The actor Chris O’Dowd is to appear in a major role as an Irish gangster in a remake of the film Get Shorty that will be released as a ten-part US TV series on Sunday.
Producers decided to rewrite John Travolta’s role in the original 1995 film so that O’Dowd would not have to put on an American accent for what could become a long-term project.
While the character played by Travolta in the original was US-born, O’Dowd reworks the central role to play an Irish immigrant, Miles Daly, who finds work as an enforcer for an east European crime gang in Nevada. O’Dowd’s character displays a large Celtic cross tattoo on his arm but his dreams of becoming a renowned Irish-American gangster are floundering.
Several TV critics have compared the programme to the popular US series Fargo, which turned the original film into a multiseries thriller.
In the reworked version O’Dowd and his crime partner are sent to LA to rough up a screenwriter who tried to fund a film by borrowing from the Nevada mob. His partner kills the screenwriter and O’Dowd’s character steals the screenwriter’s blood-soaked film script. He takes it to Ray Romano, who replaces Gene Hackman to play a struggling Hollywood film producer.
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The remake is grittier and darker than the original, while retaining comic elements.
O’Dowd told the website IndieWire that he drew on his own experience as an Irish actor in Hollywood for the role. “Everybody has a different perspective on the industry because nobody comes from here. It’s such an odd construct of a city . . . I think I can relate to [my character] being a fish out of water,” he said.