Although he had been acting for many years and was known as a comedian, Irishman Chris O’Dowd touched heaven with his hands when he played the traffic cop who falls in love with Kristeen Wiig in the hugely successful “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. Since then he has divided his time between comedies and dramas, and has been featured as one of the leads in the television adaptation of “Get Shorty.” Now O’Dowd leads the cast of “The prize of your life”, the new Apple 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 in exchange 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 you about the story?
Yes, because they are wondering what their place in the world is. 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 a lot of people have asked themselves in the last three years. It was something that intrigued me because it’s not only relevant to me, it’s also relevant to the audience, which was what mattered most to us.
And at what point are you?
I’m at a point in my life where I hope I’m done with having children, I’ve found the person I want to be with, and the job I want to do, but I still have a strange feeling. They call this the midlife crisis, and I remember when I was growing up they used to call what happens to men who suddenly buy a sports car or date a nurse. I have watched my uncles go through this while many of their older friends have passed away. There are many things that create this feeling like the one Dusty has when we first see him in the series. Everything is fine, he is happy, but all the older ones have given up, his parents make crazy decisions because of what this Morpho machine tells them and his wife suddenly realizes that he is not as happy as he wanted to be. This leads Dusty to feel that he lives in a house of sand where everything is falling apart because of this electrical device that looks like a Coca-Cola vending machine.
If that machine really existed. Would he use it, even though he has apparently already accomplished everything?
To tell the truth, I would be tempted. A month ago a tarot card reader came to my house. It was my wife’s birthday. But I didn’t dare to throw them away because I don’t want to know what the future might be. So I’m not really sure I would use that machine, and if I did, I wouldn’t want anyone to know what my letter says. It is that it would generate expectations in people that can be frustrating. What if he says my potential is to be an astronaut? I’m not going to train to travel to space. If I can hardly know where I left my mobile…
He discovered acting while studying political science and sociology. Did someone show you a Morpho card that said: “actor�
No, I went to the Student Drama Society and found a bunch of wacky performers and suddenly wondered if I wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t acting that intrigued me, but this group of people and then I realized that we all felt drawn to dealing with our mania by dedicating our lives to putting ourselves in the shoes of others.
When you started acting, did you imagine that you would reach the place you have now?
No, I don’t know what I was thinking back then. I never really thought about being an actor. And once I decided to give it a try, I imagined at best that I would end up in London or Dublin doing plays and the occasional commercial. And so it was for the first 5 or 6 years, which was fine with me. But when opportunities present themselves, one wants to work with the best. However, I must say that I am much more successful than I would have wanted. I would prefer something more relaxed, with less people asking me what I think. The truth is that I never imagined this, I never even thought that I would ever be doing an interview from a luxury hotel suite.
Are you glad that the “My Best Friend’s Wedding†stage is over?
Yes, everything is much more comfortable now. I think a frenzy like that only happens in sports. But anyway I’ve had lovely experiences thanks to that movie. I get approached by women who are in their early 30s and tell me that they watched “My Best Friend’s Wedding†15 times and they always did it in a group. And suddenly you realize that you have been a part of people’s lives for 20 years. Working in comedy gives you these things, because they’ve had a laugh as a family because of what you’ve done when maybe they were going through some troubled times.
