Actor and St. Peter's regular Shane Casey: Episode #5

Shane Casey, a guest on the podcast, won the Scottish Cup indirectly through his positive mindset.!! He has also been on the radio, worked with Bill Nighy and Tom Tom Lawlor, and appeared on Netflix. He discussed his involvement with the Homeless World Cup and his allergic reaction to dogs. Aideen, a student, won the Young Scientist award. Shane is also known for his film work in The Young Offenders. He wrote and directed a radio play called "The Man Who Talks." He plans to do a live version of the play. Yeah, no, listen, we're delighted to have you here. You are in here today on a work, in a work capacity, you are delivering a resilience workshop for transition year students. We'll get to that in a minute, but you are in the news today and I believe this is not your first recording. You've been on the radio already this morning because basically, ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday, Shane Casey indirectly won the Scottish Cup. Yeah. Celtic versus Rangers at Hampden Park. You've got a bit of explaining to do, Shane, go on. Yeah, I was working in Glasgow last week for a filming project and I was rehearsing the week before, so a good friend of mine passed me on tickets to go to Celtic when they won the league. I follow Liverpool, but everybody kind of has a soft spot for Celtic over here. Yeah. And it didn't let me down and somebody gave me, or Adam had contacted me, inadvertently somebody had sent me a message saying they knew Adam and so on and so forth. This is Adam Ida. Yeah, who plays for Celtic and who has been doing really, really incredibly well this season and I know all the Celtic supporters want him to stay, but that's not for me to decide. Yeah, he's on loan at the moment. He's in Norwich. Yeah, and so we were texting each other back and forth and of course I'm not saying it had anything to do with me, really, but we were having discussions about positive mindset and things like that that I'm very fond of, like creative visualisation and stuff that sounds like pie in the sky stuff, but it actually helps you to figure out what you want in life. But I had a good feeling that Adam was going to score anyway and then when he scored in the 98th minute, I inadvertently won the Scottish Cup. Well I didn't, but you know, Saturday was a funny day for me as well because I was cheering for Man Utd in the other thing and I don't follow Man Utd at all, so that says a lot about my hatred for 115 FC, so anyway. Okay, well listen, that's brilliant. I'm delighted for Adam, he seems like a really nice guy and he's really focused. Yeah, and a Douglas lad. Yeah, Corinthians isn't it? Yeah, but I think he grew up in the Douglas area, which I didn't know myself, so I knew the core connection, but that's fantastic. Now, Shane isn't our only guest here today. We also have award winning student, Aideen. She's getting a bit shy here though. Aideen is also a member of our newsletter team. Aideen actually has interviewed Shane before. Yeah, second year. Second year, yeah. So we thought we'd get Aideen on as well just to take part in the conversation. Welcome Aideen. Now, you alluded to the success of the school this year. I don't want to embarrass Aideen, but Aideen did pick up the small matter of winning the Young Scientist this year. Well, not the whole thing. Not the whole thing, yet. But you're a category. Yeah. So great stuff happening there and congratulations again Aideen. I did want to get you on the podcast to talk about that, but we'll leave that for another day. Now, Shane, so you were on the radio this morning. You're in the newspaper today. You've won the Scottish Cup. You were also on our Netflix screens recently, sticking with the football team. Yeah. You were a referee. I had kind of mentioned it last year when I was down here. Okay. And there was great excitement around the fact that I was working with Michael Ward. And people were like, what? You actually know Michael Ward? It was great excitement from the class who was the lead character in the show. But yeah, that was a great experience. It was about the Homeless World Cup, which is a charity I'd be very fond of. I'd have heard of it before. That experience in Rome was brilliant because I had the opportunity to work with great people that I respected. And I think that's kind of what you want out of life, is to be working with people that you like and respect. And I had that opportunity again, you know? Absolutely. Bill Nighy. Hello, Shane. How are you? I love the young offenders, by the way. That's a very good impression, Shane. Thanks. That's how he talks. Very nice guy. And he's in my favorite film, which is Shaun of the Dead. Highly recommend it. And he was very encouraging, you know? I know you wanted Young Scientist, or your category. But he was very encouraging to me in my writing, and about reading books, and just self-improvement, and setting barriers, and setting down goals for me, and stuff like that. So again, that's why you want to work with good people. Absolutely. And not only Bill Nighy, but Tom Tom Lawler. Yeah. Yeah. Nige from, you probably are too young to remember. But Nige was a big character, maybe about 10 years ago, in Show Caught Low Face, and he was a gentleman as well. But all