‘It’s funny and dark’: Cork actor stars in new RTÉ crime drama

Ballinlough actor Cillian O’Sullivan has taken on Matt Murdock in Marvel’s Daredevil, played the first-ever Cork character in Star Trek, and is now tackling serious crime.

O’Sullivan plays a Detective Sergeant in RTÉ’s exciting new drama, The Galway Bay Murders, which starts this weekend.

He admits that he is wary of police dramas, saying that “a lot of [police shows] you are just conveying a story. [The character] is not the primary focus, and that’s not why I got into acting”.

But he says he knew immediately that this show was different.

“When I got the script, I noticed that it was very character-focused, with so many individual characters. I knew it would be different,” says O’Sullivan.

“I thought it was funny and dark. It had so much going for it, and then Kate Mulgrew was in it. I’ve been one of her biggest fans since I was little, so I wanted to be a part of it very badly.”

O’Sullivan’s love of Mulgrew stems from his life-long passion for Star Trek, of which Mulgrew is a huge part, having played Captain Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager.

That passion became a dream come true when O’Sullivan starred as Dr Roger Korby in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, marking the first time a Cork accent had been heard in the long-running space franchise.

In The Galway Bay Murders, which starts on RTÉ1 on Sunday, November 8 at 9.30pm, Mulgrew plays a New York detective who arrives in Galway on a transfer programme, working at a station run by another celebrated Star Trek actor, Colm Meaney.

Did the three Star Trek alumni reminisce about their time in space while in Galway?

“I barely brought up my involvement in Star Trek because you’ve got Colm Meaney and Kate Mulgrew who are the very fabric of Star Trek, and I felt like I just dipped my toe.

“I sat across from Colin and Kate, listening to them talk about their time on Star Trek, which was bizarre because I am such a big fan.”

My interview with O’Sullivan takes place just two days after the death of legendary actor Patrick Stewart, and he recalls a childhood encounter with him.

“I was in the Cork School of Music for a while, and we went to the Lawrence Olivier Theatre with this play that we were doing. I think it was a competition for young performers.

“Patrick Stewart came backstage to see us. I’ll never forget thinking, ‘Oh my god, there’s Captain Picard’.”

O’Sullivan, who has lived and worked in the U.S for several years and appeared in shows including Chicago P.D. and The Blacklist, relished the opportunity to work at home again.

In the RTÉ drama, Mulgrew plays an NYPD detective, Lieutenant Nora Savage, who starts an exchange with the Gardaí in Galway, when a body is found on a remote Connemara bog.

Pulled onto the investigation, she soon discovers the dead woman was a climate activist, leading them to the Free Farm Estate, where her boyfriend goes on the run.

O’Sullivan says he really enjoyed getting to grips with his character, Ger Hayes, who has made it to detective sergeant despite being a bit of a devil.

“Ger puts his foot in it every 10 seconds, and he’s got a self-destructive streak. He’s got some insecurities and issues at home that I don’t want to spoil, but he has very little filter.

“In the interrogation room, he’ll say something that gets everybody turning their heads, but that same side of him can be a strength when he is dealing with suspects.

“He is very good at keeping people off balance.”

There is a special someone who travels with O’Sullivan no matter where he goes to work, and Galway was no exception, becoming a new playground for Neptune, his much-loved five-and-a-half-year-old rescue Doberman.

“Neptune comes everywhere with me. That’s part of the deal.

“When I get offered a job, I say, listen, you can have me stay in a shed, just as long as it’s dog-friendly. The dog has to come.”

O’Sullivan says Neptune had a great time while he filmed the RTÉ drama.

“He had the flight from New York and, once he got out of the crate outside the production office, he was sniffing the air. In Ireland, the air is so clean, and he loves that. He had a wonderful time.

“Afterwards, we didn’t rush home. I spent some time in Cork, and my family got to meet him.”

Before heading back to Queens, O’Sullivan made a film, Aya, which was filmed in Northern Ireland and written and directed by Marty Stalker.

“I did a music video with Marty years ago for a wonderful singer from Belfast called Robert Brown, and I immediately thought that Marty was a great director. I loved how he communicated. He made Aya based on his own experiences.”

O’Sullivan explains that Stalker was a Royal Marine in the British Army who developed PTSD after serving in Afghanistan.

“He tried different therapies and found that using ayahuasca (a South American traditional medicine) helped him recover, so he has written a film about a group of people who go on an ayahuasca retreat, and it’s about what they are dealing with that brought them there in the first place.

“We shot it quickly, it was done cleverly, and I’m excited to see how it comes out.”

The Cork actor also works in theatre and says his ideal career would involve performing on stage and screen every year.

“Performing on stage allows you to put the real full force of what you have in your chest,” he explains.

“Whatever charisma that makes you interesting for somebody to watch you, you can put the full force of that into the crowd on stage.

“When it comes to screen, the actors I admire, the way I like to work, is that it doesn’t look like acting at all.

“It’s why I really enjoyed The Galway Bay Murders; there was so much character work.”