Ahead of the opening weekend of The Hurler: A Campion’s Tale, we caught up with producer Shane O’Keefe for some insider details.
The Hurler: A Campion’s Tale is a sports comedy film from the mind of County Waterford writer, director, and actor Tony Kelly.
Kelly stars as the titular character, Gar Campion, alongside a host of the country’s excellent acting talents, including Jon Kenny (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Elva Trill (Jurassic World Dominion).
The story follows Kelly’s character who, after becoming the first hurler in history to fail a test for performance-enhancing drugs, agrees to coach the country’s worst team in a bid to restore his reputation.
Ahead of its release, we caught up with Shane O’Keefe, who, along with Louis Buggy, Matthew Hickey, and David Slattery, runs Dicemen Productions, the production team behind the film.
The film’s origins – how it all started
O’Keefe told us that the film’s main character, Jon Campion, “has been in the tank for over a decade”, beginning as a web series that Kelly developed into a one-man stage play and now a film. “Dicemen,” he says, “facilitated [Kelly’s] ideas”.
Kelly first became aware of Dicemen Productions thanks to a documentary film the company produced in 2018. Initial contact led to collaboration, with Kelly appearing as Sergeant Cooper in Pete Harris’s Dicemen-produced The Tale of Billy O’C.
“From there, the relationship formed,” explains O’Keefe. “So when he came to us with this idea for The Hurler: A Campion’s Tale, we knew we were onto a winner.
“It is kind of mad that a movie about hurling had not really been done before, considering the passion and opinions it delivers all over the country. So thankfully, Tony saw the gap there and had something that could fit neatly in it”.
This gap wasn’t the only thing that drew Dicemen to a film about hurling. Hailing from Kilkenny, they “grew up surrounded by the sport” and their county’s domination on the field.
“It dominated every discussion you have here. My sixth class teacher was [former Kilkenny player and manager] Brian Cody!”.
Putting the film together – from Kelly’s clear vision
Kelly obviously had a very clear vision of what he wanted his film to be. On top of his three-pronged role as director, writer, and star, he also acted as casting director for the film, and he “put in mammoth work to assemble the cast and crew”, according to O’Keefe.
“He always had Jon Kenny in his mind for the character of Billy Byrne, and it just steamrolled from there. Elva Trill was in Jurassic Park and doing red carpet events with Chris Pratt and the likes, yet Tony’s vision sold her on the idea”.
Attracting these big names is a testament not only to Kelly’s writing and vision but also, O’Keefe argues, to a sense of community within the Irish film industry.
“All these connections came from working your way up the ladder. Step by step, you make friends with people, and everyone wants to see the others succeed, so when the opportunity comes up to work together, we all generally jump at it”.
What’s next – “plenty of mileage left in Gar Campion’s story”
Always on the hunt for a new project, O’Keefe revealed that “Dicemen have a few scripts in the bank ourselves we are looking forward to producing” but also offered that “there is plenty of mileage left in Gar Campion’s story and seeing where he ends up”.
An actor himself, O’Keefe is set to perform alongside Rebecca Storm in Letters From the Front. Don O’Connor and Ollie Hennessy’s World War One-set play will run at Dublin’s O’Reilly Theatre from 21 to 24 November.
“It’s all go,” he says. “But I would not have it any other way”.
The Hurler: A Campion’s Tale opens in cinemas across Ireland today (6 October). Find your nearest screening here.
