00:00He's kind of the boss and he's a bit of a gangster. He's not afraid to use violence to keep control.
00:07He does everything with a real twinkle, with a swagger. He's a lot of fun to play.
00:12Yeah, I mean, I read it and I had not played a role like this before.
00:17And I could tell Steven that I had a lot of fun writing it. So, yeah, he's quite unique old Sean Rafferty.
00:24I know you've played a lot of fascinating characters before, but tell me about the pressure of being an Englishman,
00:30being in House of Guinness and playing the most dubs character amongst all of them.
00:34I heard you say he was the most dubs man you've ever read. How did you approach that?
00:38Yeah, I mean, of all the characters, Rafferty is probably the most dubs of them all.
00:43I mean, he's a working class man, he's a self-made man, military background, definitely not part of the higher classes of the Guinness family.
00:51So it was my responsibility to, yeah, get the accent, and not only the accent, but the accent from the 1860s,
00:56which was quite a complicated thing. Luckily, I had an amazing dialect coach called Paul Mussolides,
01:02who was just the best and gave me so much support and guidance.
01:05And the other cast members were there, kindly, constructively keeping me on the straight and narrow.
01:12But once I got it, once I nailed the accent, it was the most addictive thing.
01:18Because actually, I think, you know, the Irish, they have a real kind of sense of their own identity,
01:23and part of that is the accent, and it's really f***ing fun.
01:26Yeah, can we like, sorry, can we put our finger on why it is that, like, the Irish people as a culture and as a personality
01:32are so magnetic, we as of the world are drawn to the island, aren't we?
01:36I think there's no other country in the world who has such a sense of identity, as we say, and it kind of translates, it carries.
01:43You know, you go anywhere in the world and you say, what is it to describe to be an Irish person?
01:46And they can, and they're gregarious, and they're fun, and they love music, and there's a rhythm, and there's a life to them.
01:51We've actually had this conversation on set, like, what is it about Ireland, about this small community,
01:57which has punched so far above their weight? I don't know, they don't take life too seriously.
02:01There's an incredible cultural heritage of music and art and poetry, maybe it's the land, I don't know,
02:06literally the green hills of Ireland, the rain, I've no idea, but maybe it's Guinness.
02:11I mean, who knows? Chicken and egg, who was it? Is it Guinness who causes the energy, or is it the other way around?
02:15I don't know, but it was a wonderful privilege to be able to masquerade as an Irishman for this.
02:20It was a lot of fun.
02:22Obviously, if I worked for them, I'd sign you up to the Irish Tourism Board, because you just sold it wonderfully to us.
02:26Yeah, I want to book a flight now. Thank you so much for your time, appreciate it.
02:29Thank you very much.
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