He has already made a film with Richard Attenborough and could soon be working with Steven Spielberg. Young Belfast actor Martin McCann's star is on the rise, writes Róisín Ingle
Growing up in the Divis Flats, in Belfast, Martin McCann dreamed of being somebody else. Robert De Niro or Jim Carrey, maybe; Marlon Brando or Johnny Depp. "Part of acting is wanting to escape and live in a fantasy world for a while. I've always felt like that," he says. "Growing up, my mummy said I was a typical wee show-off, always entertaining the rest of the family. Drama wasn't something anyone around our area did, but she saw I had a talent and encouraged me to get involved."
Given the upwards trajectory of McCann's star, it might not be too long before he's comparing notes with some of his idols in real life. Last year he landed a meaty role in a historical romance set in Belfast and North Carolina and directed by Richard Attenborough. Closing the Ringalso stars Brenda Fricker, Pete Postlethwaite, Mischa Barton, Neve Campbell - "she's like a big sister to me now" - and Shirley MacLaine. He turns 24 next month and has just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where one of the world's most famous directors signed him up for the kind of job that could turn him into sizzling Hollywood property. "I can't give any details now," he says apologetically, already sounding like a seasoned star under strict instructions from his agent. "It could threaten the whole project." (Wikipedia suggests the role is in The Pacific, Steven Spielberg's sequel to Band of Brothers.)
Tempting as it may be to paint a picture of a young boy caught in the Troubles before emerging, Billy Elliot-style, as a young actor on the verge of stardom, McCann is anxious to avoid such hagiography. "My life was not a sob story; it was an ordinary working-class upbringing. There were bad times, I may have experienced some things, but I would prefer to keep my experience of Belfast growing up to myself."
When pressed he will say only that he doesn't like to talk about singular events, about brick throwing or bombings or terrorist threats. "My experience growing up as a child does not compare to some of the horrific events that others had to go through, so that's why I don't like to talk about it. I was a child. I knew no different. That was my reality, so you don't think anything of it."
McCann may have lived in a republican heartland, but, growing up with his mother and younger siblings, sectarianism never impinged, he says. "My mummy always told us to judge people at face value." He describes his mother, Anne McCann, as the driving force behind both his personal development and his acting career. She scoured local newspapers for something that might suit her dramatically inclined son. She found, in the Irish News, details of an audition for Oliver Twist. McCann won the role of the Artful Dodger. It was his first inkling that he might have a real talent. And, like Oliver, he wanted more. "It just came very easy to me," he says. "I did it differently to everyone else. I took it seriously, and I didn't have to struggle. It was the first thing I'd found that I was any good at, so that's why I wanted to continue." He discovered accents were "a great strength", and he did more auditions, winning amateur leads in the likes of Bugsy Maloneand The Crucible.
His mother sent him to a cross-community drama group and, to expand her son's horizons farther, found out about another cross-community initiative, which brought Protestant and Catholic children on trips to the US. "I was one of the lucky ones," McCann says of his summer visits to South Carolina, where he stayed for up to three months a year with a family called the Clevelands. "It showed me there was a bigger, brighter world beyond Belfast, full of strange things and interesting people."
McCann was already a familiar face on Northern Ireland television, in the comedy Dry Your Eyes, when he got the chance to work with Attenborough. "I count myself among the luckiest young actors in the world, getting to meet the guy and work with him. He is gentle and wise, and he is a very powerful man who taught me that nothing matters as long as you stay true to the essence of the character."
Dublin film-maker Simon Fitzmaurice was one of the first to spot his talent. He had been casting for his powerful short film, The Sound of People, for a year when he met McCann. "The second he walked into the room I knew he had all the ingredients for the role," he says. The Sound of People, a reflection on life and death from the perspective of a young Belfast man, will be debuted on the festival circuit soon.
Up next for McCann, besides the potentially career-changing role he can't talk about yet, is a part in the film My Boy Jack, an adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling poem by the Four Weddings and a Funeralactor David Haig. McCann plays a young Dubliner who befriends Jack, played by Daniel Radcliffe, in the trenches.
He acknowledges that his life could have turned out very differently had his mother not been as proactive as she was in his life. "She is a wise woman, and she kept me on track," he says. "It's not that I was a bad kid, but there were a lot of outside influences."
He believes his past will keep him grounded whatever the future brings. "I know not to be silly, not to abuse any good fortune and never to forget my roots, my family and friends." His family are chuffed for him, he says, but he has to be careful around his actor friends. "You can sound like you are bragging, so even though it's exciting you try not to talk about it." The boy from Divis done good. You just won't find him shouting about it.