The story of Liam Cunningham, the electrician who decided to be an actor when he grew up: he shone in “Game of Thrones” and, now, in “The Three-Body Problem”

Born and raised in Dublin, Liam Cunningham He speaks in a stream of consciousness that often has no discernible beginning, middle or end. She speaks with her hands and drums with her feet, peppers her anecdotes with friendly comments and catches her breath just long enough to take a drag on her unmistakably scented electronic cigarette. They’re not very popular in the studio.

“They smell like you took the paper that came with a shirt at the laundromat and put it on the stove.”says DB Weiss, who, with his producing partner David Benioff, has given Cunningham select roles in Game of Thrones and now The three-body problembrand new Netflix premiere, a heady sci-fi series based on a trilogy of novels by Chinese writer Liu Cixin.

In her, Cunningham plays Thomas Wade, a straight-talking spy master who leads a team of physicists. chosen to save the world from a very slow but sinister alien invasion. Unlike Davos Seaworth, he played the emotionally vulnerable gentleman Cunningham game of ThronesWade is gruff, belligerent and secretive, an enigmatic authority figure whose backstory left even Cunningham with questions.

“Very little is known about him, and everyone who has seen him wonders: ”What’s your story?'”Cunningham said on the patio of an Austin hotel during the Film Festival South by southwest, where the series had its world premiere. “There’s the Secretary General of the United Nations on the other end of the phone and people are doing what he tells them, and you wonder: “Who gives you this authority?” And the funny thing is, I never felt the need to talk to the guys – in relation to Weiss and Benioff, that is – they never offered and I never asked, which is probably not a good thing to say, and everyone should probably say that. The world is: “I know everything about him, but I won’t tell him”“.

Breathe. He snorts.

Cunningham, 62 years old, blond hair and bright blue eyes, He came to the interpretation relatively late. He worked as an electrician until the age of 29., and spent part of his twenties in Zimbabwe bringing electricity to rural communities. “Do you know the song? “Wichita Lineman”“?” he asks, referring to the country affected by the 1960s Glen CampbellL. That was me, but in Zimbabwe. For an Irishman, a pale-skinned pixie from Dublin, it was fantastic.” For a time he worked in a national park, “the size of Belgium and with 16,000 elephants.”

It was new and exciting and when he returned to Dublin and once again drove from job to job in a little yellow van, he found he missed the weight of his life in Africa. He has always been interested in cinema and television, He saw an advert in the newspaper for an acting school and thought he could take up a new hobby.. When she started getting roles in the theater, it started to seem more like a calling. She fell in love with the process and how it fueled her natural sense of curiosity.

“It was problem solving, ‘how do we make it work?’. “I found this fascinating.”

From the electrician to being under the stage lights

Then it was time to break the news to his family. “I love my poor wife,” she says. “I said: “We could go hungry for the rest of our lives: I’m about to say goodbye to a well-paying semi-government job where the only way to get fired is to shoot someone.”. And I left him.”

He gave him his blessing. Then he told it to his father, a practical-minded dock worker.

Cunningham soon found steady work in film and television, landing roles in films such as a little princess (1995), by Alfonso Cuarón, Down from (1996), by Michael Winterbottom and with Cillian Murphy in The wind caressing the lawn (2006), by Ken Loach.

Benioff and Weiss fell in love with Cunningham when they saw him Hunger (2008), the film Steve McQueen about the hunger strike of Irish Republican Army martyr Bobby Sands. They particularly liked a long scene, shot largely in one continuous take, in which a priest played by Cunningham tries to convince Sands to end his strike.

“It was one of the most exciting things that any of us had ever seen before,” Weiss said, sitting next to Benioff. They Cunningham was introduced into Game of Thrones starting in season two, and Davos became a fan favorite of that series.

When the writer-producers returned to Cunningham The three-body problemthey were on the verge of not counting on him. “We were like Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate”as Benioff said, begging Cunningham, who had already committed to a film, to join his project.

“I got a call from Dave and Dan, who had obviously asked their questions,” Cunningham remembers. “They told me, ‘You’re not going with those guys, you’re going with us.’. And I told them: “Yes, okay, thanks.” I hung up the phone and then the professional part of my brain kicked in and I thought: “It was a bit stupid, it could be the work of a week or a couple of days”. I didn’t even ask them about the project.'”

A great storyteller

As Cunningham’s colleagues describe it, hiring the actor isn’t just about hiring an actor who is extremely focused when the cameras are rolling. They also get a tireless storyteller for the dead hours.

“He loves to tell long stories”says Benioff. “The other night we were having a drink and he started telling a story about Thailand. Halfway through he stopped, looked at us and said: ‘Where was I going with this?’ And we said: ‘I lost the thread’.

“He also does a napkin routine, which Dan and I got to watch.”

An act with a napkin? It sounded intriguing.

“I won’t do it,” Cunningham said. “It’s one of those things where you have to have a few drinks. It’s horrible and lasts 15 minutes.“.

Jess Hong, who plays physicist Jin Cheng in the series, shares several scenes with Cunningham, as Wade tries to convince Jin to bring his skills to the fight to save the Earth. He says Cunningham’s stamina also comes in handy when it comes time to get to work.

“It’s amazing to watch him work because as soon as the camera rolls, All that crazy, almost childish energy is focused on the goal” he said in a video call from London, where he was promoting the series. “As we drive to the studio, he talks in the car about decisions he might make, and when we rehearse he talks, trying to figure out the best way to collaborate. Those Those are always the most creatively rewarding moments, when you have someone who really wants to bring the work to its maximum potential.“.

But Cunningham appears more intuitive than systematic, especially in the choice of roles. “I try not to analyze it too much because you set the parameters for yourself, and if you analyze it, your parameters get a little smaller every time,” he says: “You start to find a niche and that means repetition, and I get bored very, very easily”.

There is a feeling that I’d rather talk about something other than acting. For example, barbecues. I had just gone to one of Austin’s most popular stops and was still raving about the experience.

“I went into the room where they cook and it looks like the engine room of a submarine,” he says. “And you can see that the head chef loves his work. It was wonderful to see him, the pride he felt and how they prepared everything: six hours for pork chops, eight hours for beef and 12 hours for brisket. She did everything, it was a lot of fun. Smells delicious.”

He’ll save the world, but first he’ll try ribs. And of course, she will tell you how good they are.