The new series “explores an epic story inspired by one of Europe’s most famous and enduring dynasties”
Actors Anthony Boyle and Louis Partridge have opened up to Belfast Live on new Netflix series House of Guinness.
The new series, which is now available to stream, is set in 19th-century Dublin and New York and “explores an epic story inspired by one of Europe’s most famous and enduring dynasties” – the Guinness Family.
The story begins immediately after the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness, “the man responsible for the extraordinary success of the Guinness brewery, and the far-reaching impact of his will on the fate of his four adult children, Arthur, Edward, Anne, and Ben, as well as on a group of Dublin characters who work and interact with the phenomenon that is Guinness.”
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West Belfast actor Anthony Boyle stars as Arthur, with Louis Partridge starring as Edward.
Chatting to Belfast Live on why they decided to do the series, Boyle joked: “We heard Guinness and just said yeah…”
He added: “Steven Knight is such an amazing writer, and I read the first two episodes and was completely blown away by them. I loved Arthur as a character. I thought ‘Yeah, this is something that I want to do’.”
Partridge said: “Similarly… and then the script was great, and Netflix I know and love, and I heard Anthony was interested in the project. I waited until he’d accepted, then I thought, right. Let’s go…”
On their fellow cast members, Louis said: “I think it was really well cast, actors like Jack Gleeson, Dervla Kirwan, they’re just really class acts, they know what they’re doing, they’re great at it. It was a real treat to be surrounded such talent.”
Anthony added: “We were so lucky to have actors like Dervla and Jack in it. Jack Gleeson was so amazing in Game of Thrones and he stopped acting for so many years, and went and set up puppet theatre company and all sorts of stuff. To get him back doing such a prominent role in our series, we were very, very lucky. And he’s phenomenal.”
The West Belfast actor told how Arthur Guinness “was such a fun character to play”.
He explained: “I loved him on the page, and when I read him, I immediately got a sense of how he would talk and how he would move, and sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes you’re reading the script and you’re like, ‘I don’t really know who this guy is, I can’t find a way in’.
“You could do a lot of work on it, whereas Stephen wrote him in such a sort of three dimensional way that I thought, ‘this is definitely someone I’ll be able to sort of inhabit’.”
And on playing Edward Guinness, Louis said: “He’s very different to me and speaks very differently, thinks about different things, so I had to do a bit of mental gymnastics, trying to get what makes him tick, what is his biggest fear, and hope and dream? And it all boiled down to the business, all roads led to Guinness for Edward.”
Anthony explained how the brothers are “very different”.
“I think Edward thinks with his head, thinks very pragmatically and logically. Arthur thinks with his emotions and his sexuality, he sort of thinks with his body as opposed to his head”, he said.
The pair also explained how they “immediately hit it off” when they started working together, enjoying filming in Manchester in Liverpool.
“We immediately worked in the same way where we took the work seriously, but not ourselves… and wanted to do what’s best and honour this amazing story and amazing script”, Anthony told.
“We were filming in Manchester and Liverpool, which are great cities, great craic. We were out having sesh, and having fun, we had such a good time together.”
House of Guinness is now available to stream on Netflix.
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