabin, but even when I came back in I was kicking the ladders of the bunk bed thinking that my crampons were still on my feet.’

Despite the rigours of filming, Mackey is already looking to the future, and can’t wait to begin on his next project. ‘When you leave drama school you have all these crazy ideas, thinking that you’re just going to walk in and get all these parts because you’re the best! Then you actually realise that there are so many actors in London who are so talented and equally deserve the job so nowadays I just concentrate on working as hard as I can.’
It’s no wonder that the Auld Shillelagh’s Guinness is a welcome relief.

Nine Dead Gay Guys was released on 19 September.