TRIBECA INTERVIEWS: First words from Damien Molony on TIGER RAID

May 2, 2016

First Damien Molony Tiger Raid interviews revealed!

Tiger Raid made its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival last month and new interviews with the stars and creators of the feature film are beginning to appear.

Damien plays Paddy in the movie, a “two-hander” focussing on a pair of Irish mercenaries on an increasingly volatile mission together across the Iraq desert. During the job, truths from their pasts emerge testing their loyalties and threatening to tear them apart.

In three new interviews with the Military Press, Shockya and Sag Harbor Express, our fave actor speaks for the first time about his role and the experience of shooting in Jordan. Each reveals exclusive insights on his character and the film, below are our highlights.

‘Tiger Raid’ brings the intensity | Military Press

In the first interview with the Military Press Damien describes the complexity of the two main characters, their relationship with the audience and each other:

Joe is kind of the monster and Paddy is the hero and your sense of these characters continually shift and your emotions change…That to me is very exciting for the audience to watch… The audience’s loyalty is shifting but also the characters for each other.”

Although set in Iraq, Tiger Raid was shot in the scorching Jordan desert, a stunning backdrop for the movie. Filming took just three and a half weeks and the actors found the time frame and environment a positive experience. Damien shared his thoughts on the intense process:

doubled with the fact that we were thrown into this environment that neither of us are used to. You put two Irish guys in the middle of the Jordan desert and you’ve already got something for nothing in terms of story. You have two very, very volatile dangerous people who are not really sure what’s happening and don’t trust each other and they don’t like the other person. To be dumped into Jordan for three and a half weeks and we all landed back in Ireland and I said, “what just happened?”. It’s an amazing period of time where there were no rules.

We made so much of every day and we were on location most of the time. We were very close to where we shot and were able to do a huge amount in such a short time. Honestly, shooting any longer and we probably would have done the film a disservice because there was such a great energy to the film. It really, really helped.

It was all fast so we kept each other sane but it was so rewarding. It is so dialogue heavy and that can be tough for an actor but honestly, it felt like pure acting because the camera were left to roll for so long. You found the relationship between the two characters organically and again it was hugely rewarding and something you might not necessarily get on a bigger picture or one with more money attached.

When he first saw the film, Damien was thrilled with the outcome.

We are really proud of it and thrilled as well. The type of story and film they created is so beautifully shot and it really shows Jordan wonderfully and in the beginning shots, the wide desert shots are really spectacular.

(To read the full interview, also with Damien’s co-lead Brian Gleeson (Joe), visit the Military Press website. Spoilers alert!)

2016 Tribeca Film Festival Interview: The Cast and Crew Talk Tiger Raid | Shockya

More insights from Damien are revealed in the second interview via Shockya, which also features Brian Gleeson, director Simon Dixon and Producer Gareth Coulam Evans.

Sharing his thoughts on first seeing the script, Damien talked about discovering the film and his character.

There was a huge buzz among Irish actors about the script for this film. So I read it and loved it. I was drawn to the fact that the relationship between the two characters is constantly shifting…. [they are] two fish out of water in this violate environment, so things could go wrong and become very dangerous for them. I loved the character, and developed an innate feeling of who he was.”

He went on to speak about the training the two co-stars had for the film.

To play a mercenary, you have to look like one…He had some amazing advice, including how a former soldier, who’s now a mercenary, would carry himself… [how he] would act if he was dropped into the center of Jordan, where it was 45-50 degrees Celsius heat, while covered in this military gear. The heat and noise of the world we were dropped into was just as important as all of the script work that we had done.”

Speaking about Jordan, Damien again highlighted the importance of the film’s location.

[we] couldn’t imagine shooting it anywhere else. Jordan is the character in the movie. It was vital for us to be in the sand there.”

(To read the full interview head over to Shockya. Spoilers alert!)

TFF: Gleeson, Molony, Dixon, and Evans on the War Thriller “Tiger Raid” | Sag Harbor Express

Photo credit © Sag Harbor Express

The most recent interview to come out of Tribeca, an exclusive via the Sag Harbor Express, offers revealing insights from the whole Tiger Raid team.

Damien spoke at more length about Paddy and Joe, and the psychological thriller aspect of the film.

That was one of the things that attracted me to the project. The power balance is changing between the characters all the time and they’re taunting each other and suspicious of each other. In a Hollywood movie, they might be friends but they don’t know each other before they meet in the movie and they don’t particularly like each other. That constantly shifting, volatile terrain that they’re both on was hugely interesting to me, as was seeing the psychological plays each character makes constantly to undermine the other.”

Joe is the old guard. Paddy’s is the new blood. Paddy’s the kind of guy that will walk into a new job and say, “Alright, I’m running the show now.” He has a cocksure arrogance with a huge amount of naivety behind it. What was great about the filming process was that Simon would allow us extremely long takes. We would do the lines and do the scene and then maybe improvise for two or three minutes and then maybe revisit the scene again from that standpoint. So we had a huge amount of freedom to develop the relationship when in a normal movie maybe we wouldn’t necessarily get that opportunity.”

Finally, he spoke about the audience seeing the film.

It will be interesting to see how people respond to it. It’s very exciting.

(Visit Sag Harbor Express for the full interview, Spoilers alert!)

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It is always thrilling to hear Damien talk about his projects and these first Tiger Raid interviews give a fascinating insight into the film. We can’t wait to see it for ourselves and share our response!

Tiger Raid is set for a 2016 release, an exact date is yet to be announced. Watch this space for more news as we get it.

Tiger Raid is directed by Simon Dixon, produced by Gareth Coulam Evans and Samson Films, written by Mick Donnellan, Simon Dixon and Gareth Coulam Evans and exec produced by Aporva Baxi.

To read more Damien interviews, click here

To read our exclusive Q & A with Tiger Raid director and co-writer Simon Dixon, click here

For all the latest Tiger Raid news click here

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