Although he had been acting for years and was known as a comedian, Irishman Chris O’Dowd hit the sky when he played the traffic cop who falls in love with Kristeen Wiig in the hit My Best Friend’s Wedding. Since then he has divided his time between comedies and dramas, and has stood out as one of the protagonists of the television adaptation of Get shorty. Now O’Dowd leads the cast of The Prize of Your Life, the new Apple TV series that portrays life in a town in the United States that is revolutionized when a strange machine called Morpho appears in a store that, for some coins, reveals on a small cardboard card what is the potential of whoever stands in front of it.
All the characters in The Prize of Your Life are dissatisfied with where they are in life. Was that what intrigued him about the story?
Yes, because they are wondering what their place is in the world. The question is whether I am in the right place for the person I am, for the past I have and the future I want. I think it’s a question that many people have asked themselves these past three years. It was something that intrigued me because it’s not only relevant to me, but it’s also relevant to the audience, which was what we cared about the most.
And at what point is it?
I’m at a point where I hope I’m done with having kids, I’ve found the person I want to be with and the job I want to do, but I still have a weird feeling. They call this the midlife crisis, and I remember growing up that’s what they called what happened to men who suddenly bought a sports car or dated a nurse. There are many things that generate this feeling like the one Dusty has when we see him for the first time. Everything is fine, he is happy, but the older ones have given up, his parents make crazy decisions because of what Morpho tells them, and his wife soon realizes that he is not as happy as he would have liked to be. This leads Dusty to feel like he lives in a house of sand where everything is falling apart.
If this machine really existed, would you use it, despite the fact that it has apparently already achieved everything?
To be honest, I would be tempted. A month ago a tarot card reader came to the house. But I didn’t dare him to throw them away because I don’t want to know what the future might be. Because of this, I’m not actually sure I would use this machine, and if I did, I wouldn’t want anyone to know what my letter says because it would create expectations that can be frustrating. What if he says my potential is to be an astronaut? I don’t plan to train to travel in space. If I can barely tell where I left my cell phone…
He discovered acting while studying Political Science and Sociology. Did someone show him a Morpho letter that said, “Actor�
No, I went to the student theater society and discovered a group of eccentrics who were acting and I suddenly wondered if I wasn’t supposed to be one. It wasn’t the performance that intrigued me, but this group of people and then I realized that we were all drawn to fight our manias by devoting our lives to putting ourselves in other people’s shoes.
When you started acting, did you imagine you would get to where you are now?
I don’t know what I was thinking then. I never really thought about being an actor. And once I decided to try, at most I imagined I would end up in London or Dublin doing plays and some commercials. And so it was for the first few years, which I thought was fine. But when opportunities arise one wants to work with the best. However, I have to say that I am much more successful than I would have liked. I would love something more relaxed, with less people asking my opinion.
