The Big Interview: Her.ie Meets Irish Actor Simon Delaney As He Gets Set To Hit The Big Screen With Vince Vaughn

He’s the solicitor Michael Quinn in Bachelor’s Walk, he’s the dad of the town bully boys in Moone Boy, he’s hit US screens in the last twelve months appearing on the critically-acclaimed Touch and The Good Wife, he’s the voice of the Meteor and Tesco ads among many more…

And now, Dublin-man Simon Delaney is set to star alongside “comedy royalty” Vince Vaughn in what will be 2013’s biggest US comedy. Simon will play Vaughn's New Yorker delivery man brother as Vince realises he has fathered 533 children through being a sperm donor... hilarity ensues as it transpires that a lot of them want to meet him.

But, despite all this success, Simon is still the kind of guy you could sit down and enjoy a pint with. So, that’s what Her.ie did… minus the pint. But that will happen next time…

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A massive congratulations from all of us at Her.ie Simon, life must be madness at the moment…

Thank you very much, you’re very kind! It has gone a bit haywire now in the last week. The funny thing is I’ve known about the part for three or four weeks now but, of course, we weren’t allowed say anything about it until we got the nod from the States.  But, yup, it’s all out there now and it’s all very, very exciting.

I’m filming for the second series of Moone Boy at the moment so we finish that on Monday and then it’s off to the States on Monday afternoon.

And it all begins…

And so it all begins! I’ll be out there for a week , I’ll be home for ten days then and then I’ll be back out there for another three and a half weeks, so we’ll be over there until about the 17^th of November.

So your wife, Lisa, and kids will be staying at home in Ireland?

They will, they will. It has to happen with schools and all that. We’ve small kids too, they’re six, four and eight months. Three boys so it’s absolute mayhem at the moment

No trip to New York for them just yet so?

No, not yet, not yet. Hopefully someday we’ll be out there but the plan at the moment is to keep plugging away and coming home. There’s a lot happening here too so I am trying to have my cake and eat it! But we will get there.

So Simon, you’ll be working with the man himself, Vince Vaughn, next week, what will such a high-profile film mean for your career?

Well, it’s the first movie I’ve done in America. Obviously the two TV jobs I did last year were great, The Good Wife and Touch. They were a fantastic way to start in the TV business out there but I suppose doing The Delivery Man [film’s working title] puts me up another rung of the ladder over there. I mean, working for Dreamworks and working with people like Vince Vaughn, who is comedy royalty, means that people are going to see the movie. It just hopefully might open a couple of doors for me.

 

A face for radio...?! Nah, we don't think so Simon!

It’s set to be the funniest flick of 2013, will you stick with the comedy genre afterwards?

Well, comedy is where I’ve been sitting really for the last 12 or 13 years at home. Comedy is where I sit. My agents in LA are fairly excited because it’s a great script, it’s a great part, again it’s with Dreamworks, so, you know, I would be quite happy to do comedy for the rest of my life...

Were you a bit of a class clown in school yourself?

Well… exactly! But I did always have a great face for radio too!

And you have done a lot of radio…

I have, I’ve done a lot of stuff for RTÉ and a bit of radio drama for the BBC too but, when you’re a freelance actor in Ireland, you have to do a bit of everything. I do voiceovers, I direct, I do theatre, I do film, I do TV, I’ve done presenting…

But is it the screen that is your first love?

I don’t know…  I suppose the screen would certainly be my bank manager’s first love! But every actor’s home is on the stage and I’ve been lucky enough to have had a great stage career in the West End. I’ve done a lot of theatre here in Ireland too.

I love that but the screen is a completely different ball game. You have eight or nine weeks when you’re involved in something. But you know when the basic materials are good; the script is good and the cast is good, you know it’s going to be good. You know you’ll be in safe hands.

What are you most looking forward to about such a high-profile film?

I’m really looking forward to shooting in New York… New York has a very special place in my heart. I’ve been going there on holidays since the mid-90s, myself and Lisa got engaged in New York, it’s a very special city and I have a very special place for it in my heart. I’ve got friends over there, a lot of friends from when I was in school back here and it’s great to hang out with them. Just the city itself is the greatest city in the world. And to be lucky enough to be working there is just amazing. Of course,  working with Vince Vaughn… I mean that’s going to be pretty cool too!

Have you met him yet Simon?

I haven’t met him yet now, I’ll meet him on Monday…

Your brother-to-be…

Yeah, my brother! Well, I mean the casting was obvious, he’s a good looking man... That narrowed it down…!

