Originally published in Movies Plus Magaine, 2005

What is Trouble with Sex about?

I suppose it’s a very straightforward love story, set in Dublin, about a guy called Conor who is a bar man and Michelle who is a lawyer. Kind of an opposites attract idea. It basically chronicles the early days of their relationship. What we were trying to do was to tell an adult love story. It’s not a comedy; it’s not a thriller. It’s a quite straightforward love story.

You don’t see many of those now

I don’t suppose you do. I suppose people are more used to a kind of special effects, thriller ideas but where we’re coming from in Ireland, we have a modest enough budget. It was the relationship part of the first film that I enjoyed the more than the thriller aspect so I just set out to tell this very simple story. Man, woman and a couple of other characters. Then when the low budget initiative from the fiolm board came out it seemed to match that. I mean, you can’t be writing films set in deserts or whatever… Although I think someone did that!

Where did the idea for the film come from?

I was on holiday about two years ago in Ibiza and I was just surrounded by couples, all loved up. So I had some time when I was there, apart from relaxing by the pool to jot down some ideas. II just wanted to explore how a relationship starts and basically how two people get involved with each other.

Conor and Michelle’s lives are changed by a chance encounter, do you feel this happens often?

I suppose when you look at relationships, including ones you’ve had yourself, most meetings with potential partners are by chance. It might be in a bar, it might be at a party, it might be at work. Every relationship starts somewhere. As Conor was a barman and the bar was kind of central to his life, I thought it would be simple enough that she just wanders into his bar one night, fairly distressed from the break up of the other relationship. And then because she leaves the phone behind she comes back… That’s kind of a little gimmick, but the idea is that you spend more time with someone, somehow.

Trouble with Sex is very different to your last film Flick. Was this a conscious decision?

It was a mixture of things. Flick was very much written as an opportunity to direct a film. That was where I had come to in my life; I had already produced a number of shorts.  I wrote it very quickly and as a first time director I realised that there was not going to be anyone knocking on the door… We shot it on a wing and a prayer. The goodies baddies aspect of Flick was something that appealed to me at the time. Its mainly a mood piece with him at the centre of it. When it came to Trouble with Sex I had decided that I wanted to make a film about a relationship. So it wasn’t really a conscious decision, it was more what I felt.

You wrote Trouble with Sex with another writer, why did you decide to get someone else involved in this part of the process?

After Flick I realised that I wasn’t a great writer, so it was part of the plan to hook up with someone along the way to work with on ideas, so by one reason or another I hooked up with Catriona McGann and we were working on another project when I had the idea for the relationship story, so we batted ideas back and forth. Once the story was constructed that was the blue print for the film. And because the character was a man and a woman it was useful to have a woman’s input into the story, because one of the things we set out to do was create an credible, modern woman.

Explain the use of colour and sound in the movie.

They are two of your essential tools. Mike Polin filmed it and we used 35 mm and Panavision gear, so that’s the real deal you know. The budget was relatively low but a fair amount of it went into how it looked, and at a later stage, how it sounded. On the first film I made, we did not have that much money so the sound was very basic, on this one we kept some money for that and actually did some sound design, if you see it in the cinema you should be able to hear it. So that was something rather than just rely on music. I just used the tools that were there, certainly in bigger budget, Hollywood movies are full of sound design, I don’t know if they use that much original recording at all, everything seems to be put in afterwards. We tried to keep to as much good location sound; and put it through the machines afterwards so we had a good mix of design and music. It was just an opportunity to learn more about them.

Did you receive much help from the film board?

The Film Board introduced a low budget initiative which was basically aimed at films under €1 million. You get a TV deal with RTE and a video deal with Xtra Vision. They were very helpful in that they went ahead with it and it was a project that didn’t have to look for money abroad. It all happened very quickly; once we discussed the crew and cast they very much left us to ourselves. They came in at rough cut stage and made a couple of suggestions and that was it.

What was Dublin like to use as a film location?

We shot in September so you are pretty much guaranteed mild enough evenings, so we shot a fair amount of night time, evening stuff. The location for the party was a particularly good one, its quite an unusual house, its mostly glass. That was a special dress that she was wearing in the party scene that was actually created for that scene. We had to make three, which really frustrated me at first because they were dear enough… But three because we had to do a scene where she was walking in the rain, so obviously we only had one take and if we did another, she had to be wearing it dry again… I don’t know where it ended up. Maybe Renée has it…

If you’d had €50 million to make the movie, what would you have done differently?

Well I would be a very rich man!!! I would make the film for the same amount of money and pocket the other €49.5 million!!! I suppose I’d get in Sean Penn and Julia Stiles and set it in Tokyo during the Ming Dynasty or something!

What do you think people will relate to most in the movie?

I suppose the pub is very familiar and people will identify with that, but that’s rather jaded… Perhaps because everything you see on telly is set in the IFSC that has been a little over played, I have seen that apartment in the IFSC in quite a few things now… A lot of women dig Conor as a sort of northsider living on the southside and a lot of men dig Michelle who is like a southsider living on the northside.

How did you decide on casting?

Aidan was someone who I had known on and off over the years, so he was my first choice. Working with Renée was just a discovery. She came into an audition and she just had some screen presence, rather than the reading she did. I enjoy working with actors; they are the guys who help you most with the story because they are up there…

You were shooting around the same time as King Arthur. Did that cause you any problems?

Not really, no. Any time you shoot in Ireland during the summer months it is pretty competitive because that’s the best time to shoot. If you want to shoot in January it will be no problem getting the people you want, but who wants to shoot in January? We had worked with a lot of people on Flick, so a lot of those came back, and there was a bit more money than on Flick so we were able to go after a good people and let them do the job. King Arthur was a running joke because they had maybe 400 people in the art department and we had like, four… three… By the way I quite enjoyed King Arthur, I thought it was quite funny!

What’s next?

Things are looking good on a project called Blow In, which is kind of a Straw Dogs type thriller set in the country. It’s about a husband and wife, he’s Irish, she’s English and they move to a remote part of Ireland to have the good life but things go horribly wrong. Hopefully we’ll shoot it this autumn. We’re looking at casting at the moment. It will be nice to get out of Dublin… Away from the Financial Services Centre!!!