THE STARS OF the Young Offenders, you probably won’t be surprised to discover, tend to sport much less dramatic hairstyles in their off-duty hours.
They tend to leave the eye-catching leisurewear on set too – but that doesn’t mean they don’t still get recognised as their alter-egos Conor and Jock.
It tends not to happen so much in Dublin, they said, but in Cork it’s a different story altogether.
“You go home to Cork – people are so proud of the film, they call it their own. [It happens] especially when we’re together because of the sheer shape of us,” Alex Murphy said, as the pair sat down for a chat with TheJournal.ie this week.
“It’s the silhouettes,” agreed Chris Walley – or “the lanky one”, as his character is regularly described in the new series based on the hit 2016 film.
Such has been the success of the original film, that Walley was recently approached by a woman from Germany who, he recounted, insisted that the pair were “huge” in her home country.
Second series
The series, which debuted on RTÉ 2 on Thursday night, was commissioned by BBC Three and produced in association with RTÉ.
The exploits of Conor and Jock were aired to their widest audience so far last night as the first episode was broadcast on BBC One, straight after The Graham Norton Show.
BBC Comedy announced during the week that it had already ordered another six episodes of the series, which follows the two Cork teens as they hatch plans to help distract from their home lives and their regular run-ins with their school principal.
If you’ve seen the film but haven’t heard much about the plot of the series so far you may want to note that it’s essentially a ‘reimagining’ of the world inhabited by the two hapless lads.
In other words, it’s written as if the events of the film never happened – at the start of the first episode Conor’s long-suffering mother (Hilary Rose) is becoming more and more frustrated by her son’s behaviour and his insistence on constantly hanging around with Jock, who she regards as a less-than-positive influence.
PJ Gallagher returns – but he’s been recast as the exasperated school headmaster. The trailer for the second episode, broadcast this week, suggests he’ll have a central role in episode two – as the two main characters attempt to forge closer relationships with his two daughters.
We also spoke to Hilary and PJ as the four main actors did the press rounds at a Dublin hotel earlier this week.
Hilary, we were interested to learn, took a decidedly ‘method’ approach to her role, learning how to gut fish at the English Market so she could bring that extra degree of verisimilitude to the role of Mairead.
PJ, who’s such a died-in-the-wool Dub that he even presents a podcast called ‘Dubland’, ran us through some handy Cork slang words he picked up on set…
Hands up who could do with a “bazzer” this weekend?
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