of them were. Callum was in It's a Sin, and Cabaret. There was a big cast in it, so it was just a very eclectic mix. Now, you said Nige was a gentleman. Tom Tom Lawler was a gentleman. Nige certainly wasn't. No, Nige, he wasn't. And just to clarify for people who are listening, and they're kind of like, who's Shane Casey? Why don't you explain? I am the Billy Murphy fella. That's basically it, you know? And your auntie met me somewhere. She was like, so I know people from Cork, everybody kind of knows everybody. So, yeah, I'm the guy. And you alluded to the homeless, where I caught that charity, but Aideen was actually going to ask you a bit about that. Yeah, and you work for the Irish Guide, don't you? I do, yeah. They have something for me in the next few weeks that I'm not supposed to talk about, but it's a real honour. I'll just put it that way. And I was out there recently, so I got some photographs taken, but I had the opportunity to meet the new puppies, the sea litterer. And I had the opportunity to do an assessment with a litterer, maybe about six months ago. And that was just such a rewarding experience. But I'm actually allergic to dogs. I have like three or four hours of just this joy and elation, and then two days of not being able to breathe. So, yeah, it's great, but I'd recommend anybody who is a student here in supporting them, or if you want to work with animals, those opportunities are there. And talk to them. Tim outside is a really nice guy, and I'm sure he would take a class out if you wanted to talk to them about specific things. I had a guided walk, which was, I'm not joking, it was one of the highlights of my year, to be honest. And it's a very special place, and the people who work there, we all know the animals are incredibly special, but the people who work there are very, very special, and I have a fondness for them. Every time I go out there, my dad wants to go out there with me, that kind of, that's the vote of confidence that they get, really. And actually, Aileen, do you have a dog yourself? Yeah, his name's Marco, yeah. Marco. And what kind of dog is he? He's a Black Lab. Black Lab as well. They're just the best. Alright, so you actually have a Labrador. Yeah. And what's their temperament like, Aileen? They're chill, actually. They're chill. They're very active at the same time. Yeah. And he just loves, like, the walls and everything, and he would go crazy, and just walking, and he would never stop walking. He just loves it. Yeah. They're the best. Yeah, they're the best companions. I met so many dogs out there the last time that they were saying sometimes they have an issue whether the dog is too clever or not. Yeah. They're not so clever. The dog is actually the person, really, who decides whether they're going to do the job or not. Definitely. I worked with a dog who's been transferred to London, who's on the underground, and going up and down the tubes, and that's an amazing feat for somebody to have a stray dog in Padding College. Amazing, yeah, yeah. So, listen, you're a busy man. You really are. There's charity work going on there. You're coming into schools. Now, I wanted to get on to the whole school thing there now as well, but before I do that, I have to say you're noted now for your film work, and especially with the Young Offenders series 4. Yeah, 4 on BBC1. On BBC, which is obviously on at the moment, so you're in demand, and we're delighted to have you here in St. Jude's, but a few months ago I went for a lovely walk, and I listened to News Talk, the play, the radio play that you wrote, The Man Who Talks, to stop you. Yeah, The Man Who Talks. I was talking about that last thing, actually, yeah. And I have to say, this might be the thing you're known for most, but I thought it was a fantastic play. Thank you. Directed, I think, by Brian Desmond, is that right? Yeah, Brian Desmond. Yeah. We recorded it over a couple of days in Carmichael Connor's shed, essentially his studio in Ring of Bella, and Cormac was a great support to me mid-Covid, because I had this thing that I just jotted down on paper. I remember talking to you about it the last time, it was just something that I wanted to get done, and then Ruth Hayes kind of threw her shoulder to the wheel and got us some money and some funding to get it actually done, and I'm going to do the actual play version of it this year. Which I'm honoured. Because of the radio. Yeah, the radio play is done, you can listen to that on Spotify, but now the new play is going to be done. But I'm very lucky, and that's kind of a tricky sentence, in the sense that I'm aware now of who my support networks are. Do you get what I mean? I don't waste my time really with people that I can't help, or that aren't going to be able to help me in the right way. I've wasted my energy on projects that didn't come around, and this has been a good one that I've been dreaming about for a while. It is a bit out there. No, it is, but look, I loved it. I actually remember Brian from years ago, would you believe, I was out visiting him in Germany, in Konstanz, around 25 years ago, he was doing a Beckett play, not Endgame, but Waiting for Godot, with a friend of mine, Eugene Collins from Coles, they were Vladimir and Extragon in that play. So I remember Brian, and I'm