Pierce Brosnan Found Conrad’s Voice 15 Minutes Before Cameras Rolled on ‘MobLand’

Conrad Harrigan’s Kerry brogue now feels welded to the character. It was nearly a London accent.

Speaking at a Paramount+ For Your Consideration screening and Q&A for MobLand on Oct. 26, Pierce Brosnan said he and Helen Mirren originally agreed to play the Harrigan patriarch and matriarch as Londoners. Then came Brosnan’s first scene opposite Tom Hardy, and a rehearsal note from Guy Ritchie: “Go Irish. Go total Irish.”

Brosnan called his dialect coach, Brendan Gunn, and landed on Kerry, the home county of his father, Tom Brosnan. He had the accent, he said, “with 15 minutes to go before we started filming.” Hardy’s reaction on hearing it: “What are you doing? What is that?”

Mirren got a phone call telling her she’d be going Irish too. She’s glad she did. “It gives it a musicality and somehow a kind of freedom,” she said. “It would not be possible to play the character” any other way now.

The Nerd Wire attended the event, part of Paramount+’s awards push for the series. MobLand Season 2 is streaming weekly on Paramount+ through its Nov. 20 finale, and the show has already been renewed for Season 3.

Guy Ritchie acted out the whole dog-track shootout himself

The Season 2 dog-track massacre was shot in a single day, which also happened to be the pair’s first day back on set. After lunch, Brosnan said, Ritchie told him and Mirren to stand aside, then walked the room performing the entire scene himself, gunning down the extras one by one.

Firing through Conrad’s jacket was Ritchie’s idea, too. “He went around the room going, ‘Dead,'” Brosnan said.

Mirren called Ritchie’s sets “a wonderful mixture of absolute chaos and invention,” but stressed the chaos is a front: he always has “a very clear idea” of what he wants. “Controlled chaos,” she said.

Nobody knows who survives the script

Scripts often land two weeks before shooting, sometimes less, so the cast reads every one wondering if it’s their exit. “You never know if we’re going to make it to the last page,” Brosnan said. That extends to the future: “We know what happens in Season 2. Season 3, we’ve no idea.”

The Harrigans’ backstory is being built in real time

Asked what holds Conrad and Maeve together after antifreeze poisonings and severed heads, Mirren pointed to a detail the actors found on set. The Harrigans sing Irish Republican songs, which suggests a youth spent in the era of the Troubles. “The backstory sort of creates itself as we go along,” she said. “I’d love to explore that some more.”

As for the show’s body count, Mirren is all in. She called MobLand “explosively violent and appalling” and “right up my alley,” a release valve for someone who claims to be “terribly obedient” in real life. “If I can’t park somewhere, I don’t park there.”

Read the full Q&A

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

What did it feel like to come back to Conrad after such a huge first season?

Brosnan: Oh, it was exhilarating. Absolutely exhilarating. I think it was an unexpected surprise in some regards. I remember Guy at the beginning of the season saying, “Can you believe the response to this?” And in some respects I could, because the cast is so powerful.

You know, there’s no such thing as an arc, is there? Working out the arc of your character, or anything like that. Because from week to week, we don’t really know what’s coming down the wire. And I love that, because that’s like real life. You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. You can’t plan — “Oh, when someone’s rude to me in the grocery store tomorrow, this is how I’ll behave.” No, you have no idea. So in a way, MobLand is like that, isn’t it?

Devilish things are certainly afoot. I tried to bribe him earlier to tell me what happens, and it didn’t go well.

Brosnan: We know what happens in Season 2. Season 3, we’ve no idea. It’s just a wonderful, strange roller coaster ride for all of us, and I hope for the audience as well.

Mirren: It’s funny, it’s explosively violent and appalling, and the whole thing is right up my alley. Kind of over the top. Just excessive and fabulous. And I’m a terribly, terribly good, well-behaved person in real life. Terribly obedient. If I can’t park somewhere, I don’t park there, you know? I think that’s the glory of playing Conrad and Maeve.

What’s the glue between these two? They’ve done some pretty dire things — the antifreeze poisoning, a son getting his head chopped off.

