Interview with Rory Keenan who plays Steve

11 October 2022

Are you a fan of the old movies and songs, like Steve?

I love all that stuff. Sometimes we do need to dream a little bit and go back to relive the past, and Somewhere Boy does that really cleverly by contrasting the callbacks to very classical, romantic, homely and nostalgic filmmaking with the harsh, brutal reality of today. Steve's world was almost built to fit into the model of old romantic movies, so it was lovely.

 

Why did you want to get involved with Somewhere Boy?

The script did something that not many scripts do: take this almost absurd pretence and put it into the real world. Somehow those two things tessellated really well. It felt really timely as well, because the notion of coming out of lockdown was in everyone's minds. Without talking about the obvious thing, it drew attention to it. But mainly, it was the role. Although our moral compass would mean we see his modus operandi as wrong, Steve always does things from a place of love and devotion. There's no judgement, which I thought was really interesting. You see how much he wants to protect his son Danny (Lewis Gribben). It's a very unorthodox way of doing it, but it comes from a place of love and out of a duty of care.

 

Did you think about Steve's life before the death of his wife?

We get a little snippet of that from an old wedding video. He was clearly besotted with his wife and seemed to have lots of friends and family who loved him. There probably was some sort of psychological issue with him prior to this tragic accident where his wife dies, because his sister Sue (Lisa McGrillis) suggests that he struggled a little bit in life. I get the impression that his wife was the only person who could have kept him on track, so when she went, his whole life imploded. He’s a good guy with an itch in the back of his mind that he never really scratched.

 

How would you describe the father-son relationship?

Danny thinks his dad's a hero. Steve always makes sure he's fed, sheltered and in a loving environment, even if that environment is very odd. Danny knows nothing else, just that there is a man who loves him and will do anything to protect him. In that sense, you could say it's a great relationship although from our twenty-first century perspective, it borders on abuse. There is always a grey area in this series: people have to contend with things in their lives and when that's taken to the extreme, who knows how any of us would react? All we can do is make sure that we're safe and surrounded by people we love. That's what Steve does, from the beginning right up to when Danny turns 18.

 

What are Steve’s interactions with the outside world like for him?

He has to do two things. One is to go out and forage, to make sure that they have enough supplies to live. The other is to maintain the deception that there are monsters outside. Any time he comes back into the house, he has to suggest to his son that he has been in some sort of conflict or that he's running away from something. When he does leave, he tries to do it under the cloak of darkness or under a motorbike helmet so no one recognises him. He genuinely begins to believe the world that he has created for his son: it's dangerous out here, I need to be quick and I'm only safe when I’m inside. A lot of people are scared of modern society and don't want to go outside, which has never been better illustrated than in recent years when people got used to being cocooned and almost forgot how to be in society.

 

Was Steve an easy character to relate to?

In the sense that he would do anything to protect the person that he loved, absolutely. In the sense that he becomes disillusioned with certain aspects of society, definitely. But in other areas, absolutely not. It's very hard not to think that what he's doing is wrong, despite the fact that he's doing it out of love and he has trauma in his past. We have to accept that it's not the right way of raising a child.

 

Was it difficult playing such a broken man?

There were times where it was very heavy, but there is a real sense of levity in the relationship with Danny as well, so we had some fun. We had three different Dannys, so we got to explore the sense of play through the stages in their life. We did a lot of improvisation with the kids and, and just screwed around – you can't really fake that. Nothing seemed performative. It was like a crash course in fatherhood, going from infant to child to teenager. I don’t have kids but I have a dog and that's enough for now!

 

What was the most challenging aspect of the shoot?

Wearing a full-body leather biker suit and helmet in 30-degree heat in a studio with a metal roof. Getting that thing on and off was a three-man job, although weirdly it kind of helped the insular, suffocating nature of it all. I'd be more than happy to get into that sweaty, dead cow again even so – Pete’s scripts would be fascinating for series two.

 

What else do you have coming up?

I wrote and directed my first film last year, and that's doing really well at the festivals. I'm also in the early stages of collaborating with Pete Jackson on a series.