delighted to see that he's still involved. He's a good guy, and we kind of became friends, really, because of an argument over somebody else, and I always remember him standing up for somebody in a really nice way, and it actually was like, you know, he's got a bit of integrity. But listen, the play itself, it's really about mental health, isn't it? I think so, yeah, the subtext. I mean, even the workshops, the subtext. There's no point in me coming in and talking about mental health. I come in and talk about experiences in my life, and you take what you want from it. I think we've got a little bit of mental health fatigue at the moment in this country, but we're going to come through the other side and make conversations just a little bit more, and more open and honest. I think we have generalisations that men don't talk about their problems and girls do. No, some people do and some people don't. We just need to make it easier. And that's what I'm trying to do. What can we expect from today's workshop? More of the same, I've been doing this for years now. It's polished, but it's become more of a motivational talk than an actual get up and move around kind of workshop. It's really resilient. I think this is probably your sixth year coming into St Peter's? I think it is, yeah. So yeah, you were asking there, what to expect from today. Stories. I think people think they know who I am because I'm in a television show, and then about ten minutes into the workshop they realise I'm not who they think I am. There's a bit more going on. I like to think I'm honest with people, and I always ask at the start, if I'm patronising you I'd rather go home. I don't want to talk down to you. I think schools have gotten a whole lot better that people don't talk down to people anymore. But you know, sometimes it still does. So I just don't want to talk down to anybody, and I'd like to open the floor up and have a nice discussion about what you do if you're in a little bit of trouble. Because I have gone to schools where everybody has said they'd help their friend if they need help, but when I turn the table on them and ask them, if you need help, will you ask for help? I've gone to certain schools and nobody's put their hand up, and that's not good enough. That's not good enough on the teachers, it's not good enough on the principal, it's not good enough on us to be like that with each other. We need to kind of look after each other a little bit, and not be afraid of asking for help. And I think things like social media have confused things over the years, like maybe we're not getting in early enough, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Would you think that was easier being a teenager like now, or like back in the 1990s? I think it was easier in my era, because you don't have the phone. The phone has complicated it so much. It distracts me from work, it doesn't give me a break from social media, and I've had a couple of negative things happening as well. Not everything's all sunshine and rainbows, but you need to be able to switch off from that. No, you can't. No, you can't, you really can't. And even when you're trying to study, or when I'm trying to learn my lines, that can distract me from a half an hour when I should be working. So I've started to learn how to use the device as a positive tool, by things like line learning apps, recording stuff that I need to record, and the Pomodoro app, which is a very good thing for like 25 minutes of solid work, rather than pretending that I'm going to do two hours or three hours of study. I'm just being honest with myself, saying, I'll do 25, have a break, and if I want to do another 25, I will, you know? Yeah, and we went to school at the same time, roughly in the 90s, and I would chime in there and say, it probably was easier being a teenager back then. However, on the flip side, schools are focused hugely now on well-being. Certainly in St. Peter's, we cover that very, very well in our curriculum, and we have workshops like today, but back in those days, I suppose, if you weren't unhappy, you swept under the carpet, you didn't talk about it. I think a lot of the time before, schools didn't know if there was something going on with somebody, like whether there was a bit of grief going on because you'd lost somebody. You could realistically have been at a funeral on Friday and come in on Monday and your teachers not know that you've gone through something serious, whereas I think now, our eyes are a little bit open to that, you know? So, yeah, things are a lot better. Yeah, okay. No, and we're going to keep it short now today, Shane, because I know you've got work to do, but I just wanted to go back to the acting for a minute. If we have any students listening, or any parents of any students who have an interest in the whole acting, drama, theatre area, what advice would you give them? Join a group. It doesn't matter whether it's acting or hurling or football or whatever, you kind of have to find your peers, you kind of have to find your own tribe and who you want to hang around with. And there's ways and means. You mightn't have the money to go to a school, like a drama school or anything like that, but you might be able to get a weekend workshop somewhere. I know Declan Wolfe is brilliant, and