Is it true you thought you looked like him?

The strange thing is when the news broke last week someone put a photograph on my Facebook page of me side by side with Vince and it is kind of freaky… and there’s a third brother then who’s an American comedian called Bobby Moynihan.

Bobby is one of the Saturday Night Live gang in New York. We make up the three brothers in the film. I saw a picture of Bobby and I thought, “Jesus, that’s me as well”. Even my relations in LA always said to me [Simon puts on the accent of a man who’s lived on the West Coast all his life], “You know what? You look really like this guy on Saturday Night Live…” and I was like “Oh, ok…” but now we’re playing brothers it’s absolutely crazy business…

You’ll have the NYC accent out in strength so Simon…

I was in New York about two months ago, I was shooting for a movie over there and that’s when I auditioned for Vince Vaughn’s brother. It was a New York accent that was requested, obviously they’re a NYC-based family, but I love the New York accent. 

Even when I do an American accent it tends to be  New York. We would have grown up watching The Sopranos and talking like a [Cue: NYC gangsta twang] “real Mafia guy”! But it’s great….I’m really looking forward to that buzz it’s just great…

During the summer you mentioned you were hoping The Good Wife would open up some opportunities for you, did you ever see something this big coming your way?

Well, I’ve been over and back now for three years, I must have done maybe 100 or 120 auditions for various TV and film projects in total. And we’ve come very close on a few of them, it’s a hard game, it’s frustrating too. It’s the waiting you see. It’s weeks before you hear if you’ve got the part, and it’s very hard to put it to the back of your mind because you can’t, you know, that’s what’s occupying your thoughts. But when it lands, oh, it is just fantastic.

The Delivery Man's three brothers... yup, we see the resemblance!

A lot of people are saying it’s great for an Irish actor to be making it big on the international scene, but how difficult is it?

Oh, it is difficult. I mean going back to the New York thing, I must have beat off a lot of American competition for the part, because you know I’m not playing an Irish guy in it. I can only imagine how many people went for the part in New York, LA and all across the States. So it gives you a great feeling of satisfaction when you think “You know, I can do it”.

When I went over last year for The Good Wife and saw myself on the set on the first morning next to Julianna Marguiles and Josh Charles, you’re just thinking, “Oh, Christ Almighty….”

Fortunately, The Good Wife was very good to me, it was reviewed in the LA Times the next morning, a very positive review, and it was a total of 21 million people that watched that episode. I found that hard to comprehend, it’s five times the size of the population of the country…

Do you think making it in the States is what every Irish actor aspires to Simon?

I think if you have any interest or grá in doing TV comedy or movie comedy the States is the place to be. Even TV drama, the level and quality of stuff that’s coming out of the States at the moment like Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad… the list is endless and the quality is something else.

And when you have actors and directors over there moving into television… I mean you have Martin Scorsese directing  TV episodes for Boardwalk Empire and all, thats where you want to be. If you have any ambition to do it, albeit we have a very good film and TV industry here, if you want to do it on that scale you’ve got to go, but it is tough.

We have Amy Huberman over there too at the moment…

Oh, it’s only a matter of time before that lady hits it massive in the States. A nicer person you couldn’t meet and she’s a very funny lady… and she’s good-looking,  I mean she has nothing going for her at all…. and she’s married to an Irish rugby player, she must be absolutely miserable!

Director and writer John Carney has worked with Simon on numerous projects.

You’ve worked a lot with the director John Carney [Bachelor’s Walk, Zonad, Can A Song Save Your Life?...] Simon and built a strong working relationship with him…

I make no bones about it, I owe John my career.  John was the first guy who gave me my break in Bachelor’s Walk 15 years ago and we’ve been lucky enough that we’ve done a couple of movies together since. 

Even when I was in New York two months ago, that movie [Can A Song Save Your Life?] was written and directed by John, so it was because of John that I happened to be in the city at the time when I got to audition for The Delivery Man. He’s had his hand right across my career, there’s no doubt about it and because we’ve worked together, we’re very good pals too.

We look after each other, even through the tough times over the last 15 years. John’s career is going atmospheric  and he deserves it because he has talent oozing out of every pore.

Hopefully we’ll continue to work together, if he keeps writing scripts, I’ll keep doing them!

Well Simon, we are really looking forward to sitting back in the cinema next year with the popcorn and Coke watching you on the big screen…

It’ll be absolute madness, won’t it?!

It will Simon, but you deserve every minute of it!