Watch Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Martin McDonagh discuss ‘In Bruges’
When Martin McDonagh‘s feature-film debut came out in 2008, he astounded audiences and set the tragic-comedy tone for several of his future releases. In Bruges took home several awards, including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, whilst also being nominated for an Academy Award.
The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two hitmen who are instructed to lay low in the sleepy Belgian town of Bruges. Whilst Gleeson’s character is happy to take in the beautiful sights of the town, Farrell’s assassin is less than impressed and is willing to go to debauched lengths to cure his boredom.
In Bruges’ tone oscillates between the downright hilarious and the tragically human. Brendan Gleeson said: “It’s a film of consequences, you know. It’s the kinda film, as people come to it, you’re gonna have a lot of laughs, but it’s just one of those ones that confound your expectations.”
Discussing the inspiration for the film, McDonagh said: “I went to Bruges on a day trip by train from London for a couple of days about four years ago. I was just struck by how cinematic the place was. Strange medieval gothic architecture and beautiful canals. By the middle of the second day, I was bored out of my head because there’s not an awful lot to do apart from going to the churches and the museums.”
While McDonagh is an appreciator of history and culture, he is also a balanced person who also enjoys the more debauched side of life. He added: “So I just wanted to get drunk or get laid or anything, and that kind of became two characters in my head. The culture lover and the drunken whore. And that became the Colin Farrell and the Brendan Gleeson characters.”
Gleeson noted that both his and Farrell’s character are representative of McDonagh’s personality in sum. He said: “It took us just the first day to realise it’s the two sides of Martin’s brain, really. One part says, ‘this is a beautiful place’, and the other’s saying, ‘I’m bored out of my head; I have to get out of here.'”
Farrell himself was in great praise of McDonagh’s direction and vision: “Martin’s someone who never lets you get away from the humanity of the characters. He stays away from judging them, stays away from vilifying both of these men, and shows that there is a human cost, an emotional cost for both of them doing what they do. The script was so good; it kept revealing itself to us.”
