‘Say Nothing’ Cast Opens Up About How Close the FX IRA Drama Hews to Their Real Life: “It Felt Like the Least Acting I’ve Ever Had to Do”

FX‘s Say Nothing is an unblinking look at life on the front lines and behind the closed doors of West Belfast in the early 1970s, a tumultuous time of civil war often described simply as “The Troubles.” Decades after the majority of Ireland successfully seceded from the United Kingdom, the Republicans left living under apartheid rule in Northern Ireland found themselves once more at a critical breaking point. A new generation, in a new, even more belligerent incarnation of the Irish Republican Army waged a war on the streets of Belfast. Say Nothing follows the initially idealistic young people propelling this campaign and the insidious ways in which their actions destroyed countless innocent lives, spreading ripples of trauma throughout the community.

Two characters on the forefront of this saga are Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew) and Brendan Hughes (Anthony Boyle). Both are fierce believers in the Republican cause, eagerly putting their lives on the line each and every day for Irish freedom. However, as Say Nothing rolls on, both characters begin to balk when their leader, a young Gerry Adams (Josh Finan), orders them to turn on the traitors within the IRA. Neither feel wholly comfortable with killing their own. Decades later, older versions Dolours (Maxine Peake) and Brendan (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) participate in a secret research project wherein they share all of their secrets, forming the framework of Say Nothing‘s story.

The fierce loyalty that Brendan and Dolours feel for the community of West Belfast was something visceral for Say Nothing stars Anthony Boyle and Lola Petticrew, both of whom are also West Belfast natives.

“I used to walk past the murals of Brendan going to school,” Say Nothing star Anthony Boyle told Decider during a recent interview. “On the Falls Road, there’s like murals and there’s songs sang about him in bars.”

“You know, this, it doesn’t really feel like history because people you would meet in bars were in jail with him. They were in the IRA with him. You know, it’s such a small community in West Belfast. My taxi driver last week when I told him I was doing this, said, ‘Oh, I knew them.'”

“It doesn’t really feel like history. It feels like something still tangible,” he said.

Something else that will be tangible to audiences watching Say Nothing is the intense chemistry between the cast. Even though the FX show itself makes a winking point to stress that nothing romantic ever went down with the historic versions of Dolours and Brendan, there are moments early in the series where something emotionally intimate seems to be vibrating between the show’s younger versions of the characters.

Lola Petticrew laughed when Decider asked them about this “chemistry” last week. “It wasn’t intentional on my part,” they said. “I think that is probably just Anthony and I have very natural chemistry. We’ve been friends since we were 11. He’s one of my best friends in the world.”

Anthony Boyle concurred. “I don’t know. It’s one of those things, isn’t it? Like when you know someone that long and, like, there’s so much history there.”

“What did Lola say?” he asked, earnestly curious.

Petticrew poetically said, “He’s one of my best friends in the world and I think those two characters really see each other and need each other on a level. And I think that in the script, Brandon really sees her for who she is and what she brings to the table before anyone else. So I think that’s that’s probably what is coming through there.”

“Well, that’s a good answer, isn’t it?” Boyle said when we told him. “Let’s go with Lola’s answer. Because I’ll butcher it and say something wrong.”

Boyle also revealed to Decider that Petticrew wasn’t his only close friend in the Say Nothing cast. We’re told in Say Nothing Episode 2 “Land of Password, Wink, and Nod” that Seamus Wright (Frank Blake) was one of Brendan Hughes’s longest and closest friends. Boyle told Decider that he and Frank Blake have been tight since their early 20s and that it only helped buoy the drama of later intense scenes in the FX series.

“Me and Frank, on our days off would go to the Falls Park and play hurling. It’s like an Irish sport with a ball and a stick,” Boyle said. “So like when those scenes came, it’s like working with Lola…maybe all those times we’re spending with each other off set or like the actual love you have for him does somehow come into it, you know?”

Both Petticrew and Boyle also stressed that many of the details in Say Nothing, be it the show’s dark humor or even the locations, matched up perfectly with what they knew of life in West Belfast.

“I think we always wanted to be really reverent terms of the subject matter,” Petticrew said of the show’s humor, “but I just think that a show would be truthful or honest if it didn’t have that spirit in it, because that’s the spirit of people from West Belfast.”

Boyle found himself particularly “relaxed” in the role of Brendan Hughes, given how familiar he found everything in Say Nothing.

“We’d be filming a scene where I’m in a bar and smoking a cigarette and then like a week later, I would be in that bar in Belfast — the actual bar — smoking a cigarette, or having a drink,” Boyle said. “So it felt like the least acting I’ve ever had to do. It’s probably like a more honest performance than I’ve ever given.”

Petticrew expressed to Decider that they were particularly hopeful that Say Nothing would inspire American and UK viewers to learn more about “this very recent history that is still having a major affect” on their community.

“I think that’s what really interested me in the project immediately,” they said. “It felt like it landed a lot of questions that I, as a young adult, have.”

“You know, someone who still lives here and wants to live here and is really hopeful for it.”

All episodes of FX’s Say Nothing are now streaming on Hulu.