Love/Hate's Peter Coonan starred alongside daughter Beth in King Frankie

One of his children played his on-screen daughter - Peter told how it’s “a really exciting time” in his career — and how he’s “proud of where I am and what I’ve done”

Peter Coonan has told how his new movie King Frankie was “a kind of passion project” — and opened up about what he “immediately connected with” about the project.

The film, which opened in theatres in Ireland yesterday, is a story of greed, grief, redemption and hope.

King Frankie tells the story of Frankie, a taxi driver and the owner of a small taxi firm, played by Peter.

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On the day of his father’s funeral, Frankie finds himself having to confront a traumatic event from his past, which took place a decade earlier.

As he grapples with the weight of this reckoning, his journey toward forgiveness—and ultimately redemption—begins.

The movie is the debut feature from writer and director Dermot Malone, with the cast also including Conor MacNeill, Ruairi O'Connor, Lynn Rafferty, Olivia Caffrey, Ally Ni Chiarain, and Owen Roe. It also marks the acting debut of acclaimed Irish rapper Rejjie Snow.

King Frankie had its world premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival earlier this year.

Since then, it has screened at a number of festivals around the globe, including the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Galway Film Fleadh.

Peter told Chic how “amazing” it is to have the movie out in cinemas now — and how King Frankie had been “a kind of passion project”.

He said, “It’s something I’m really, really proud of and I hope that people get something out of it, that they enjoy it and go see it, as well.

“I really hope that we’re turning the corner, in regards to Irish people supporting Irish films. I think our industry is thriving at the moment, both at home and abroad.

"We just need to keep that going.”

The Love/Hate actor told how it’s important “support our homegrown work, so that it can be propelled outside and our directors, writers, and actors can also work internationally as well”.

Peter added that having a film in Ireland is “always a big moment”.

He said, “It’s something that means so much to me and was such a kind of passion project.

“Something that I immediately connected with was this idea of attempting to portray someone who was dealing with so much, and that there was a short of redemption and a short of a second chance.

“There was this idea that you could come from the brink and kind of soothe your soul and have some kind of awakening.”

Peter told how the film is about a “man who, in one part of his life, was drawn in and seduced by the circulating idea of success that was permitting our shores at that time”.

He said, “He got seduced into it, and basically forgot what was important in life.

“We find him, the younger Frankie, on the day of his daughter’s birthday. It’s quite a lavish birthday for an eight year old.”

The actor added that there’s more to the birthday party than initially meets the eye.

He continued, “We can kind of see, as a viewer, that things are falling around him. His wife isn’t aware of what’s happening. And he’s kind of clutching on for dear life.

“Simultaneously, we’re telling the story of him ten years on, when his life is in a very different place. It’s on the day of his father’s funeral. He’s a taxi man at this stage.”

Peter told how things have changed for Frankie at that stage, and that “he’s lost a lot of what he had, but without being too cheesy, he’s gained perspective.”

He continued, “It’s that struggle of the past and the present, and trying to come to the grips of it all — dealing with the guilt and the shame, and everything that comes with it, with the idea of the trauma that he’s held inside for all of those years.”

The actor also opened up about navigating the Frankie from the past and the Frankie of the present day — and told how the two timelines were filmed separately.

He said, “I mean, I kind of asked the question a few weeks before.

“For hair, makeup and everything else, it made a lot more sense to do the younger version first and then to let the hair grow. They did an amazing job on aging an already aging man — well, we’re all aging, aren’t we?

“We shot the younger Frankie first, which made sense to me to be able to inhabit that work and live in the Celtic Tiger mindset going into it, and while having the older Frankie in the back of my head.

“I didn’t need him in my head while I was playing the younger Frankie at all. They weren’t connected, really.

“I could play that with loose abandon, nearly, and the frivolous nature of the greed and the desperate desire for success — and for other people’s adulation, I think, as well.

“You’re constantly looking for someone to back you, and someone else is holding the power stick and you’re looking for someone else to tell you it’s OK to sign on this deal and — it’s all very high octane.

“He was so embroiled in this world, he couldn’t see what was around him that was important — his child, his wife and his family — and got involved in the wrong walk of life.

“He flew too close to the sun and got too embroiled in the ideal of success, whatever that was at the time.”

Peter added that when it comes to King Frankie, he hopes that audiences take away that “life is there to be lived with compassion and love — and that joy is available for everybody”.

The Limerick native told how it’s “so amazing” to see the response to Irish actors on a global stage — and opened up about what it is that he reckons audiences are connecting with.

