“It helps me not to always take myself too seriously as an actor.”
TV fans may know Irish Kerry Condon (40) from Netflix’s Better Call Saul, but she had a tentative breakthrough last year with her Oscar-nominated role in The Banshees of Inisherin. Her latest is the horror thriller Night swim alongside Wyatt Russell (son of Kurt and Goldie Hawn), which is about Eve, who with her husband – an MS patient – hopes for a new beginning when they finally find a house. With a swimming pool…
1. Sacrifices seem to be a theme; your character Eve sacrifices her career for her sick husband. How did you look at that?
“That a woman who has no career, but stays at home and takes care of her husband and children, is a hero. More capable than you might think. Not everyone has to be a striver to be a great person. I thought it was interesting that she is an apparently ‘ordinary’ woman.”
2. Who grows into a hero.
“Absolutely, but I also added an underlay for myself and I think you sometimes see that in the film. As a successful baseball player, her husband has always been in the spotlight and she took a step back. Now that he is ill, the spotlight is on him again and that bothers her somehow. She helps him with love, but there is also a certain aversion, loneliness and frustration in that relationship. When the film starts, it is not all harmony.”
3. What makes starring in a horror thriller interesting for an actor?
“For me that is the aspect of entertainment. Growing up, the movies I watched were mostly entertainment.
I didn’t watch Terrence Malick movies when I was 10, haha! I also want to be in films that are simply entertaining. It doesn’t always have to be bombastic. Good entertainment is hard enough to make. It also helps me not to always take myself too seriously as an actor. I also like that this puts me back in front of an audience that will never see The banshees or Inishering.”
4. Many of the effects are done practically and do not come from the computer. Does that help you as an actor?
(laughing) “Well, it’s nice when you’re acting against something physical, but I don’t think it would have made much difference for me. Very early in my career I once had an opponent who left as soon as the camera was not pointed at him. So I’m used to acting against a tennis ball or sticker…”
5. You immediately filled the period after the Oscar nomination with this film, was that a conscious choice?
“Yes, I was also quite nervous about that period after the Oscars. I knew that would be the end of a series of awards ceremonies and the conclusion of the Banshees chapter, so to speak. I tend to get sad as soon as a chapter ends, so it’s best to get right back to work and distract myself. And that turned out well!”
Text: Jorrit Niels | Image: NL Image
