The Big Picture

Aidan Gillen reveals his childhood love for cop and detective shows, which inspired his interest in the crime drama genre. He praises the surprising anti-ending of the film, emphasizing its current and satisfying resolution. Gillen discusses his approach to portraying the scruffy gumshoe detective character, highlighting his personal style and the use of his own clothes in the film.

From director Fintan Connolly, the Irish crime drama Barber follows private investigator Val Barber (Aidan Gillen), as he’s hired by a wealthy widow to find her missing granddaughter. Dark secrets, corruption and family dysfunction keep throwing him off track, and when Barber finally does uncover the answers he’s seeking, the resolution is something he never saw coming.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Gillen talked about his childhood love for cop and detective shows, how this all started because they wanted to shoot something on the streets of Dublin at night, the film’s anti-ending, why he wore his own clothes, exploring the father-daughter relationship, and whether this is a character that could have his story turned into a TV show.

Collider: I definitely dig stories like this. I watch a lot of movies and TV shows like this, and read books of this type of story.

AIDAN GILLEN: Good. Me too, particularly with TV. A big part of my upbringing was not bad parenting, but I used to lie in bed watching TV quite a lot when I was a kid. Not because there was anything wrong. It was just because loved it. I loved cop shows and detective shows. They were mostly American ones, like Kojak and Colombo, and that kind of stuff. Also, in latter years, I got into good crime fiction and good real crime. It’s an area of fascination for a lot of people. And also, all the old noirs and detective movies, and stuff like that.

Image via Brainstorm Media

I especially love when it can throw me, and I definitely did not expect this ending.

GILLEN: Yeah, me too. I thought it was a surprising ending, and simple and to the point and current. It almost had an anti-ending. You’re led to believe there is going to be some kind of violent confrontation, but there isn’t. There’s a showdown of a different kind, where somebody was going to be made to pay for their violent actions, whether it’s violence physically or psychologically. It was a good moment of comeuppance. I was left the patsy, which happens in these sometimes. But I had helped solve the crime, with good intention.

When you read this and learned how it would play out, what was your reaction? Were you surprised by the ending? Did you guess, at any point?

GILLEN: I didn’t. It took me a while to make sure I had everything right. And I talked to the writers about it, who are friends of mine. This thing started off as something else, like the way they do when you’re doing things with friends and a general idea that’s as simple as, “Let’s shoot something on the streets, in Dublin at night.” “Okay, that sounds like a noiry detective thing.” “We all love detective TV shows and films. I wonder if we could do it in Dublin?,” which has got that classic noir quality, be it from the forties or the seventies, or whatever. The plot and everything just came afterwards. That might have only been written a few days before we started shooting. I can’t remember. But yeah, it was a nice one.

Once you had a plot and a sense of who this character was, did it stay that way throughout, or was it constantly evolving, throughout filming?

GILLEN: We had a fair idea of the shape. It always evolves when you play the scenes with other people for the first time. There wouldn’t have been any time or inclination for a rehearsal. You just show up and do it, and I love doing just shooting stuff on camera for the first time. There’s a nice scene between my character and this character, Eddie Quinn, who I’ve had a relationship with in the past. Because Steve [Wall], the actor, is a friend of mine, I knew he’d be fine with no rehearsal. We just filmed it. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months, so he’d walk in the door and we’d have this conversation and film it and see how it went, and it worked. I felt that was one of the more real, nuanced scenes that just seemed to have loads of history and backstory, but it was all in unsaid things and looks. So, yeah, it does evolve. There was a fairly good idea of the look and the type of character and the type of story we were telling, but you have to start playing it with the other actors. There were a lot of characters in it and a lot of good actors that we know from Dublin, who came along and joined in, which was really nice.

Image via Brainstorm Media

Since you are someone who is a fan of this genre and of these types of characters, were there things that you specifically wanted to bring to him or add to him, as a character, that you just selfishly wanted to explore because you liked those kinds of characters?