the lads are always saying that, that Alex is that. If he hadn't gone to Declan Wolfe, he mightn't have... This is Alex Murphy? From the show, yeah. Because Declan really works on improvisation. And I worked in a drama school, or I went to a drama school as in when I was a kid, and it was all about improvisation and making stuff up. And I really think improvisation has helped me with my communication and meeting people and talking to people and just being relaxed and having conversations. So if you're shy, I'd recommend going and doing drama or improvisation. And there's loads of different schools out there for that. And it's been a pretty good year for Cork, actually. Yeah, Cillian has done really well, and I know Alex was in an Irish show that I'm really looking forward to seeing. And again, Chris has been in Bogden and so on and so forth. I'm looking forward to seeing a bit of theatre hopefully over the summer, when the midsummer festival is on. And I'm looking forward to just going to pieces and having a bit of craft beer. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And just sticking with the show, how has the reaction been? We're into episode three, are we? Yeah, we're on episode three. I've got a big episode in episode four on Friday night. Billy, I can say it, they're fake Billy is back. Fake, fake, fake Billy is back. So we're getting very meta, we're getting very deep. It's like Inception. So myself and Alex end up going down to Kinsale trying to find this fake, fake Billy. And of course, poor old Connor is in love with Linda and there's just brilliant moments where he's looking at Linda and you can hear his inner thoughts. You can hear him singing, Linda, I love you. And it's the best laugh I've had in the series in a long time. So I highly recommend watching it on BBC One. Oh no, no, that's a shame. But listen, so you filmed in Kinsale this time? Yeah, yeah, it was great. And you were down our neck of the woods. We were down the passage, we were walking from the car to the door. That's what we had to do, we had to get about four or five lines in. But you'd have to be a very sharp-eyed man to spot it this season. And that's all I'd say. But you were in Monkstown last season or a couple of seasons ago. We were, yeah, we were done by the Blue Dog down there. We were done by, of course Peter is from Monkstown. He is, he's the writer. So look, there's great opportunities to be involved and I always say that at the end of the workshop with theatre and film and stuff like that. And there's opportunities whether you want to do hair and make-up or whether you want to do stunts or continuity or whatever you want to do. There's an opportunity to work in the arts. So I just say to people, you know, maybe you want to work in science in the future? Aideen, do you? I don't know. You don't know? Yeah, like, write down your goals and, you know, all you can do is faith. You know what I mean? You know, you were talking about Adam Meida at the start where you, a great book where you visualise what you want to do and you see yourself in that role. I do it regularly where I just visualise. I sit down and I close my eyes and see myself on set which is my favourite place to be, sitting down and nine times out of ten getting the camera ready. It's not actually the acting itself. But I love being pampered. That's what it is. I had a lot of aunts growing up and there's somebody fixing your costume and someone else is fixing your hair and someone else is fixing your makeup. So I love that side of it. But I always visualise that and you'd be amazed the amount of things that have kind of come true for me just because of that. And maybe it's just focusing your mind on what you want rather than what you don't want because we can always worry about what's going on in our lives and focus a bit too much on the negatives and kind of be stuck in that cycle then as well. So maybe it just takes you in a different direction. Try the affirmations. Try the visualisation and see where it gets you. Brilliant. And last question. Shane, what's next? I can't even tell you. But there's definitely something happened in Glasgow and I'm hoping that that's going to happen properly because if it does I think it's going to be linked into the whole conversation that we just had about mental health. There's some really good people involved so my fingers and toes are crossed. So hopefully that's going to happen. I feel like I should be interviewing Aideen the next time. Well, you know what? Absolutely. And thank you, Aideen, for coming in and asking a few questions and getting involved in the chat. Shane, as always, you're welcome back to St Peter's. You're always welcome. Thank you. We're delighted to have you here six years in a row. I think this is probably one of the best schools you've been to. Definitely one of the more consistent schools that have brought me back and I really appreciate Mr Maxwiney yourself as well. I really appreciate that. The other teachers as well. Thank you. And of course the students. Of course, absolutely. You're off to meet them now. A lot of our listeners will thank you as well for winning the Scottish Cup. Thank you, Shane. Thank you. Thank you, Aideen. We'll chat again soon. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.