“The Perfect Stranger” centers on an Irishman who visits Spain in search of a lost love. Art imitates life — star Colm Meaney bought a house on the island of Mallorca in Spain after leaving the Coachella Valley. Courtesy Photo
‘The Perfect Stranger'
Country: Spain
Length: One hour, 32 minutes
Director: Toni Bestard
Cast: Colm Meaney, Ana Wagener, Carlos Santos, Natalia Rodriguez, Guiem Juaneda, Pascal Ulli
Screening: 7:30 p.m. today and 1 p.m. Saturday at the Annenberg Theater; private receptions to follow.
Information: (800) 898-7256, psfilmfest.org
For complete coverage of the Palm Springs International Film Festival including reviews, trailers and photo galleries visit mydesert.com/filmfest.
More
If Colm Meaney hadn't sold his house in La Quinta, “The Perfect Stranger” probably wouldn't be screening tonight at the Annenberg Theater.
Meaney, the film's star and a regular on the hit AMC series “Hell On Wheels,” sold his second home at PGA West in 2003 and purchased a getaway retreat in Soller on the island of Mallorca, Spain.
He's from Dublin, but his primary residence for the past 28 years has been Los Angeles, where he's become a familiar face in two “Star Trek” television series (“The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine”) and films such as “Get Him to the Greek,” “The Damned United” and “The Last of the Mohicans.”
In Mallorca he met two producers who told him a local director of several award-winning shorts, Toni Bestard, was making a feature he might like.
“Toni had mentioned one day very early on the ideal actor for this character in ‘Perfect Stranger' would be Colm Meaney if he were available,” the 58-year-old said in a telephone interview from his mother's home in Dublin. “They said, ‘Yeah, we know who he is. He's got a house in Soller, 10 kilometers away.' Toni was like astonished. So they put me together with Toni and I read the script and liked the script a lot. It had been workshopped at the Sundance Latino Writers Lab, and I thought it was really a lovely story.”
Meaney wound up co-producing the film and he's brought it to Palm Springs in hopes of finding a distributor.
“The Perfect Stranger” is about a mysterious Irishman who comes to a Spanish island in search of a loved one who has left a Polaroid picture as a clue to where she disappeared.
Meaney's character, Mark O'Reilly, occupies a vacant shop while searching the countryside, causing his neighbors to believe he is opening a business. Since he doesn't speak Spanish, he can't convince them otherwise and he inadvertently becomes part of the village.
That in turns draws him out of the shell he had withdrawn into after his loss.
For Meaney, who hasn't learned to speak Spanish since buying his home in Mallorca, “it was the perfect part for me to dip my toe into Spanish cinema.”
But the part wasn't without its acting challenges. Meaney gives a very restrained performance as O'Reilly, which is a contrast from his best-known roles.
He just played another introverted character in the Irish indie “Parked,” but he's more often called upon to act in broad strokes.
“My performances have tended to be much more extroverted characters,” he said. “Both of these films, which came very close to each other, suddenly have these guys who were not very expressive, not very extrovert. I was delighted to find both these scripts because it was a new challenge and a different direction. Playing the same character over and over is not very interesting.”
Meaney plays a powerful railroad magnate in “Hell On Wheels,” a period drama about the building of a railroad across the West after the Civil War. The gritty series features a former Confederate soldier working side-by-side with former slaves, an Indian Christian convert, a former John Brown marauder, a corrupt Norwegian security man and a traveling brothel of prostitutes.
Meaney's performance, although Shakespearean in its power and formal language, contains a vulnerability that makes him likeable despite his often despicable deeds. The season finale is Sunday and Meaney said it just got picked up for a second season.
Like AMC's other hit shows, “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” “Hell On Wheels” didn't open with strong ratings, but it's been building momentum like the locomotive itself. Meaney said he could see it running four or five years, possibly culminating with a golden spike after the railroad crosses the Rockies.
Meaney's has been mentioned as an Emmy candidate, but he said, “I'd love to see the show get some awards.”
Bruce Fessier can be reached at (760) 778-4522 or bruce.fessier@thedesertsun.com.
