There’s something about romantic comedies. And the genre, which felt like it was on the way out for a while and which has certainly seen a resurgence in the last year or so, has a pretty great new movie to add to the list of rewatchable gems in Netflix’s Irish Wish.
Fangirlish had a chance to talk to the movie’s leading man Ed Speleers about starring in a romantic comedy, finding the humanity in different kinds of characters, that hilarious fight scene, and getting to film in Ireland.
And Speleers was, from the get-go, very clear-eyed about the importance of the genre, telling us that romantic comedies “have such a stronghold because they are normally full of hope, right? They’re normally uplifting, they’re escapism. And we do, for all intents and purposes, live in a world that is incredibly turbulent. So, to have films that take us away somewhere and offer hope and humor and the idea that we can aspire to something else, I think is a great world to be working within.”
Plus, Speleers added, “There’s certainly a real skill involved in being a part of them because it is a very different way of working. And the way you piece scenes together is definitely very different to doing a drama or a thriller or anything like that.”
He would know. He’s been Eragon. He’s been Jack Crusher. He’s been Stephen Bonnet. He’s been Rhys Montrose. In this, he’s James Thomas. All very different characters. For Speleers, however, it’s all about “being challenged every time.”
“For me, it’s about pushing my own abilities and trying to stretch myself in ways I haven’t each time. And yes, doing a romantic comedy is definitely something I hadn’t pursued before. And that’s why I wanted to do it because I’ve been playing more intense roles, whatever they are, you know, like Jack Crusher in Star Trek, who was actually …he was somewhere between the lines of good and bad, but he would be your more classic hero figure.”
“It’s really important for me to push these boundaries. It would be incredibly dull for me to just play one type of character.”
In Irish Wish, he gets to embody James, a character that, by his own description, “isn’t too far removed from myself.” In fact, James ends up being a character that, because he’s always looking and watching “comes in and he offers up another way for [Maddie] to see the world, and maybe for her to realize that what she thought she wanted in life isn’t what she needs.
But Maddie is also, at the same time, helping him figure out his own place in the world. The whole thing feels very early old-school rom-com coded, and it’s part of what makes Irish Wish work so well, that the two characters are learning from each other, that they don’t come together because the other option doesn’t work, but because they actually do work.
For Speleers, that’s a message that applies not even just to the rom-com aspect. “Every day in society we go and encounter people, and you never know what you’re going to learn from the individuals that you do encounter. And I think it’s an important lesson to take from the film, that if you have your eyes wide open and you’re there to listen and not to judge, you might be surprised at what you find because of that.”
That’s the serious part, but the movie does, of course, have funny bits, and perhaps the funniest is the Paul and James fight at the end. Speleers does, of course, have a lot of experience with fight sequences, but most of his experience has come in what he called “very dramatic or serious situations.” This, however, was “a play.” But you still have to “be very careful, of course.” And Speleers admitted that “Alex [Vlahos] and I definitely took a few bumps and scrapes and I think one of us might have hit someone in the wrong part at some point.”
“There were definitely a couple of squeaky moments, but doing that sort of almost slapstick physical comedy fight was an enjoyable thing. And yes, maybe James was taking it a bit too seriously.”
And though, as someone who just came back from gorgeous Ireland, getting to the Cliffs of Moher is not nearly as easy as the movie makes it seem. “A little creative liberty,” Speleers called it, not that it mattered because we both agreed Ireland is pretty much worth the visit anyway. And if the country is worth the visit, and the movie is well worth the watch, the creative liberty is well …just part of the magic of it all.
Can we wish to just go there?
Irish Wish is now available to stream on Netflix.
