I was relieved when nobody died! IRISH ACTOR COLIN FARRELL IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE ALIVE TODAY WITH A GENUINE IDEA AND INSIGHT INTO WHAT LIFE MIGHT HAVE BEEN LIKE FOR THE MEN WHO MADE THEIR LIVING BY HUNTING WHALES. Farrell (45) plays the lead role of Henry Dax in a brutal five-part 2021 mini-series about a whaling ship that sets out from Hull in the UK in the 1850s. Dax’s murderous tendencies extend beyond harpooning whales. The hard-to-watch series opens with a murder and more and then goes into bloody and gruesome scenes of seals being butchered and whales being slaughtered. “I was sent the book and my agents thought it wouldn’t necessarily be in my wheelhouse,” Farrell, who is from Dublin, told a newspaper reporter, “but within 50 pages I knew I wanted to make it. “To some people it’s bleak and violent, but I love that about it. It seems to say something very important about what drives us as human beings, so it made sense for me, somehow. It tuned into everything else I’ve done. “I’ve never played a character with so little compunction or apology, or who does things this despicable. The day they said: ‘we’re heading back to open water’, I’ll never forget the relief I felt that nobody died.”
22 | THE IRISH SCENE
The production went 81 degrees north to film and create the Arctic wasteland in which the barbaric story is set. Apparently, this is further north than any film crew – outside of documentary makers – has filmed before. The actors and crew spent weeks living in close quarters in the icy conditions. One way Farrell prepared for the role was by not wearing gloves, no matter how cold temperatures dropped, so that his hands would bleed in the same way they did for the whalers back then. The fact that he could not change out of his period appropriate costume for up to six weeks helped him become one with the character and experience of Dax. “We were right on the top of the planet, about 500 miles from the North Pole,” Farrell said. “Five weeks on the boats without being on dry land, about 500 miles from the nearest town. It felt dangerous, it felt very dangerous. It was really cold and, even though you were well covered and clothed, you could feel the body kicking into a sense of survival. But it was beautiful.”
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