00:00Usually go to each other when we're struggling.
00:02Oh, I don't know if I did split the G with you.
00:03It's really filthy.
00:04Can I say f***?
00:05Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:06Can I say f***?
00:07Can I say f***?
00:08This is nuttier than a squirrel's holiday.
00:09Isn't it?
00:10I mean, what is going through your brain, mister?
00:14Oh, I don't know.
00:15Mostly drugs.
00:16No, I suppose it was a combination of loads
00:22of different themes and ideas that I wanted to explore
00:24as well as trying to get home.
00:26And then when you bring in wonderful collaborators
00:28like Christina kind of elevates it to another level
00:31and Paddy and Eileen and all of the wonderful Nick Murphy
00:36and all of these terrific writers.
00:38And it just seemed like kind of a graduation
00:43of Moon Boy exploring a lot of different themes
00:45that we've met along the way.
00:48It's brilliantly bonkers, isn't it?
00:50But like, do you ever have a sounding board
00:52where you have these ideas at the middle of the night,
00:53perhaps you have too much cheese.
00:55You write things down and you're like, how does this sound?
00:57What's the reaction from people around you?
01:00Well, myself and Dawn were in lockdown at the time
01:02in Canada when I started writing it.
01:05And I don't know if we were going through
01:07the best phase of our marriage.
01:10So I dragged her to Canada to do a movie
01:12with the kids with us and then they went into full lockdown.
01:15So it was a stay at home order for five months.
01:17And so I was kind of bouncing off the walls, right?
01:22And so I didn't have much of a sounding board.
01:25And I think that's why the ideas are a bit stranger.
01:27Because nobody said, no, that's stupid.
01:30At some point, somebody was like,
01:31I think you should lose the cosmic stuff.
01:34I'm like, well, that's the show.
01:35But you and Dawn told me too, when you both write,
01:37you sort of don't necessarily tell each other in the time
01:41because you don't want to have it dilute
01:44what you're thinking and you share it
01:46maybe a little bit later.
01:47We usually go to each other when we're struggling.
01:49Oh, okay.
01:50When we're like, this is garbage.
01:51What the fuck am I gonna do with this?
01:53How do I make this novel come together
01:56and all of that kind of stuff,
01:57maybe we'll throw some ideas around then.
01:57But usually it's post-struggle.
02:00So did Dawn say, let's have some birds that fly out
02:02and fall from the sky.
02:04Let's have a dog that really scares Christina.
02:08I think it was.
02:08But it all lends to the story.
02:09I mean, it's all these little clues
02:12that are sort of all brewing
02:14and stirring up this sort of strange feeling
02:17in this small town.
02:18Yeah, and what was your experience like of Ireland?
02:21Had you been much?
02:23Were you a bit worried about
02:24kind of entering the world of the Irish?
02:27I wasn't worried at all.
02:28I was really excited.
02:29I had only been to Ireland for one long weekend.
02:33I had taken a holiday and I had heard of a beautiful place,
02:36Ashford Castle, I'd always wanted to go.
02:37And so I went for a few days.
02:39So that was my entire experience of Ireland,
02:41which was, I was just plopped in a place and taken out.
02:44So I was really excited because I just,
02:48I had spent a bunch of time in Scotland the year before
02:52and I spent a lot of time in England
02:54and I was like, I keep getting called back
02:56or there's a reason.
02:57And I was just up for the journey.
02:58So yeah, I was excited.
02:59He's the reason.
03:00Yeah, this time he was the reason.
03:01How many G's did you split though?
03:03This is the question.
03:04How many what?
03:05G's were split.
03:06Oh, I don't know if I did split the G with you.
03:08What's that mean?
03:09It's really filthy.
03:10No, it's splitting the G.
03:12No, you take a, on a pint of Guinness.
03:14I'm like, wow.
03:15Okay.
03:16Interesting.
03:17G Street.
03:18It's a cherry popper.
03:19On the Guinness logo, on a pint of Guinness,
03:22it's supposed to be this inherent idea
03:24that you take a slug enough, big enough
03:25that when you put it down,
03:26the creamy top is halfway through the G
03:29and it's called splitting the G.
03:30But I don't know if we drank Guinness in the end.
03:31There was a lot of red wine drank.
03:33Yeah, I'd love to be around a Guinness.
03:35I think G's all round after this.
03:37It's a pretty stay today.
03:38And what about what you learned about each other's
03:40kind of cultures and where you're both from?
