Tom Vaughan Lawlor has defended new RTE drama Charlie, saying it’s not his job to get audiences to like his character.
Tom plays press advisor PJ Mara in the new series, alongside actor Aidan Gillen who plays Charlie Haughey, and was criticised for not making his character likeable.
But the IFTA winner has hit out at critics.
“It’s not my job to make the character likeable. It’s my job to interpret the script and serve the drama,” he said.
“There’s nothing worse than an actor on stage or screen asking an audience to like him.”
Speaking to Sean O’Rourke on RTE Radio 1, Tom said he spent a huge amount of time researching his character.
“YouTube is a great resource. There was a brilliant four-part documentary on Charlie I watched,” he explained.
Award winner: Tom has already won an IFTA for Best Actor | VIPIRELAND.COM
“And an ex-journalist wrote a book about Mara so those were great in terms of filling out his history and context, how he operated and different people’s opinions of him.
“PJ’s the only person labelled as Charlie’s friend – he occupies a space between the man as a politician and human being.
“He was honest about the man’s flaws and he played that as a strength when dealing with the press.
“He was slightly off the wall and irreverent, eloquent, quixotic, which was appealing for foreign and Irish journalists,” he added.
Drama: Tom is best known for playing Nidge in Love/Hate | RTE
Tom revealed he even met with PJ, now 72, and was scared the former politician wouldn’t like what he was doing.
“I did meet PJ, he was very generous. I was very wary because I thought he may not want anything to do with it.
“He was as charming and as irreverent and dynamic as I’d read. I just wanted to get a sense of his role, a sense of the culture and he gave me that and I was so thankful.”
