You might know him best as Cypher from The Matrix, Teddy Gammell from Memento or bad guy Francis from The Goonies, but screen star Joe Pantoliano is taking on a very different role this weekend at The Sugar Club.
The acclaimed actor is in Dublin for the First Fortnight mental health and creative arts festival and he's been telling The Irish Times about his family's own history of "mental dis-ease".
"My cuddly bedtime stories were about my grandfather and, for example, about the time he smacked my grandmother in the mouth, or took up all four corners of the tablecloth and threw the Sunday roast out the window because my grandma had forgotten one little thing,” he told the newspaper. “My mother believed he murdered my grandmother because he choked her one day and, six months later, she had throat cancer.
“I never thought my mother had a mental illness, I just thought she was Italian-American. I didn’t ever consider that it was what we call mental illness, because my understanding of what mental illness was, was what I saw in the movies and on television” Pantoliano said.
Back in 2007 the actor was diagnosed with bi-polar and clinical depression and founded a non-profit organisation called No Kidding Me Too, to promote mental health awareness. He'll be screening his debut documentary (also called No Kidding Me Too) at The Sugar Club on Saturday, January 12th. It tells the stories of several people, including Joe himself, and also takes a look at how some institutions handle mental health.
Pantoliano will also be holding a discussion after the screening. Get your tickets right here.
