BEN Barnes and Robert Sheehan talk about playing brothers in Killing Bono and overcoming some of the challenges, such as appearing musically proficient and – in Ben’s case – getting the accent right.

They also talk about their own dealings with rejection as well as the honour of working with Pete Postelthwaite in what proved to be his final performance.

Q. The appeal is evident going in but there are a lot of challenges. How musically proficient were you?
Robert Sheehan: And how best to rock those dungarees? Seriously, the whole gay genie look, the whole new romantic stuff, the mental fortune teller thing… I loved all that, man! But the challenge for me, I suppose, lay in laying down a somewhat respectable vocal for the backing for the band and playing the guitar to a good kind of quality. I was very much made to look good in that sense because there was a guy called Joe Echo who devised a lot of the music and a lot of the very skilful, cool guitar solos you see me doing… I’m just kind of pretending to play back. I mean, I was trying to learn them and trying to get to grips with them. But at the end of the day, what you hear when we’re good and when we finally get to a point where you think that these guys could be rock stars, that’s not me playing.

Q. Ben, did it help there were two of you there egging each other on when needed, but also supporting each other?
Ben Barnes: Yeah, and also particularly with the accent for me. I made a decision to stay in the accent from the minute I landed in Belfast to the minute we finished filming, which was very confusing on the phone to my mum and in the pub sometimes. But I figured if I just spent all my time with Robert and tried to make myself sound as much like him as possible then the Irish would kind of come secondarily.

Q. Ben, had you thought about the irony of the fact that in real life you almost did have a taste of rock stardom [in a failed Eurovision Song Contest bid]?
Ben Barnes: It’s good that I’ve had that experience, I think, because it’s a cringe-worthy experience that I could draw on for the moment s of failure in the film. I’ve done a lot more music projects in my life that I’m proud of. That one lasted about 16 minutes… but only after the fact. I think seven people saw it at the time and the next morning I rang up and said I couldn’t do it because it was too embarrassing and awful. I knew it was terrible when I was doing it. But I used to do Sinatra tribute concerts at school and I did sort of function things after I left school… graduation balls and things kind of singing rock and soul and all kinds of stuff like that.

I’ve also been in musicals and sung in choirs and so I think there was a point when I was about 17 where I wanted to be Stevie Wonder, so I related to the kind of Commitments-esque struggle of the story. Obviously, it was written by the same writers [Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais] and it was one of the things that kind of attracted me to it in the first place – it kind of felt like The Commitments cheeky little brother, really. So, yes, I think probably more, though, when I started acting after university and saw there was no way into the kind of, what Peter Serafinowicz in the film calls ‘the beautiful hare of beautiful people’…. I didn’t understand how you get in because you’re writing letters to agents and it’s very frustrating; you’re not sure how anyone ever got an acting job ever.

But what I’ve grown to respect about Neil’s journey, both the fictional version and in real life, is that if your life isn’t going the way you planned it, you change something. You have this carpe diem attitude of: “If this isn’t working so we’ll change our hair, or our genre, or our girlfriend, or our management, or whatever it is.” I think it’s a pro-active approach to life, which is a good thing in this business because it’s very easy to stagnate

Q. What was it like working with Pete Postlethwaite in what proved to be his final performance?
Robert Sheehan: It was quite surreal for me, as well, in Dublin watching back the scenes where we first meet his character, Karl, and he gently pats me on the bum. It was quite bizarre… the weird thing about filming is that when you watch back the film you go: “I can’t really remember doing that. I remember it was in the script and I remember going through it, but I can’t remember it actually happening. But then watching it back, I went: “Yeah, I remember now!” It was lovely to see myself in a scene with him, you know, because he’s one of these faces that I grew up watching through lots of different films. Obviously, because of his passing and everything, it has a lot more poignancy, especially watching it in Dublin that time with 400 odd people.

Q. And Ben?
Ben Barnes: I think it’s fantastic that at the age of 64, knowing he was ill, and having lots of options for what he could have done with those months of his life, that he decided to keep working and keep challenging himself by playing something he had never played [before]. You associate him with these quite strong, gritty, hard men… certainly very real men and there he is playing this very campy landlord and really revelling it in even though we had to stop for breaks because he was frail. One of the skills that you think any actor should have is that when they look you in the eye and deliver a line, you believe what they’re saying – that seems like an obvious thing but actually it isn’t. He was just a very profound, honest actor.

He looked you in the eye and said those lines about ‘remember only this, the mark of a man is what’s left when fame falls away’ and you feel that’s Pete Postlethwaite at the end of his life giving us, as upcoming actors, the best of his advice, rather than this character in this film. It feels very poignant to watch it, but it also felt poignant [to perform]. I very vividly remember doing that particular bit because it felt so raw.

Q. On the subject of one of the film’s themes – rejection – have you been up for a role that you’ve really wanted and not got?
Robert Sheehan: Of course! All the time! Oh God, let me try and think! I read Kick-Ass and went for that. But I didn’t go for the Kick-Ass part, I went for the Red Mist part. But it’s part and parcel of everyday life for an actor. You might go for 10 or 15 things and get one of them. And that’s the one that you throw your weight behind. I suppose as your career goes on you learn to be a bit more selective and you learn to really get behind the things that you love. So, this was fantastic because I sent Nick a tape from Hungary with the help of Ulrich Thomsen, who played Ben’s part, and then met you guys [Ben and Nick] in East London and then hit it off on the day and that was it. So, that scenario was a dream scenario for me because that’s the way you want it to go.

Q. And Ben?
Ben Barnes: Well, I think there’s a few over the years that have stung a little bit. And then you have that awful dilemma of whether you should go and see it or not because it might make you feel better if it’s bad, or it might not. But this script was one of the ones that I read where I thought I would be furious if someone else played this part because I knew I could do it well… I know I can make a fool of myself admirably. So, I was sitting in my trailer in Australia doing the third Narnia film, brandishing my sword as a guitar, pretending to be Nick. I think when you start reading the script aloud to yourself on page six, you know it’s something you’re going to be upset if someone else gets.

Read our review

Read our interview with Neil McCormick

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