When Christopher Abbott was tapped for Christopher Andrews’ first film “Bring Them Down,” set in remote Ireland, he asked the writer-director, “Do you want to just get someone Irish to do it?”
The “It Comes at Night” actor stars alongside Irish actor Barry Keoghan in the thriller film and admitted he was intimidated by the gruesome project at first. But, the “Poor Things” actor has not shied away from a challenge before and certainly didn’t this time, he told TheWrap’s Joe McGovern at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“Otherwise, you know, we all have ADD, and we get bored if we don’t feel like we’re being sort of pushed in any sort of way,” Abbott joked at TheWrap’s 2024 TIFF Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design.
Keoghan echoed these sentiments of craving meatier films such as this one. The “Saltburn” star told TheWrap that when choosing which project to do next, he considers how it counters his previous work and what new facet of himself he can showcase.
“Challenge is all I want. I don’t want to show up and do something that I could do in my sleep,” Keoghan said.
“Bring Them Down” follows two rival farmers Michael (Abbott) and Jack (Keoghan) in rural Ireland. The two and their shepherding families battle on several fronts: with one another, within their own families and over their beloved sheep. The film illuminates the bleak, grim realities of the darkness that drives these characters to extreme violence. However, Andrews clarified that no sheep were actually harmed in the filming of the gory thriller.
Keoghan also noted that working with the first-time director on this type of character-driven story required a different skillset, but one that he embraced.
“It’s not about the scale of the movie and the budget. If anything, it’s quite intimidating when the budget’s massive, and sometimes I don’t get to feel I express or get the creative juices going enough,” he said. “A movie like this is a lot more intimate, and there’s a lot more required. You got to bring vulnerability forward.”
Working alongside Irish actors like Keoghan and Colm Meaney, Abbott said that his preparation for the film felt almost like school in order to nail the accent and let the material speak for itself on set.
“It was a little tedious, but you kind of have to do that tedious work so that when you show up to set, you can feel free to play and have fun,” the “Girls” star said of mastering his Irish accent.
“Bring Them Down” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival Sunday night, and the first-time director expressed his gratitude to the film lovers in attendance.
“The audiences are just, like, electric. They just want it to succeed. And it played like gangbusters last night,” Andrews said Monday. “There were laughs and gasps, and it was like there was a conversation. There was a relationship between the audience and the screen.”
“For me, it’s a celebration,” Keoghan added of coming together with filmmakers and fellow artists in Toronto. “Getting to be in a community of people that is getting recognized and celebrated, and everyone’s kind of clicking … it’s a space that just doesn’t feel real.”
Watch the full interview with the stars and director in the video above.