GILLEN: The scruffy gumshoe detective is my style anyway. That’s how I dress and carry myself, so I really wanted to make sure that was there and that we weren’t going overboard on trying to look too nice, which we couldn’t do because we didn’t have any makeup or hair. We couldn’t, partly because of the shooting restrictions. We had to keep it a really tiny crew, and partly because we couldn’t afford it. I don’t want to make it sound like it was a real cheapskate production because it really wasn’t. There was a proper small scale crew and the director of photography makes everything he does look amazing, but there was a certain bit of looking after yourself on those fronts, which delighted me because I’m a scruff and they let the character be one too. I wore all my own clothes.

Hair and makeup don’t seem like they would necessarily be the primary focus of something like this.

GILLEN: It’s important that people look the same, from scene to scene, but there was definitely a mandate out there to just do your own continuity. All my makeup and hair friends now will probably refuse to work with me again.

One of the things I thought was so interesting about this is that it really also felt like it would make a great TV series, where he could solve a different crime every season. Did you ever think this was a guy that you could play longer and that somebody should give him a TV show?

GILLEN: You’re not the first person to say that. A lot of people have said they felt that. I wasn’t planning on that, but it did come up, shortly after we finished. We had a screening, and there was definitely some interest, from a TV perspective, in a story every week. It would be interesting, if you were allowed to do it in the same free-wheeling manner and not be afraid to have your share of plot, but also just show people playing pool or looking at the river or whatever gives you the atmosphere and the insight into the character.

Image via Brainstorm Media

I think it’s because I’m such a big fan of Luther that I’d totally keep watching this guy solve crimes.

GILLEN: Okay. Well, we’ll definitely work on that then. I think it would have to be low-key. You could have a mixture of low-key stories because 95% of Barber’s jobs would be low-key stuff, but important stuff. The bread and butter is insurance companies, marriage infidelities, missing pets, and crazy stuff. That would be a good story. I’ve got a good story from my own life about a stolen dog that we could maybe do as the next episode.

People always love a good dog story.

GILLEN: Yeah, absolutely.

Was it planned out, as far as when you would wear a mask in this?

GILLEN: It wasn’t planned out. When we started talking about doing it, it was pre-COVID, but just so. We got to do it early on, after the first lockdown that we had here. But the mask certainly wasn’t anything we were reckoning on. We thought we should show it, and we couldn’t afford not to. There was a decision made to just mark it because that’s what was happening, at the moment. The streets were different anyway. There was a different energy out there. But part of it was also necessity when we were shooting in a supermarket or a hospital or when there was a certain number of people in the room. That’s just what was happening, at the time, in Dublin. Sometimes you had to have it on or wanted to have it on or felt you should have it on, and other times you didn’t. People were taking them off and putting them on. So, we just did that. We hoped we weren’t going to make it a tiresome thing. I wasn’t too worried about it dating anything because everything dates anyway, in different ways. I was more concerned with not showing it. I thought we should, but just not overdo it. It was also a good excuse to not show your full face all the time. A lot of people were edgy about the whole mask thing, and that came across. In our dialogue, there was a bit of talk between myself and that other nasty cop, but even just among ourselves or the places we were shooting, it gave a little crackle to what was happening. Everyone was much more watchful and vigilant. You were seeing and hearing stuff that you normally didn’t because the city was in a completely different state.

Image via Brainstorm Media

What was it like to find and explore the father-daughter relationship? How did you guys approach that together? Did it come naturally for you guys?

GILLEN: It did, I feel. Aisling [Kearns], who played the daughter, was very naturally open and wanted to be ready and be prepared for us to have chats. We did have a few. It wasn’t an insane amount of time that we had beforehand, but we made sure we at least had a few chats and talked about it. We talked about what her life would have been before she had a medical condition or accident. Sometimes I don’t want to know what other actors are thinking, and I don’t want them to know what I’m thinking, so I’m not a huge fan of having these big discussions about our past, or whatever. I just think you have your own idea of it. But we did put a few pins in the pin board. I’m used to doing it, so I’d just relax and listen to her and let her do the acting. She was very good. That was an interesting aspect of it, the broken family. The real love between characters was between Barber, his ex-wife and their daughter.

Barber is in theaters and on-demand.