Mirren: I think they started very young together. We’ve never really investigated it. But we sing Irish Republican songs — very badly; neither Pierce nor I can sing. He’s better than I am. And then we think, well, that’s interesting, because in their youth it would have been the time of the Troubles. So in a way, the backstory sort of creates itself as we go along. And I’d love to explore that some more, actually.

Speaking of making things up in the moment — tell the story about the 15 minutes.

Brosnan: Guy sent me five episodes two years ago. It had a different title, but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t know Guy that well, and I started talking about where Conrad came from, and he said, “Listen, don’t worry about it. We’ll sort it out on the day. Fifteen minutes. Put it out of your mind.” Which is kind of invigorating in one sense and also terrifying. But on the day, that’s basically what happened.

Helen and I talked about where they came from — South London, North London — and we both agreed to have these London accents. Then my very first scene was with Tom. We had a rehearsal and Guy said, “Go Irish. Go total Irish.” And I thought, what is my Irish accent? It’s been a long time gone. So I called my dialect coach, a man called Brendan Gunn. My old man, Tom Brosnan, was from Kerry, so I thought, Kerry. He gave me the Kerry accent with 15 minutes to go before we started filming, and I launched into this mad Kerry accent — at which point Tom Hardy said, “What are you doing? What is that?”

Mirren: He gets on the phone to me and says, “I’ve gone Irish, so you’ve got to go Irish.” It’s great. I love the Irishness of it. For me it gives it a musicality, and somehow a kind of freedom. I couldn’t do it now if it weren’t Irish. It would not be possible to play the character.

Brosnan: Sometimes you think, oh my God, I’ve lost the character, and we have to do the next season. But as you sit with the script and begin to vocalize it, maybe in your head, he comes back. That voice is something to hold on to.

That Tom Hardy impression was spot on. Tell me about the contrast between the chaos of the Harrigans and his absolute stillness — the whole narrative hinges on that back and forth.

Mirren: Huge stillness, but also his naturalism and his underplaying, which is such a wonderful contrapuntal thing to our excessiveness and Gothic sort of madness.

Brosnan: It is a joy to see. I do look at him on set sometimes — I can’t hear what he’s saying. Conrad is just over the top, thank God. A volcano. It’s fabulous.

That dog-track shootout is unbelievable — I didn’t see it coming at all. What was it like building that with Guy Ritchie, who directed the episode?

Brosnan: That whole sequence was shot in one day, wasn’t it? One day at the dog track. It was our first day back.

Mirren: It was my first day back, and it was super fun to be at the dog track with Guy Ritchie directing. Whenever Guy’s directing, it’s a wonderful mixture of absolute chaos and invention. But you also know he’s got a very clear idea of what he wants it to be. So it’s controlled and organized, but at the same time it appears completely improvisational and mad. Controlled chaos. It’s always super fun.

Brosnan: I think he loves performing. We came back after lunch, and that’s when we did the shootout. Guy said to Helen and me, “Just stand over there. I’ll show you what you’re going to do.” He came in and mocked out the whole scene — shooting the guys, me with the guns in my jacket. That was his idea: have them in the jacket and shoot through the jacket. And he went around the room going, “Dead.”

How much advance warning do you get about what happens to your character? Every script, you must be wondering if this is the bullet-between-the-eyes episode.

Brosnan: We do. Absolutely. You never know if we’re going to make it to the last page. But that’s the fun and the adventure of it. Right from the first episode of the first season, we really didn’t know what was coming down the wire until we got the script — sometimes only two weeks before we shot, sometimes less. So it really was pretty touch and go in the second season.

Every character is so well-rounded and nuanced. What are your dynamics like as a collective on set?

Mirren: We have great young actors. Anson [Boon], who I work with a lot as Eddie — it’s an unbelievably unhealthy relationship, but a wonderful partner to have.

Brosnan: You show up on a Monday morning, you have three pages, five pages, six pages. It could be the whole family. Helen and I were in the dressing room together — Helen sits here and I sit there — and slowly the day begins. You go out to the set, you rehearse the scene, and then you shoot it.

Mirren: What I love about it is how strong all the females are. There’s no female character that’s just a side flower, there to give information about the story or make the man look good. They’ve all got really strong personalities, and I absolutely love that.

MobLand Season 2 streams new episodes Fridays on Paramount+.