℘℘℘
“I’ll take a funeral over a wedding any day,” declares John Patrick Shanley, 49, gleefully. The Bronx-born award-winning playwright, director and screenwriter, whose latest handiwork,
Where’s My Money? was recently staged at New York’s City Center Theater, is quite vehement.
“I think this is an area where I’m extremely Irish. The very concept of death is something that we Irish find cheerful and relaxing.”
The mood description, cheerful and relaxed, seems to reflect his demeanor today as he sits in the theater’s bar area, dressed casually in a sea-green cotton shirt, blue jeans and scruffy white sneakers.
Shanley won an Oscar for 1987 s Moonstruck , starring Cher and Nicolas Cage
“Each person has something to contribute linguistically and emotionally and from the soul, and it’s my job to excavate those things and bring them out to where people can appreciate them,” says Shanley, who in 1992 adopted two sons with his second wife, actress Jayne Haynes (the pair later divorced).
When it comes to depictions of Ireland in the movies, he describes himself as “more of a
Quiet Man kind of guy, than
The Field kind of guy.”
“I’m an Irish-American, which means I’m not utterly American and I’m not utterly Irish. I think the Irish have long resisted the love of Americans and the idealisation of Americans. I don’t think I actually idealise Irish people in