Yes, The Banshees Of Inisherin was Martin McDonagh's way of getting the gang back together

Martin McDonagh wrote the film with In Bruges stars Brendan Gleeson and Collin Farrell in mind

Yes, The Banshees Of Inisherin was Martin McDonagh's way of getting the gang back together
Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in The Banshees Of Inisherin Image: Jonathan Hession/Searchlight Pictures

Though Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin hinges on a falling out between Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell’s characters Colm and Pádraic, the film was created as a reunion for the two and McDonagh, 14 years after In Bruges.

In an interview with The A.V. Club’s own Jack Smart, when asked if he wrote Banshees with Gleeson and Farrell in mind, McDonagh says, “One hundred percent.” He explains, “It was written for them. We always wanted to get back together in the last 14 years and remain friends and we’d see each other every year. And it was a hope but, you know, it was never going to come to fruition until I stopped being lazy and sat down and got on with it.”

“I tried a version maybe seven years ago which didn’t quite work, but the first five pages was just the break up part,” McDonagh continues. “And I went back to it, reread it, kept those five pages, but went to a completely different place for this screenplay. I threw away all the plot, basically, of the previous, and just let the sort of sadness of the breakup be what the film was about.”

McDonagh’s Three Billboards follow-up takes viewers to the small Irish island of Inisherin, where beer-drinking buddies Colm and Pádraic have fostered a lifelong friendship. That is, until the day Gleeson’s Colm abruptly cuts Pádraic out of his life, for reasons not apparent to his former friend and the surrounding community. When it comes to filming Banshees, McDonagh says it felt like old times.

“I felt like no time had passed and we just slipped into it,” the director says.
“We had a couple of weeks of rehearsal, similar to what we had for In Bruges actually, and just slipped into it. Just back to being friends, going for dinners, discussing the scenes and the characters. There was an ease to it. Even the first day of filming, it was just like old friends hanging out really. And I think that kind of shows in the movie.”

The Banshees Of Inisherin is currently available in limited theaters.

 
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