Irish actor Liam Cunninghams eclectic career includes playing fan favorite Davos Seaworth in HBOs Game of Thrones and starring roles in Ken Loachs Palme DOr-winning The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Steve McQueens BAFTA-winning Hunger. Cunningham has won acting prizes at the Irish Film and Television Awards three times. Next up for him is the Amblin and Universal film The Last Voyage of the Demeter, by The Autopsy of Jane Doe filmmaker Andr vredal. The supernatural thriller, adapted from a chapter of Bram Stokers 1897 novel Dracula called The Captains Log, is set aboard the schooner Demeter, which was chartered to carry 50 unmarked wooden crates from Transylvania to London. One passenger happens to be Dracula. Cunningham plays the captain of the ship, on which strange and horrible events occur. Cunningham also has Netflix series 3 Body Problem, based on Liu Cixins bestselling books, from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, on deck for January.
Variety spoke with Cunningham before the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Whats your relationship with Bram Stoker and Dracula?
About a kilometer down the road from me is the house that Bram Stoker was born in. I drive by his birthplace probably 10 times a week. I consider him a neighbor.
What attracted you to The Last Voyage of the Demeter?
The attraction for me was that there are no movie stars in it everybodys actors. Almost all of us were from theater backgrounds and yet Amblin had the bravery not to need a marquee name. Its not a cheap movie, you can see the money on the screen. And that immediately brings, to my opinion, a certain amount of confidence, that theyre gonna get behind something like this and want to make it well, because they didnt take the easy route.
I knew Andrs work, Id only recently seen The Autopsy of Jane Doe and I really liked that that was almost a theater piece as well. I liked his use of tension.
The thing that tops the plot is always the characters. And there are wonderful characters in the movie. Youll really feel for these guys, because theyre not heroes. Theyre not military men. Theyre working men, theyre blue collar guys, who have one of the most horrendous literary monsters ever invented on a ship that they cant get away from. And in it youve got the makings of something really interesting.
What can you tell us about Thomas Wade, your character in 3 Body Problem?
Hes an extraordinary individual. Its been a long time since Ive played anything close to this guy. I suppose the irony is what they [Benioff and Weiss] wanted me to do was nothing like what they wanted me to do in Game of Thrones. He [Seaworth] was seen as a soft moral compass kind of character in Game of Thrones thats not Wade. Hes going to be a bit of a shock for people who think I play one kind of character, shall we say? Hes a bit of a handful is Mr. Wade. And hes involved in the intelligence community. Its very much grounded in theoretical physics and quantum entanglement and all sorts of scientific pursuits. However, there are those people that we come across at the beginning of the show, [that] come into the circle of Mr. Wades business, which are most definitely not scientific.
You have had a long and distinguished career, but in what way did Game of Thrones change things for you?
It not only was one of the most beautiful jobs Ive ever done and was beautifully written, it was just a fantastic character. It just gave me a little bit of security, which was most definitely new to me as a jobbing, strolling actor. It obviously raised my profile and all that sort of thing. Itd be probably written on my gravestone because it was a cultural phenomenon, it exceeded just becoming a very good television program, which nobody knew would happen, it was the audience that obviously did that. But when youre part of a cultural phenomenon, its difficult to shake, I dont want to shake it, Im very proud of the work I did, and very proud of everybody else that was in it. And the ensemble thing, Im a big fan of that, because its most difficult to write for, because they take the most amount of effort.
You have a theater background. Are you doing any more stage work?
I am constantly guilty about not going back on the stage. But as I like to say, my children have got used to wearing shoes, and theaters not great for that. Most of the actors, theyll tell you that the theater is the gymnasium for an actor. And that level of concentration, when curtain is up at eight oclock and down at 10, the two areas of concentration and fear focuses an actors mind wonderfully and lends itself quite well when youre doing much shorter periods of intense concentration. On television and film, Ive often used a ballooning metaphor, that film and television is very like ballooning. Its hours of boredom followed by seconds of terror. And in theater, its hours of terror but incredibly rewarding.
Ive been a year-and-a half, two years, at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ive put in my time. But any theater Ive walked by, Ive walked by with my head low because Im slightly ashamed of myself for not doing more of it. And I do imagine Ill do it again at some stage, but you do get the fear that youve been away for so long that those particular set of muscles, which are very different than film and television, may have atrophied beyond beyond use.
Things you didnt know about Liam Cunningham
Age: 62
Hometown: Dublin
Earlier Profession: Electrician
Favorite Book: Puckoon by Spike Milligan
Organization Hes Passionate About: Childrens charity World Vision
Character Hes Played That Hed Most Like to Have a Beer With: Thomas Wade