By Debra Wallace
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 10/5/21 – Liam Alex Heffron is a busy and versatile innovator, writer and actor, who is clearly making an indelible impression on the cinema where ever he goes. He has several new projects and is eager to share them with global audiences.
Best known for playing Garda Sean Doran in Ireland’s most popular TV drama, Fair City, he also made his mark in Hardy Bucks, Ros na Run, and current affairs programs, including The Battle for Rural Ireland.
Heffron co-starred in the award-winning 2015 short film, Top of the Rock, and the upcoming Breaking Hollywood, which he also co-wrote and directed.
After studying at the Galway Theatre Company and the Irish Film Academy in Dublin, he became a regular stage actor and director on the Galway circuit, where he was found writing and producing three acclaimed stage plays. He later trained in L.A. with The Howard Fine Acting Studio and the Margie Haber Studio.
Heffron is a presenter and historian, who has hosted a series of online Irish history documentaries for Timeteam Ireland. He is a Ph.D. Candidate in modern Irish history and his most recent book No Revolution – Igniting War in North Mayo, was published in 2019. Here is a recent sit down with Liam Alex Heffron with The Hollywood Times.
You co-starred in the award-winning short film, Top of the Rock. Tell us about your preparation experience?
The film is based on the experience of the Irish and Italian construction workers of the Rockefeller Center during the Great Depression era. As a historian and actor, it resonated with me greatly as I can trace my own family to living and working in San Francisco and New York in the early decades of the 19th century. The life choices these men and their families had to make in working at the tremendous heights without safety harnesses or gear – are without modern comparison in the Western World. In our prep for filming, we watched old footage of these workers leaping from beam to beam, hundreds of stories up in the air, and as someone who is uncomfortable at the one-story height we worked on in the studio – it left me in awe. We had plenty of safety, with padded support ‘pillows’ and I did admit to feeling occasionally embarrassed feeling at my own inadequacy compared to these men, as I attempted to relive their experience in scene work!
Please describe your acting style.
I’m versatile and have played quite a number of character roles both on stage and on screen. For some reason, I’ve played a lot of priests and cops – not sure if there is a connection! I love off-kilter comedy types such as in The Office or in the excellent British political drama-comedy, The Thick Of It. Satire is something I resonate with as a means of provoking humor with critical thoughts on our society. Also, I very much enjoyed playing the bad guy — especially on stage, as the audience reaction can be pretty intense!
Your recent project is called Breaking Hollywood. Tell us what led you to this web series.
This comedy series is a laugh-out-loud satire of our experience (with my co-creator Andi Osho) of the many ‘networking’ charlatans and ‘self-improvement’ con artists in Hollywood who prey on new actors from Europe or even just moving to another state. Some of the characters and real-life scenarios were so unbelievable we had to lampoon them and also, I suppose our gullibility too in falling for their shtick as we moved from Ireland and the UK there some years ago.
What do you want the audiences to take away from the show?
It’s a three-episode web series at which we hope audiences will laugh – number one! Aside, we wrote Breaking Hollywood to educate people on this whole sub-culture beneath the glitzy and positive ‘smiley’ face that Hollywood can present to wannabe actors. But for sure, we want viewers to enjoy the series and find resonant sympathetic characters even when they are flawed – and in the case of my own low rent ‘Dream Builder’ Malcolm Funce, who promises actors a path to stardom with no credentials – maybe even a ‘there for the grace of God go I’d thought!’
Tell us about your short film, Ticket to Ride.
This is something we filmed many moons ago on an old Irish rail carriage and has featured in over 14 international Festivals. It’s set as a quirky comedic boy meets girl – told in the most awkward of circumstances on a 1990s train traveling from Dublin to Galway cities. The weather on the day was almost incessant rain and we were all – cast and crew – cooped up inside the leaky old carriage for hours. I must give huge gratitude to everyone who maintained a professional and positive attitude, to get the scenes filmed. Also, the owners of the railway relict were very kind to allow us there at all. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video and Vimeo. Just go to our website www.919films.com to watch for free.
What are your upcoming projects for 2022?
To see Breaking Hollywood released as a web series in festivals and my wife and I are planning to move stateside – now if we can only find an industry networking guru ….
Breaking Hollywood is expected to be released online in early 2022, see the trailer at www.liamalex.com, & follow Liam @liamalexheffron (Twitter / Facebook / Instagram