03:42Was there much that you picked up?
03:44Well, I certainly was learning how he talked.
03:48I mean, we had a couple of moments on set
03:52where he came up to me and he was like,
03:53I'm going to rewrite this line.
03:54Can you say, can I say that?
03:57Can I say that?
03:57Oh yeah, yeah.
03:58Can I say f**k?
03:59Can I say f**k?
04:00He was like, can you say f**king idiot?
04:02And I was like, gotcha boss.
04:04You know, came down.
04:05I'm like, you f**king idiot.
04:06And he's like, yeah.
04:08So can you say f**king idiot?
04:10And I'm like, I was like, oh, f**k, like f**k.
04:14And he was like, yeah.
04:15And I, you f**king idiot.
04:17And he's like, could you?
04:19And I said, I thought that was just your accent.
04:21I didn't know you were asking me to say it like that.
04:24So there were some times where I didn't know
04:26if it was a note or just your kooky way of talking.
04:30You sometimes forget that Egypt isn't commonplace
04:32around the rest of the world.
04:34Well, it sounds like Egypt as well.
04:36I didn't know if he wanted me to like,
04:37try it with an accent or something.
04:40I was baffled, but we sorted it out.
04:42How was your Irish?
04:44Well, I didn't do an Irish accent.
04:46Can you do one?
04:49For what?
04:50To what end?
04:53I mean, I'm a bit of a parrot.
04:55So if I'm in a place for a long time,
04:58I can't help but try.
04:59I'm so, I find other people's accents delicious.
05:02So I kind of like practice at home on my own
05:04or I mumble under my breath
05:05trying to sort of get what they're doing
05:07because I'm just fascinated by it.
05:09But we did discuss early on
05:11whether we wanted her to have an accent or not.
05:13And-
05:14It works with that one.
05:15I think so.
05:16Yeah, we decided it could be distracting.
05:18It could be a delicious thing, Chris.
05:19How does that feel, that your accent's delicious?
05:21I'll take it.
05:22I'll take it.
05:23It's been called loads of things.
05:24And do you feel like this is like a journey
05:27that you've had since you started out
05:29where you feel like it really is you?
05:31You've created something that's totally and utterly yours
05:34that you've always kind of aimed to do?
05:37I don't know if I ever had the aim,
05:38but I certainly feel like I've,
05:41we, for the most part,
05:42have been able to make the show
05:43that we wanted to try and make.
05:45And then you kind of, if you're smart
05:47just like if you're cooking in a kitchen
05:49and somebody suggests other little recipes
05:51and other things,
05:52oh, you should try a bit of this in it.
05:53And that's kind of the way I like to work anyway.
05:56But it does feel like it's very specifically my world,
05:58I guess,
05:59because it does deal with a lot of things I'm interested in
06:01and it truly features my hometown
06:04and all that vibe, I suppose.
06:06It feels like Chris.
06:07A little bit.
06:08I mean, if you've watched Moonboy
06:10and you've seen this
06:11and you've seen the projects he's working on,
06:15it's a wonderful thing to be able to look at a project
06:17and go, I bet that's Chris or dad.
06:19Like that's a very unique
06:20and not very many people do that.
06:21So come on, it's super Chris.
06:24I guess it is.
06:25It's quite Chrissy, yeah.
06:26Super Chris.
06:27You see a llama coming down from the sky,
06:29that's Chris.
06:29Yeah.
06:30That's her dad.
06:31He's got a dad all over it.
06:32That's an alpaca.
06:33Well, they do all feel like every now and again,
06:35I'll kind of bump against something
06:36and I'll go, God, I'd forgotten at some point.
06:38And the reason that that's there
06:39is that outside my hometown,
06:42I was there a few weeks ago,
06:43I went to see my cousins
06:44and they still live out there
06:45and they're kind of very rural.
06:46But right opposite them is a big field
06:48with loads of alpacas in it.
06:50So having alpacas around is very normal for me,
06:53but somehow when you put it
06:54in the middle of a main street like that,
06:56it doesn't seem so.
06:57With a spotlight.
06:58Yes.
06:59And this looks kind of like that neighborhood
07:02and all of those kinds of things.
07:03It's strange.
07:04I'd want to watch that show
07:05with that guy looking at me in that.
07:06That's a great poster.
07:07Exactly, and it was fantastic.
07:09Thank you very much.
07:10Really appreciate your time.
07:11Cheers, Lucy.
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