‘Wild Horse Nine’ filmmaker Martin McDonagh

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. The films In Bruges, The Banshees of Inishereen, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were written and directed by my guest, Martin McDonough. Now he has a new film he's written and directed called Wild Horse Nine. It's a comedy-drama that continues some of the themes at the center of In Bruges and Banshees. Conflicts between two longtime male friends, conscience, guilt, sin, revenge, the possibility of redemption, the inevitability of death, and the immortality of great art. It's set in 1973, just before the CIA-assisted coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. The two main characters are CIA agents based in Santiago, Chile, Chris, played by John Malkovich, and the younger agent he mentored and works with, Lee, played by Sam Rockwell. Chris has convinced Lee to come with him to Easter Island. Chris has terminal cancer and knows he has little time left. He's become a loose cannon, blurting out in public places stories about the CIA that sound far-fetched, but he was really part of. Their boss, played by Steve Buscemi, is afraid Chris will reveal some of the CIA's most closely held secrets. Early in the film, Chris and Lee are at the Santiago airport on their way to Easter Island. Chris starts flirting with two young Chilean women heading there, too. "Easter Island, boy, the heads. You know what I hope? I hope they're going to be extraordinarily mysterious." "It's actually called Rapa Nui." "How's that, miss?" "Easter Island, its indigenous name is Rapa Nui." "Ah, he believes this. You shouldn't even know the word 'indigenous' at your age. We are going to see what's going to happen to us." "Easter Island, boy, the heads. I hope they're going to be extraordinarily mysterious." "It's actually called Rapa Nui." "Easter Island, its indigenous name is Rapa Nui." "We're going to Easter Island, alright? Indigenous." "We're going to Easter Island, alright? Indigenous." "Okay." "Girls, can I ask you something? How do you like your new president? Your new left-wing president?" "Girls, can I ask you something? Your new left-wing president?" "What'd I say about before, Chris? What'd I say?" "What'd I say about before, Chris? What'd I say?" "Yes, we like him. Everybody likes him." "Yes, we like him. Everybody likes him." "Not everybody. That wouldn't be true. Well, enjoy him while you can, ladies." "Not everybody. That wouldn't be true." "Well, enjoy him while you can, ladies." "And what's that supposed to mean, enjoy him while you can?" "And what's that supposed to mean, enjoy him while you can?" "I'm not saying nothing. I'm just saying enjoy him while you can, that's all." "I'm not saying nothing. I'm just saying enjoy him while you can, that's all." "And who the f**k are you? The CIA?" "And who the f**k are you? The CIA?" "We are the CIA, actually. We're totally the CIA." "We're not the CIA, obviously." "Yes, we are, I swear. He's just being shy." "We are the CIA, actually. We're totally the CIA." "Yes, we are, I swear. He's just being shy." "We came down here to destabilize your democracy, and it is going great. So we decided to take a little side trip to Easter Island." "And see the big head." "How about we board an airplane, Chris?" "The girls don't believe me about destabilizing their democracy thing." "Of course they don't, because it isn't true." "Your country's going to get f**ked." "Your country's going to be absolutely fine." "Martin McDonough, welcome to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you on the show." "Thanks, Terry." "If I understood correctly, when you started to write the screenplay for this, at the top of your first page, you wrote guilt and revenge." "Regret." "Regret, okay." "Yeah, yeah." "So, have guilt and regret been on your mind a lot, or have you been atoning for a lot of things lately?" "Me, personally? No, it was all about John Malkovich's character in the movie. And just to remember, you know, despite all the comedy scenes that I knew I was going to write, all the craziness of the journey that the two characters were going to go on, that fundamentally the film had to be about those two things." "Guilt and regret." "I'd add conscience. Like, do CIA hitmen who participate in coups or kill lots of people, as John Malkovich kind of brags about, do they have a conscience? Can Malkovich, can his character gain a conscience? And conscience figures into your other movies, too." "Yeah, yeah, very much. And I do wonder if I've given them more, given him more conscience." "And, and worries about what he's done than CIA people do in the real world. I don't really know. But yeah, I think guilt, conscience, all those things kind of come into most of my films. Definitely in Bruges was all about, you know, guilt and, and conscience, too. You know, Colin Farrell's character is dealing with that from the very first minute till the end. So, so I guess it, it kind of is a through line. Maybe it's an Irish Catholic thing. Maybe it's just me." "So, um, in Bruges, Banshees and the new movie Wild Horse Nine, they