He said, “I think actors that I’ve seen in the last while — from Cillian to Colin to Barry to Eve Hewson to Saoirse to Sarah Greene and everyone in-between — it’s always very honest portrayal and always very grounded in truth, passion and very connected to both the earth and the spiritual nature of what is the performance.

“I remember someone saying that Irish actors, they’re not lateral. They’re vertical, in that we’re connected to both the ground and to the sky. We can bring the past and the earth in, and we’ve a way of portraying this honestly.

“I think people are connecting with that on screen.

“And it’s so amazing to see us getting right to the very top of the pyramid — and I think it is that.

“I’m watching Colin in The Penguin at the moment, and it’s a phenomenal performance. Cillian last year in Oppenheimer, it was like watching a documentary about Oppenheimer that Cillian happened to be in — that was as real as it got, the performative nature seems to have been just stripped away.

“Barry is the same in Saltburn. I haven’t seen The Outrun yet, but every time I see Saoirse Ronan, it’s the same. And Eve Hewson in The Perfect Couple— it’s stripped to the truthful nature of the character, and you’re very drawn in by the performance.”

Peter told how acting was “always something that I wanted to do” as a career — but he didn’t think it was an option at first “until I got the part in Love/Hate or I did Between The Canals”.

He said, “My dad saw it when I was younger. I was in college and I wasn’t really one of studying — I was one for hanging in the general vicinity of the library, but not necessarily within the library itself.

“But once I started getting work in film and TV, my dad was surprised about how early I was out of the house to get picked up or go in to meet the director in town.

“Myself and Mark, we worked in town before we did Between The Canals. We used to walk around for hours on end, just kind of watching the different people we were trying to portray.

“He’d be like, ‘where are you going?’ And I was like, ‘I’m going into town to look around and soak it all up’.

“And then when I was a student, I was up at like, half five or six every morning. He said it was the first time that he saw that kind of spark in me. Then, I started to believe it could be something I could do.
“There’s still obviously days where you do sit back and go, ‘God, life might be easier if I did a 9 to 5’ — it’d certainly be more consistent.

“But then, when you do work that ignites a flame in you — which this did — it’s also challenging, but you realise that it’s the only thing I could’ve done really, I think.”

Peter told how one of his daughters, Beth, starred alongside him in King Frankie as his on-screen daughter — and opened up about how he would feel if any of his children wanted to follow in his footsteps and pursue acting as career in the future.

He said, “What I would say is that I’d make sure they had something else that they could do while acting. If they were creative, it’d be, ‘would you like to write short stories?’, ‘are you into design?’

“One of my daughters loves the idea of making her own dresses at some point. So I’d be like, ‘do a course in IDT — fabric design’. Or even if they were into being a mechanic, an electrician, a spark, a plumber or a carpenter — something else to have.

“Someone asked me recently about being an actor, and I said, ‘why don’t you go off and do three years as a carpenter, you could do it anywhere around the world? Or any trade, for that matter.’ You could go off, when you’re not working — and it wouldn’t be your whole obsession, you know.”
The Bad Sisters actor recalled working with another actor recently — “an inspirational guy” — who is writing a book at the moment.

He said, “I said to him, ‘what was the best thing about writing a book?’

“He said, ‘you know what, it was the most freeing experience I had — it meant I could still enjoy acting, but it wasn’t my main goal. My main goal was to get the book finished and get each draft and each edit done, so that it meant I was free to do what I loved, as well.

“‘It also gave me a structure and didn’t make me overthink when I was auditioning or preparing or doing anything else’.

“I think that really struck a chord with me.

"I would ask them to find something else, as well, that’s — without saying steadier, because my dad told me to get a degree to have something to fall back on and I didn’t listen to it. But something more practical, maybe.”

And with King Frankie out and Kathleen Is Here coming out later this month, Peter told how it’s “a really exciting time” in his career — and how he’s “proud of where I am and what I’ve done.”

He said, “I can think back and obviously everything that brought me here, it’s been huge and had a big effect on where I am as a performer, as an actor, and as a person.

“But right now, I think, is a really exciting time. Some of the work I did, it’s coming out, obviously — but it’s also having somewhat of an impact.

“The two films that are coming out, they’re saying something that reflects our society and, to me, are important films that are tackling something and are holding a mirror up to a society both back then and now — and maybe we can learn from for the future.

“Right now, I’m proud of where I am and what I’ve done.”

King Frankie is open in Irish cinemas now.

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