Caitriona Balfe: 'The most authentic thing you can draw upon is your own experience.'

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

For our next iteration of Awards Season Picks, the BAFTA-nominated actress chats with The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg about Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’

Monday February 7    By Abigail Hirsch

There’s awards-season buzz around Kenneth Branagh’s monochrome feel-good childhood memoir of growing up in Belfast as the Troubles erupt in the cold months of 1969. It was a period when outbursts of sectarian violence across Northern Ireland signaled change for its inhabitants.

The coming-of-age retelling centres around a nine-year-old Branagh who must navigate the path towards adulthood through a world that has been completely subverted. Yet, despite a tragic backdrop, there is warmth and tenderness that runs through the movie as the family bond over music, film, and laughter. This is captured through Branagh’s shooting of the movie, too. ‘He inhabits his memories and reflects the purity of looking at the world through the eyes of a nine-year-old,’ says Caitriona Balfe, who plays the character of Ma (or mother) opposite Jamie Dornan, who plays his father. It’s a performance that has landed her a BAFTA nomination, with an Oscar potentially in sight, too.

Here, Scott Feinberg, awards specialist for The Hollywood Reporter, joins Balfe at Soho House West Hollywood to discuss the intricacies of replicating the true story of Belfast. Read on to hear more from their conversation. 

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

Caitriona Balfe: ‘We had a special alchemy on this film, and for it to get another life feels great.’

SF: ‘Tell us about when you heard there was a project inspired by Ken Branagh’s childhood.’ 

CB: ‘My agent phoned saying there’s a project written by Ken Branagh, he’s going to direct it, and he’s interested in you for the role of Ma. At that point Dame Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds and Jamie Dornan were all involved. I was gobsmacked that I was getting that call.

‘I read it straight away. I got on one of my first Zooms ever with Ken. I knew he was from Belfast, but I didn’t know any of the particulars of his life or the reason they left.’

SF: ‘I heard that one of the first days on set, Kenneth asked everyone to exchange personal stories. You have quite a few similarities in your family to what the family in this film goes through. Can you talk about what Ken was asking you all to do? What came out of those conversations?’

 
Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

SF: ‘I heard that one of the first days on set, Kenneth asked everyone to exchange personal stories. You have quite a few similarities in your family to what the family in this film goes through. Can you talk about what Ken was asking you all to do? What came out of those conversations?’

CB: ‘This was an intentional exercise. Ken asked Judy, Ciarán, Jamie and I questions about our childhoods. He asked about our parents and our grandparents and what would they have done in this scenario? He wanted us to correlate the film with our own experiences because he understands that the most authentic thing you can draw upon is your own experience. 

‘For me, the specifics are different. I was born in Dublin, but in 1979, the year I was born, my dad got transferred to the border. There was a lot of violence. My mum had to make a tough decision; at that time, we were living in a row of houses with her sisters. She had a tight-knit community. This is what I saw reflected in the script. We moved into an area where we were met with suspicion. One of the first things I remember is somebody coming to our front door and telling my mum that we should go back to where we came from. So, I understood Ma from the perspective of her fears.’

SF: ‘You and your siblings were primarily raised by your mother in the same way that Ma is the primary caretaker for her children on a day-to-day basis. Is that fair to say?’

CB: ‘My mum worked hard within the house and my dad worked hard outside of it. Looking back on that now, I don’t know how she did it. I love the way Ken wrote this character. He has such respect and admiration for the enormity and importance of what working within a household is.

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

SF: ‘Jamie Dornan is your scene partner. Did you guys know each other before this? He said that he found that you have similar approaches to acting.’

CB: ‘We very briefly met at TIFF right before lockdown. We’ve had similar lives in a weird way; we both spent almost a decade in fashion, then transitioned to acting with TV. We had this very natural rhythm –both of us like to be prepared, then come to set and be free.’ 

SF: ‘You both were tasked with the acting challenge of working with children. How did you create a sense of comfort with these kids to display a believable family?’

CB: ‘We got so lucky with Jude; this was his first job. On day one and two, Ken’s biggest note was “Jude, we don’t look in the camera”, that’s how green he was. He had this incredible accessibility to his emotions and brilliant comedic timing. The film essentially rests on his shoulders. He never complained. He was always prepared.’

SF: ‘In addition to being a talented director, Ken is also a great actor himself. Do you think it makes a difference to have a fellow actor directing you on a challenging project like this?’

CB: ‘Of course. He understands what you need to do your best work, and one of those things is confidence. Another one is letting an actor believe they’re making the decisions for themselves. He knows exactly what he wants, and once he gets his one take, he allows you to improvise. It felt very free.’ 

SF: ‘One of your more surreal moments might be doing improv with Dame Judi Dench.’

CB: ‘That doesn’t even feature on your bucket list because it’s such a crazy, wild thing to even imagine.’ 

SF: ‘Were you able to dissect what it is that makes her so great?’

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

CB: ‘Judi has retained this pure wonder of the world; a childlike purity that makes every moment feel fresh, new, and genuine. She meets everybody at the exact same level and approaches interactions without any ego – every person she meets feels seen and heard.’ 

SF: ‘There are several scenes that people leave this film thinking about for a long time afterwards. High on the list is the dance scene. Were you already a proficient dancer beforehand?’

CB: ‘I can bop around a bit, but learning choreography is not my strong point. Once you get over the initial fear, you realise how important those scenes are emotionally and what they mean in the context of the characters.’

SF: ‘The rest of the film is meant to be almost heightened reality, through the eyes of the kid, in his memory.’

CB: ‘Ken was able to inhabit his memories and reflect the purity of looking at the world through the eyes of a nine-year-old. This child did see things in a heightened way, his parents did feel like cinema idols. There is this heavy material as the backdrop, but a child doesn't understand the complexities and nuances of a sociopolitical environment beyond the four walls of their own house. It allows us to look at things in a very distilled, pure way.’

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

SF: ‘Was there a scene that you found the most challenging?’  

CB: ‘We only had one take for the looting of the shop. Once that shop was destroyed, that was it. Lara lost a shoe. I remember lifting Jude up because there was so much debris on the floor. It added to the realism of it. It was safe, but it was safe chaos.’

SF: ‘What was is like to see the result of all your work?’

CB: ‘There’s something about the film being in black and white that allows you to further remove yourself. I’m aware I don’t look like that every day, so I was able to create distance from the usual insecurity of watching myself. 

‘It was such COVID times while we were filming that you never know if that’s going to be seen on the screen. If there are going to be compromises that will be felt on screen, but all the restrictions heightened the creativity.’

Awards Season Picks: Caitriona Balfe sits down with Scott Feinberg | Soho House

SF: ‘What is it about the movie that allows people with no prior familiarity with the story to be so moved by it?’

CB: ‘I think it’s in the specificity of Ken’s experience. He taps into the universal experience of what it’s like to be a kid and to overcome everyday mundane obstacles as well as external crises. This is an ordinary family that’s going through ordinary and extraordinary things, and people can relate to that. The film balances tragedy and exuberance, so audiences come out of it feeling full. It’s life-affirming.’

Check out our screenings at the House here

 

 

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