P.arla of herself without any hesitation, as if she were not already an established actress both in Europe and in the United States, and if we ask her if she has ever given her problems at work, the conspicuous birthmark under her left eye replies: “I have I had some difficult moments at the beginning of my career, but it’s a part of my face, if I hid it, I would hide my true soul ».
Clare Dunne receives the European Shooting Stars Award during the last Berlinale.
In short, if it is true, as his fellow citizen Oscar Wilde said, that “spontaneity is a very difficult pose to hold”, for Clare Dunne, 33, this is just one of the many qualities. Two of the others? She is multifaceted and talented: for KinTV series about a gangster family in Dublinrecently won the Ifta Best Actress Award, the Irish Oscars, repeating the success of the previous year, when, as a screenwriter, she had obtained it for the film The Life To Come: Herself (can be seen on Amazon Prime).
Clare Dunne, from the Middle Ages to Marvel Heroes
The rest of the world has also turned the spotlight on her: Marvel wanted her on the team of villains of Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Ridley Scott in the cast of The Last Duel (2021) while the Berlinale, last February, named her among the emerging stars of European cinema. “I feel like I’ve won a lottery. I don’t know how it is perceived in Italy, but in Ireland it is a very prestigious award, both because it was given by an international jury of experts, and because it underlines our belonging to the European Union and to its cinema, the one that formed me. And then, without England, only we Irish and the Maltese are left in English! ».
What are the main steps that have brought you this far?
I would say two: the first is when, at the age of 12, I realized that I finally had an answer that I was convinced of to the question: “What would you like to be when you grow up”. And I replied like this: “Tell my friends stories and make them laugh.” I joined a theater group where they improvised, wrote, sang songs and did sketches. It was what I was looking for. After high school I decided to enroll at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales, officially starting my acting career.
Clare Dunne in The Life To Come: Herself.
And the second?
It’s about instead The Life To Come: Herself. Without this film I wouldn’t be here, it opened many doors for me, even as a screenwriter. And to say that this second branch of my career was born out of a great sense of frustration …
Because?
Premise: I have always loved writing. Even during our college years we were studying screenplay and part of the final exam was making a 20-minute theater script, but for the five years following graduation I focused only on acting, apart from a short text for a small theater in Dublin. . It then happens that I am in New York for an audition. That’s no good. I am tired and sad, I wonder if acting is really the right path for me when, in the hotel, in the evening, I am with one of my best friends. She is a young single mom of three children. A couple of weeks before her, her homeowner had given her an eviction notice of only one month. She doesn’t know where to go, the only solution, at least for the moment, is the hotel. It seems to me that everything is going wrong, not just for me, but, more seriously, for her. I lie on the bed and begin to fantasize: perhaps a house can not only be rented or bought, but also built. I open Google and write: “construction, Ireland, economic”. I find the story of a man who built a house for himself with only 25 thousand euros. I remain incredulous.
All in one night
And so does he start writing the screenplay for the film?
Initially I send her a message with the link, I write that if she had found a suitable area I would have helped her and I will go to sleep. But I wake up at dawn with an idea for a film: there is a woman with children who has to end a horrible, violent relationship. But she doesn’t know where to go. These are the years of the housing crisis in Ireland, in some cities there is not a single house available. She is left homeless, she does not want to move elsewhere, she wants her children at least not to change school and so she decides to build a house on a piece of land offered to her by the owner of the house where she works. cleaning. I want it to be a story of hope and redemption. I start writing it right away. I finish it a few days later. I send it around in my acquaintances. I attract the attention of a producer. The direction is entrusted to a director with whom I had already worked in the theater, Phyllida Lloyd, while I am entrusted with the leading role. We finish filming in 2019, in 2020 he is selected at Sundance and from there he is sold almost all over the world.
What about her friend?
Fortunately, after a few days in the hotel she was a guest of friends and eventually found a house to rent.
Nina Toussaint-White and Clare Dunne in Witness number 3.
Just as he was looking for producers for this film, the call from Marvel came.
Sometimes you get the feeling that everything is going well. It happened to me between 2018 and 2019. It was six weeks before the first take of Herself when my agency called and said that Marvel wanted me to audition for a part. I had done it years before for another film that I wasn’t cast for. I didn’t know that those great productions kept everything, they remembered me and thought that finally the time had come to do something together.
From these few minutes together we can observe that it has an out of the ordinary energy, which is not easily forgotten …
I really hope this is the case. What is certain is that in some way even the birthmark that I have under my eye, in the end, has become a sign of recognition. At the beginning of her career my drama teacher advised me to remove her with a surgical operation otherwise I would have had difficulty in making a career. I was afraid: the eyes are a very sensitive area, I risked a scar. I worked on myself to convince myself of what it was like a part of me and that if I didn’t make it it wouldn’t depend on that. Not only that, I decided that I would not have resorted to make-up. It is a question of remaining true and authentic to who I am. Fortunately, over time I have found other people who, like me, want to remain human. It is with them that I work, with those who accept that what looks like a black eye from afar is actually part of me.
Is it so hard to find people like that?
Maybe before yes, now not anymore. Over the past decade, people have become more diversity aware and inclusive towards minorities and women. Recently there has been a further acceleration, people are more open-minded. Anyway, I am grateful to my old teacher: she pushed me to become a confident person.
Do you see more acting, screenplay or even a directorial debut in your future?
I’m writing a new story that, this time, I’d like to direct. Maybe I wouldn’t even act there, it would be too many things all together. Acting for now I will leave it to projects not mine. The series that I shot, Witness Number 3, is of British production. I see myself more in Europe than in the United States, but now I no longer place limits on surprises.
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