It might seem like a strange mixture, but Tommy Tiernan and westerns go together better than you might expect.
"I love westerns anyway just because of their moral clarity," said Tiernan in the first episode of 'The Revisit' season 2, out on podcast platforms from today. "They come from a time when men had a purpose and now that we have evolved beyond that and we're just useless willys in the wind, westerns remind us when we had proper stuff to be going at."
The host of 'The Tommy Tiernan Show' on RTÉ One, as well as his own podcast show with Hector Ó hEochagáin, sat down with us to talk about 'Unforgiven', his movie of choice for the episode. The podcast series features some of Ireland's most well-known personalities chatting about one of their all-time favourite movies. (Catch up on season one here.)
Originally released in 1992, 'Unforgiven' was Clint Eastwood's final movie in the genre and, in his own words, "I'm not sure this will be my last western, but if it is it'll be the perfect one." Eastwood would eventually pick up two Oscars - one for Best Director, the other for Best Picture - while receiving a nomination for Best Actor as well. “He has a very calm presence on screen," Tiernan says, "I would watch him in anything that he does."
Written by David Webb Peoples - who had previously written 'Blade Runner' for Ridley Scott - the movie follows an aged, widowed gunslinger - played by Clint Eastwood - who is tempted back into a life of violence and the hopes of a big payoff if he'll murder two cowboys who brutally assaulted a sex worker in the town of Big Whiskey. The movie deals with themes that Eastwood's westerns had explored in the past, but was done in such a way as to demystify them and make them all the more human and flawed.
Tiernan, who has had roles in the likes of 'Father Ted', 'Dark Lies the Island' and most recently, 'Derry Girls', also reflects on his own career in front of the camera. “In terms of my own acting, I really don't know how to do it. I am a performer. When I am doing standup, the crowd is my director so I'm listening, "Did that line get a laugh, why not, what can I do tomorrow night...”
He adds, “When it comes to serious acting, I need to trust whoever is directing me an awful lot. I need to say to them, my own compass won't work in this environment."
You can hear more from Tommy Tiernan in season 2 of The Revisit podcast out now.
Guests on season 2 will also include Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu, Today FM's Gift Grub star Mario Rosenstock, Virgin Media News Correspondent Richard Chambers, 2FM’s Ciara King and Actor and playwright Emmet Kirwan.
A new episode of The Revisit will drop every Monday for the next six weeks, so go ahead and give it a subscribe if you like what you hear.
