With a role in Transformers, a model fiancee and a string of Hollywood movies on the way, it seems Jack Reynor has it all. But the Wicklow actor hasn’t had an easy ride, according to his mother Tara. The human activist has said things were extremely difficult when Jack was born in Colorado. “We didn’t have the means to take care of ourselves because we didn’t have any money,” she said. “My dad was very ill at the time. I had just had him. We’d had a very bad snow and I couldn’t stay out of work because we couldn’t afford for me to stay out of work. 
Lucky: Jack’s life has changed since Transformers 4
“We had no electricity. We had no telephone. And we had no shovels to dig ourselves out of it. “So my dad and I dug ourselves out of the house with tea-trays because we had no shovels.” Speaking to the Sunday Independent Tara revealed she was even forced to bring Jack to a soup kitchen when she couldn’t afford food. “(I) went down with my 11-day-old son in my arms to the local soup kitchen. And I was the only white person at the soup kitchen,” she said. “The local church paid for our rent and the local charity paid for our electricity.” 
On set: Tara with Jack and Madeline during filming of Transformers
“So here were are 22 years later. But it didn’t just happen overnight. It has been a lifetime in the happening for this remarkable man from these remarkable circumstances. Once arriving back in Wicklow, Tara and Jack faced more issues. Tara was a single mother arriving home with a two-year-old, and they still had no money. “There was nothing but a mattress and a little coffee table when we arrived. My grand parents and I stayed in the living room on the mattress for the first while. “Then we got this TV, a little white TV with a couple of different buttons for channels but you had to stick a match-stick into the power-socket to make it work.” 
Loved up: Jack and fiance Madeline Mulqueen | BRIAN MCEVOY
Thankfully a local woman gave Tara and Jack duvets. “Before that, we were taking the curtains off the windows and using the curtains as bed-linen. “It was very difficult and hard for us,” Tara said. And Jack admitted some people think he has had a lucky life, and had it easy. “I get it from people a lot: ‘This has just all fallen in your way. You’re an incredibly lucky person.’ 
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“People don’t realise that it was, actually, an incredibly hard slog.” Meanwhile Jack’s mother revealed Jack barely has a relationship with his father, admitting he didn’t want to be involved in his life. “If there is a guy who is not really interested involved, it is only a burden and a heart ache,” Tara explained. “So it was very much, you know, cut the cord and we’ll keep the channels of communication open.” 
Winner: Jack won the IFTA for Best Actor in 2013 | VIPIRELAND.COM
“And they have been kept open, but there were no nappies paid for.” “There was no maintenance paid for. I never wanted any of it. There was Irish pride. Jack’s father and I had no common ground to build a relationship with. “He played no role whatsoever,” “other than the occasional calls at Christmas. I bear him no malice. He was just a young guy who thought he’d messed up his life.
