Tom Guiry

Interview By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

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Based on the recent characters he has played, Tom Guiry seems to appreciate the darker side of life. He's drawn to roles of troubled young men, giving them nuance and relatability. After making his movie debut at the age of 11 in The Sandlot, Guiry has built a steady career for himself appearing in films like Black Hawk Down and Mystic River. More recently he portrayed the down-on-his-luck drug-addled Jimmy Donnelly on the NBC series The Black Donnellys. The short-lived drama followed the lives of four Irish brothers involved the world of New York's organized crime.

In keeping with the theme of Irish family dynamics, Guiry can now be seen in the new film Black Irish playing the oldest child in the McKay family trying to make it through the trials of life in South Boston.

"Black Irish is about a boy who Michael Angarano plays and he's got an older brother and his mother and father and his sister,' Guiry explains. 'It's pretty much about his struggles growing up with the issues of his family'what his father's going through, his father's been sick, his love for baseball. My character Terry, I play kind of a misfit in a way. I'm not a good influence on him at all.'

Not only is Terry a bad influence, he's a bully as well, tormenting his younger brother Cole every chance he gets. In one particular scene, Terry realizes that Cole has borrowed his pants without asking. While other kids stand around and watch, Terry humiliates Cole by making him take off the pants. Some people might cringe at the thought of playing such a ruthless, mean character, but Guiry revels in it.

'I think the more horrible the character I think that's better,' he says with a laugh. 'Because it's fun to be the bad guy. It's a lot more fun to play the villain than to always play the good guy. I don't think I'd mind being typecast as the bad guy.'

In addition to teasing his brother, Terry also has deep-seeded issues with his emotionally distant father. His seething anger causes him to rebel often. In one confrontational scene, Terry throws a piece of fruit and hits his father in the head, hard. It was a tense scene to film, only made tenser by the size and stature of his on-screen dad played by Brendan Gleeson.

'I noticed after I threw it, and a couple of times I actually got him,' Guiry says. 'He would give me this one look and it wasn't really acting like I was afraid of him. The man's pretty big, so it was pretty scary.'

In real life however, Guiry realized that Gleeson was nothing like his domineering character. 'It was a real delight to see that he was such a nice guy and just a real gentleman and just a great actor,' he says. 'I would come in a couple of times when I didn't even have to work that day just to watch him. I think he's one of the best actors around.'

Guiry seemed to take pleasure in working with all of his co-stars and he also greatly appreciated filming on location. Even though Guiry himself grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, he was able to bring a realistic feel to his role as a Southie. 'I think just us actually filming in Boston, where we filmed I think really layers on the picture of the film; it's just amazing,' he says. 'It really brings an authenticity to it.'

Unafraid of taking on an unlikable role and embracing a character's flaws, it seems that authenticity is something Guiry strives for and achieves.