DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN screens on Wednesday 9th of September and Friday 11th September as part of The Cambridge Film Festival’s “Lates @ The Light” series. Having found her sister brutally murdered in the disused toilets of her unnamed Irish hamlet, trainee sharpshooter Cleo (Emma Eliza Regan) decides to take revenge. However, as she delves deeper and deeper into a web of violence, the target becomes less and less clear. Sometimes the things you are looking for are closer to home than you think.

Actor Emma Eliza Regan sat down with Edd Elliott to answer some questions for Take One on DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN and her involvement in the project.

Hi Emma! Thank you so much for agreeing to answer some questions for us. I really enjoyed DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, and you play such a central role in the drama. Maybe you could start by just outlining how you became involved in the project.

Patrick Ryan got in touch with me when he was in pre-production. I knew it was something very original, and liked the role.

The film is an Irish Western – which are two words we don’t often see together. Cleo, your character, is very laconic and seems to prefer keeping her thoughts to herself, I guess in the mould of Sergio Leone films. How did you go about constructing the part? Did you look back at other westerns for influences?

No, I wanted it to make it completely fresh and contemporary, have our own unique slant, so I remained focused on my character and performance rather than looking back at the classic Western villain that’s already been done.

The director had suggested the actor/director Takeshi Kitano in the Japanese HANA-BI for inspiration – he had this uniquely violent performance, and Nicolas Refn’s film ONLY GOD FORGIVES also had that macabre and ultraviolence, so we drew mostly from that style rather than the classic Sergio Leone type of Westerns.

I was pushing myself all the time in those challenging and intense dramas …

In regards the laconic character, that was such an essential part of her, and again getting into a dark place in regards the mind-set of revenge – she’s extremely calm but calculated, she’s also been hurt – her sister’s gone, so it’s another extension of her absolute strength and resolve – a way of detaching herself.

What really struck me, as you’ve described, is the real atmosphere of violence in DARKNESS, a really strong brooding sense that these characters are willing to really hurt each other. How do you go about communicating that through your character Cleo?

That sense of real, raw violence was vital – the whole plot is hinged with revenge – so of course that was something I had to really examine. For me, it was never about simply portraying violence, it was diving into the psychology behind the revenge, all the pent up rage she had, and I could completely access her motives for that – there is nothing more painful than being hurt by the person you trusted the most in the world – and that’s what Cleo was experiencing with Robin. I also recognised that no gun, no violence could ever affect her, since nothing would be as bad as the pain she was experiencing in her own personal, private world. She’s also fiercely loyal towards her sister, so when you get behind her ‘tooth for tooth, eye for eye’ level of complete devotion, I could understand all her vengefulness and get to the point of violence.

I guess in some ways you are no stranger to intense dramas. You’ve played roles in LOVE ETERNAL, as well as three films from Ivan Kavanagh, whose THE CANAL was a big hit at last year’s Cambridge Film Festival. Did you make a conscious choice that these were the sorts of films you wanted to have roles in? Is there something about parts in horror films or thrillers that you find particularly interesting to play?

Well yeah – but I’ve been moving away gradually. I was thrown into the deep end, my first role was on TIN CAN MAN at seventeen, possibly Ivan Kavanagh’s darkest work: it was described as ‘’one of the most harrowing and disturbing cinema experiences I have seen this decade’’. So that received a lot of critical success, and from there we made two more with the Irish Film Board – both which were intense shooting processes for weeks, with a tight crew, and long takes on harrowing subject matters. So I guess I was pushing myself all the time in those challenging and intense dramas, and the roles I was landing were these flawed, complex and damaged young girls with a certain darkness. A sixteen year old found hanging from a tree in a forest, in Brendan Muldowney’s LOVE ETERNAL, for instance.

… she’s extremely calm but calculated, she’s also been hurt …

Now, I am in a different place, and I don’t find tortured young girls as interesting anymore. It’s a very self-absorbed quality in a person who has to discuss their past demons all the time, by your mid-twenties you’re over it and you’ve an awareness of the world. So, I guess I had my time as the edgy schoolgirl, I had ten years of it, and I’m not that interested in remaining sixteen. I’ve matured so much in my personal life that my values and tastes have changed – I’ve a lot more importance on integrity and relevance now, films with a back bone, strong and dignified women with their head screwed on – I am also interested in directing and writing, I’ve my own things I want to say and do, I’d like to just build a set of films I’m proud of.

You began your career on stage in areas such as ballet and contemporary dance. To an outsider (such as myself) there seems a really wide gulf between ballet and dance and roles like in DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN. Do you see it that way? Do you prepare differently or think about this kind of work differently?

Not really, if anything being a dancer required me to be far tougher and harder than any Cleo or dark drama ever will. Ballet is one of the toughest thing anyone can ever do, they just conceal it so well, they’ve developed such grace in pain – and that’s possibly something which I’ve brought with me. In films I enjoy the actual process – from the scripts, working on a set, the overall process, plus you can use your voice. I need that.

Your next role is in NURSERY over here in England. Could you tell us a bit about the role?

Yeah, it’s a psychological thriller shooting outside London, it’s a very smart and distinctive, from the cult writer Dan Schaffer (DOGHOUSE, THE SCRIBBLER) and the creature effects veteran Karl Derrick. I play the lead role, Sunny Black. She’s a wild, self-destructive punk singer who returns to the rundown family mansion left to her by her father. The only other person living there is Maynard, who sexually abused her when she was a child. It’s extremely taxing, so my head is focused on that at the moment.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN screens at 9pm on Wednesday 9th September and at 4.30pm on Friday 11th September, both at The Light cinema.

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