Interview with Damien O'Donnell

How did Steven Robertson learn to talk like that? How long did it take?
Well, he started straight away. He had voice coaches from when he came to Dublin, so he was like six weeks before shooting, he was already doing voice lessons for his condition. And he was acting them. The first two weeks were very testing for him because he was acting in a room full of extras with cerebral palsy, but they were all really supportive of him. They were all really impressed by his work.

How do people learn to understand that kind of speech in real life?
In real life, by spending time and by making the effort, really. That’s sort of what it meant in our film. You can actually tune your ear to what they’re saying for the most part. Now, there are extreme cases where you will never understand, where the cerebral palsy has so controlled their muscles, taken over, that they can’t actually enunciate words properly. But there are also varying degrees from that, closer to intelligibility.

If you spend time in people’s company, I’ve seen it happen with personal assistants with people with cerebral palsy, you can understand what they’re saying. You just listen in. You can tune your ear. And that’s the reality of it. If you give these people the time, you will be able to understand them, but most people don’t want to give that time. They don’t want to make that kind of investment.

What allows us to care about these characters without pitying them?
I don’t know actually, is the quick answer to that. If it works, great. But it was always my agenda… I love the fact that Rory was an a**hole. He’s this guy who has this kind of furious desire to live his life and he gets out there and he doesn’t care who he alienates. He wants to leave his mark. He can’t physically graffiti a wall, he can’t write his name, “Rory O’Shea Was Here” on a wall. If he could, that’s probably what he would do. The only way he can leave his mark is by making an impression on the people around him. So he’s obnoxious and aggressive and angry and insulting, but also wickedly funny. I think a character like that, you can get engaged by him even though you wouldn’t like to be him or you wouldn’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time in his company. You do get engaged by him onscreen and you want to know what happens to him, and you develop sort of a sympathy for him.

Michael is sort of the more obviously sympathetic character because he’s this kind of vulnerable naïf who sits in this home and has no concept of the world outside, and Rory opens his eyes to it. That, for me, was always a film about liberation. Rory comes in and liberates Michael’s mind and then Michael uses his mind to liberate Rory’s physicality. And they both escape. And I always liked that. I just thought that was - it’s not a documentary about disability, but it does have a relevance to people in the film about living the life that you want and going out there and making your mark and not being controlled by other people, not letting other people’s ambitions, desires or thoughts influence how you want to live your life.

What did the original title, “Inside I’m Dancing,” mean?
He says that when he goes to the disco. He says, “That’s not dancing.” He says, “Sure it’s dancing. What do you think I’m doing inside?” I think Focus [Features] were concerned that the title wasn’t strong enough for what the film is doing over here. They thought it might just give the wrong impression. People might think it’s a musical.

Was it called that in the UK?
It was called that in the UK. The distributor in the UK really liked that title. I don’t like it to be honest. I think there’s probably a better title for the film out there, but we tried very hard and we couldn’t find one. But I like “Rory O’Shea Was Here” because I like the idea that he wants to leave his mark and I like how that is reminiscent of some teenage punk graffiti-ing a wall. And it also has a certain resonance when you see the film and you think about the title afterwards. I think it has a certain resonance that “Inside I’m Dancing” doesn’t have. “Inside I’m Dancing” is sort of a disability cliché.

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