"SOMETIMES, when you're from a place, you don't really 'see' it," explains Patrick Kielty of how English director Prasanna Puwanarajah has been able to utilise Co Down's swathes of natural beauty to both make Ballywalter look good on the big screen and pay homage to cinematic influences from across the Atlantic.
"All of the reference points Prasanna had for us when we were starting this were American," Kielty (52) continues.
"And I think it can take somebody from the outside to come in and sort of go 'you do know this place looks like this, right?'. And then he points out the peninsula, and the big skies, and the big, wide-open spaces..."
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Indeed, released in cinemas on September 22, actor/director Puwanarajah's feature debut behind the camera was informed by cinematic touchstones including Alexander Payne's Nebraska, the Coen brothers' Fargo, Peter Bogdanovitch's The Last Picture Show and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, nearly all of which contrast the vastness of their settings with characters trapped by mounting, inescapable human drama and conflict.
Shot entirely in the north, the darkly comedic Ballywalter centres on troubled 20-something university drop-out Eileen (Seána Kerslake) and mid-life crisis stricken Shane (Kielty), who bond over the course of multiple taxi rides between the titular coastal town and Belfast.
Eileen is the caustic cabbie whose once promising life is now stuck in an alcohol-addled rut, while her regular passenger, Shane, is estranged from his family. He's hoping a weekly stand-up comedy course will help distract him from his self-inflicted woes, which include a recent driving ban.
Kielty makes an impressive acting debut in the Stacey Gregg-written film, damping down his God-given comic instincts and extrovert tendencies to play a somewhat withdrawn and bewildered figure who's struggling to get a grip on the fine art of telling a joke, and indeed life itself.
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"I think trying to understand who he was and what he was carrying was easier than trying to show it or hide it on screen," the Dundrum-born man reveals of his first-time acting experience.
"I think that was the thing. The fear was, 'Oh, I know who this person is – now I can show you who he is'. But you're not meant to do that. It's all about how far you go to reveal who he is or what he's hiding.
"So, the process was really about working together and sort of looking to the people who actually knew what they were doing. The minute they went, 'OK, we've got that', you were sort of trusting them that it must be OK."
"Yeah, that doesn't leave you," reveals Seána Kerslake (30), an experienced actor whose CV includes hit Irish horror The Hole in The Ground (2019) and an award-winning turn in the acclaimed drama A Date For Mad Mary (2016).
"That's still what I'm doing: 'Are you happy? Well, then that's OK'. Because you can never really tell when you're on the inside. You can sometimes feel it. But then sometimes you don't want to be too aware of yourself either – like, 'oh yeah, that take was a good one'.
"But Patrick really was like a duck to water [with acting], and I don't mean that in a condescending way. I know he had fears going into it, but never for one moment did I doubt that he would do a good job.
"Because he's so genuine and honest, there was never a 'bum' beat, and he never did any actor tricks – he was never not listening. He was always 'active' in the scene, so he made me check myself, that I was listening to him and hopefully made me better."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems the veteran stand-up was initially alarmed by being considered for the role of the comedically-challenged Shane.
"It's that one of, 'Hmm, we're looking for someone who's middle-aged and sort of tries to be funny, but isn't: oh, you'll do'," chuckles Kielty, who began a 30 episode stint as the new host of RTÉ One's The Late Late Show last night.
In fact, the real comedian in Ballywalter is the hilariously acerbic Eileen, who deploys cutting humour as a very 'Belfast' self-defence mechanism. She's not shy about shutting down overly-chatty passengers with a barbed retort or three, an approach she also finds effective in her day job dealing with annoying coffee shop customers, and indeed to dismiss anyone attempting to check up on her clearly diminished wellbeing.
There are several laugh-out-loud moments in the film, and nearly all of them are a product of Eileen's quick wit and acid tongue.
"That's all down to Stacey Gregg's writing and Prasanna's direction, honestly," insists Kerslake, who also mastered a Belfast accent for the role.
"I was ragin' the days they were in doing the comedy stuff. I was like 'youse are all having the craic and I'm stuck here in the car feeling miserable'."
On that note, it seems Kielty is particularly pleased with how accurate the film's stand-up scenes are, many of which were filmed at The Empire in Belfast where he began his comedy career in the 90s.
"One of the things I'm most proud about with this film is that, any time you ever see stand-up done in a movie, there's always a moment where someone goes to take the mic, and it feeds-back," says the newly installed Late Late Show host.
"And that never happens at any comedy gig, ever. So, the fact that we filmed every one of the stand-up performances in The Empire and that didn't happen, it was like, 'OK, finally – this is actually what it's really like."
The film also afforded the comedian the luxury of playing an unknown who doesn't have to mask his natural reaction to humour-deficient performances in order to spare people's feelings, as he explains.
"A lot of the time, Shane's reactions to the other would-be comedians on the comedy course was the kind of bemusement that you sometimes want to have when people are pitching you [jokes].
"When you spend your life sometimes been surrounded by people who think they're funny, but aren't, just being able to sit there going 'er, wha?' for a change was really great."
As for being back at The Empire for the start of a brand new chapter in his career, it seems there could have been no better place to face down the fear of a fresh challenge.
"That whole 'full circle' thing was really very weird," Kielty says of returning to such hallowed ground after 30 years.
"On my first night of The Empire comedy club back in 1992, I came on through that same side door that Shane uses in the movie.
"Behind that door was where you waited to go on to do your set. I remember looking at that door on that first night and wanting to escape, but realising that I had to make myself go through it.
"So, to have been back there on this full-circle journey – it was amazing."
On the subject of 'new beginnings', having made the film way back in 2021 just as lockdown restrictions eased, the Ballywalter stars remember thinking about potential promotional duties which lay ahead of them – including a certain RTÉ One chat show, then hosted by Ryan Tubridy.
"The funny thing is, we were sort of hoping to be guests on The Late Late Show," admits Kielty, who is now travelling back and forth between London and Dublin each week for his prestigious new TV gig.
"So, I'm still trying to convince the production that it's absolutely OK to have Seána and Prasanna on as guests – but apparently there's a 'conflict of interest' thing which they're very touchy about these days."
Ballywalter is in cinemas from Friday September 22
