King of the Travellers, the latest Irish film from director and writer Mark O’Connor, tells the tale of traveller John Paul Moorehouse who must confront his past by uncovering the truth about who killed his father. However, his lust for revenge is swayed when he falls in love with Winnie Power, the daughter of the man he suspects ended his father’s life. John Paul must then decide between putting the long-standing feud to rest or following through with justice for his family.
This week, Her.ie caught up with Carla McGlynn, the actress who plays the role of Winnie Power, to talk about how she got the role, practising that accent and what she has lined up in the future.
Carla was put forward for the role by the casting director whom she knew: “I had heard that Mark (O’Connor) was quite keen to cast a traveller in the part of Winnie. I knew they had been looking for a while. I thought it would be a great project to be a part of, Mark is a great director and Between the Canals was really good. Then, they emailed me the audition pieces so I worked really hard; I researched travellers and the accent. I wanted to do the role justice. By the time I was attending read-throughs, everyone else had been cast except me!”
The actress spent quite a bit of time researching the role of Winnie, and therefore traveller women: “I was aware that it was a main female part and I was a settled person playing a traveller, I wanted to be really respectful and represent them well. Michael Collins, who plays the role of Francis, was very helpful with questions. I spent the day in one of the housing estates where a lot of his family live, going into different houses and chatting to different women.”
Carla was also mindful of the accent she had to use in the film. “I think when settled people play travellers, they can go a bit over the top with the accent but I was very aware they don’t talk the way they are often portrayed.”
Both the cast and crew have come across as extremely respectful of the travelling community and its traditions, and despite the fact that most would consider them secretive, Carla found them quite open: “They were really open and really understanding. They were really accepting. I think the reason they can come across as quite secretive is because of the negativity that surrounds them and they like to protect their culture and traditions. There has always been a bit of a divide between us and them.”
Despite the barriers that became obvious initially, Carla got over these quite quickly: “There might have been a bit of a disappointment that they haven’t cast a traveller in the role but once I got talking to them, they realised I wasn’t judgemental. They knew I wouldn’t have negative opinions about them.”
In regards to the project itself, the entire production is one that the cast seems deeply proud of: “This is something that I am really proud to have worked on,” Carla states. “We all worked really hard on this film and Mark worked particularly hard to make it authentic. It’s such an interesting story and such an interesting culture. I didn’t judge. I treated her as any character, just with an accent.”
Following the success of this film, Carla is moving onto projects involving The Factory located here in Dublin and will also be starring in a one-woman show entitled The World Will End in Fire.
King of the Travellers is currently still in cinemas nationwide.
