February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The 42-year-old Co. Cavan native is known for his stellar work on stage, in the plays “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “Frozen,” “Doubt,” “Shining City” and “The Coast of Utopia,” the TV series “Oz” and “Brotherhood,” and on screen, in the films “Disco Pigs,” “Intermission,” “Million Dollar Baby” and “The International.”
O’Byrne takes his career in yet another new direction this month. He plays a lineman with the water and power company in Los Angeles and sponsor to a recovering alcoholic FBI agent played by Joseph Fiennes, in the high-profile science-fiction series “FlashForward.” The show is about what happens when everyone in the world gets a 2-minute-17-second peek at their lives six months into the future. The series co-stars John Cho, Courtney B. Vance, Dominic Monaghan, Jack Davenport and Sonya Walger as people whose lives are affected by the mysterious global event.
“It’s a water-cooler type of show,” the Tony Award-winning actor told the Irish Echo in a recent phone interview. “The notion of [being able to see] six months into our future — how would we react? Would it be positive or negative? And can it be changed? All those questions come up.”
So, did working on the series set O’Byrne to thinking about whether he’d like to know what the future holds?
“I knew the answer immediately,” said O’Byrne. “Absolutely not. I don’t want to know . . . I like the surprise of life and what’s going to happen every day.”
That’s not to say he wouldn’t be tempted on the odd occasion.
“Maybe two weeks from now, I’d like to know if people tuned in for the second episode; little things like that. Or, like, if you’re waiting for somebody, is this person going to show up? The future of the next hour, maybe I might be interested in, but six months down the line? There’s a lot of living to get to six months, and too much fun to be had. I wouldn’t like to know.”
O’Byrne said he knew he wanted to be a part of the series after reading the script for the pilot and meeting with the producers.
“It was an unbelievably good script,” the actor said. “I was intrigued and flipping over pages to find out what happened next.”
Because there are so many characters and plots to follow, O’Byrne said the shooting schedule allows him some downtime, which is important since he and his family just moved cross-country and are settling into their new home in Santa Monica.
“It’s an ensemble show, so none of us really works vast amounts of time. When we work, we work really hard, but it’s not like doing eight shows a week in theater,” he explained. “That’s one of the great things about doing a big ensemble show like this. There are probably nine or 10 regulars and everybody has to have their own storyline and that means we all don’t have to go to work every day. It’s ideal. It’s everyone’s perception, probably, of the ideal job.”
Unfortunately, because of the way the show is shot with its many denizens and story arcs, the entire cast rarely gets to hang out together. Still, O’Byrne said those he has spent time with are great.
“It’s a lovely bunch,” he said. “I think everybody who works on the show is grateful to be working and are very conscious of how lucky we are. …”
“It may all change next week, if nobody watches,” he cautioned with a laugh. “But right now, we’re a happy bunch.”
Asked how he and his co-stars, many of whom are British, managed to suppress their natural accents, O’Byrne chuckled.
“I always say, I’ve listened to enough American actors do bad Irish accents, so it’s payback time,” he said. “I’m allowed to have a bad American accent . . . No, everyone just worked hard at it and hoped for the best.”