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Glen Hansard returns to acting in the indie rom-song Once.
By Dylan Behan.
So it's 8am in Canberra, I'm huddled over my laptop with a cup of tea, interviewing lead singer of The Frames and accidental film star Glen Hansard, currently stumbling out of a London pub in the middle of summer holidays, fending off fans trying to drag him down the street for another pint ("Oh no I'm going home to bed. (Pause). Ok Cool. The Prince Alfred? Ok thanks man."). In this chaos, he's answering questions about playing a lovestruck Dublin busker in Once, a critically acclaimed digital indie, shot for a hundred and twenty thousand thousand Euro in seventeen days, which now has everyone from Spielberg to Bob Dylan banging on his door.
"I was with (director) John (Carney) in a cafe the other day, and he got a phone call and he went white. And afterwards, he (said) it was Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg has called him up to say he'd seen the movie and he really liked it and he just wanted to say thanks... Apparently Bob Dylan saw the film... it's fucking amazing. For me as a kid there was no one else."
Aimed at being more When Cassavetes meets Truffaut thanWhen Harry Met Sally, Hansard had a lot of input into the film, and through arguing with Carney he wanted to be careful to make sure it didn't wind up being an overblown musical or a schmaltzy rom-com. "For me, John is a huge John Cassavetes fan, and I wanted him to make a Cassavettes movie. Let's make a simple, let's make like a small, almost like a French movie, like a Truffaut movie, and have some songs in it, rather than try and make a musical. And I think we kind of went somewhere in between and I think it works. I'm definitely proud of it."
"The whole thing has been kind of dream like because we made this film for nothing. We made it really fast... And the idea was if the film had any success at all, it would be our success, and if it failed, it would be our failure. And that's kind of like how you make all art in the world. You make it for yourself and if for some reason it does well then you've got reason to be proud."
Despite the success of Once with both critics and audiences, Hansard is turning down film roles, and is more content being a singer with The Frames rather than sitting in front of the camera. "In a way I'd love to do that but I think playing myself wasn't that hard. And if anyone has any applause for me doing that then thank you, but it wasn't that difficult. I think the idea of me playing an airline pilot or a ship's captain, I don't think I'll be able to pull that off as much."
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Directors David Cronenberg Miranda July Walter Salles Guillermo Del Toro American Splendor Morgan Spurlock Tarnation's Jonathon Caouette What The Bleep...
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Hansard, who hasn't acted in a film since stumbling into the role of guitarist Outspan Foster in The Commitments sixteen years ago, was originally only brought onboard by his ex-bass player Carney to write the songs for the film. But after the departure of Cillian Murphy from the lead role, he was convinced by the director to sing his own songs in the film and he brought an unmistakable honesty and seriousness to the largely autobiographical role. A simple love story about a pair of musicians, Hansard himself admits there was some real chemistry in the air between himself and Czech pianist Markita Irglova. "The relationship that we have is quite evident on screen, and in a way John kind of points the camera at that. But I have to admit I'm a little bit uncomfortable about that because these things are kind of private and you'd like to think when you're making a movie it's drama, that you're somehow being someone else but in fact we were kind of being ourselves... It wasn't very difficult playing a character in love with that girl."
Originally intended to be burnt to DVD and sold "out of the back of the car" to Frames fans, Hansard and Carney lucked out by finding a Frames fan in an official at the Sundance Film Festival, who recommended the film to screen at the prestigious fest, where it went onto win the Audience Award and pick up worldwide distribution.