seem like a trilogy. Not sure if you intended it that way. But all three of them are about, you know, similar themes, but particularly about male friendships between an older and a younger man, maybe a couple of decades younger. And that's obviously a theme that interests you, male friendship of two different generations." "And the conflicts between them, what makes them friends and what makes them uncomfortable or unbearable to each other at the same time?" "I guess I am interested in male friendship when it's not a buddy, you know, bromance type thing, when it's a bit more, um, when you're open to the sensitivity of male friendships and the, the, the gentleness, yeah, conflict." "Yeah, but it's not that that I'm probably trying to get at, I don't think. I think it's more the, the truth of how we can speak with each other when you don't have to worry about being macho or tough or any of those things. So it's, so it's more, it's more about that, I think, than anything else." "Yeah, but it's not that that I'm probably trying to get at, I don't think. I think it's more the, the truth of how we can speak with each other when you don't have to worry about being macho or tough or any of those things." If that's not too strong a word for this one, particularly like if the last one was all about the end, this is all about being in the middle of, you know, two guys who are still very affectionate towards each other. have an unspoken love I guess for each other and that was definitely the thing to explore and and one of the beautiful things about John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell playing the parts is that you know they do love each other off screen and they're they don't hide on screen how how much affection they have for each other what got you thinking about the CIA I mean you're from England, from an Irish family. And the new film is set in 1973, right before the CIA assisted coup. The Kennedy assassination figures into the movie. So these are things like before you were born in a country that you weren't living in. But still, it seems interesting to me that you were so interested in that chapter of American history and the CIA. Well, I think I learned about the CIA's involvement in Chile back when I was in my sort of mid-teens. There was a song by The Clash that kind of talked all about Allende and Victor Jara and the Santiago Stadium and the horrors therein. And as a kid growing up in London, in the West, obviously, I was fascinated by that, by the fact that we're not really taught about that. We're not taught about the horrors that our side perpetuates in the world. And I don't know if it's like being a London Irish kid that meant I was more questioning of those sorts of things. But I think that's a part of it. I think when you've got an Irish background, you distrust what you're taught about Ireland from the UK's perspective as a kid growing up in a UK school. And I think when you have that, you start to question what you're being taught about everything in the world. So I guess my eyes were opened about what the American government was doing in Chile, in the Congo, in Guatemala, all of those places as a teen. And that remained with me. And when I decided to write something about Easter Island, it was only when I started thinking about the CIA of it that things started to fall into place. Easter Island is a dependency of Chile, as you know. "Yeah, but it's more the, the truth of how we can speak with each other when you don't have to worry about being macho or any of those things." And I'm wondering, I know you grew up Catholic. You grew up in London, in an Irish neighborhood, in an Irish neighborhood. Irish family. Were you exposed to a lot of, you know, like Christian iconography? And where did you find beauty? And were there images that really scared you? Because, you know, images of like saints and the crucifixion, they're bloody. A lot of children find them really terrifying. Yeah, I never had that. I always kind of liked the bloody ones. But yeah, I mean, I was brought up Catholic, so I went to Catholic churches and beautiful Catholic churches throughout my, you know, childhood. And even now, you know, if I'm in a foreign town or in the countryside, I'll always go into a church and, you know, have a look around. So I'm always drawn to it. I'm always drawn to Catholic imagery, especially. But, and in art galleries, I remember we went into an art gallery in Bruges, and it's all of that medieval, you know, Catholic art that we actually use in the film. And it's kind of horrific. There's beheadings and boilings. And, you know, all of the Hieronymus Bosch is not a walk in the park. But, you know, cinematically, I think that's, you know, I've left the Catholic church a long time ago, but I still find all of that very, very interesting and visually stimulating. So yeah, I think it's always going to be a part of me. And probably, a part of my art, I think. But especially when you're talking about subject matter, like, as I say, regret and guilt, and as you say, conscience. What were some of the things that you were made to feel guilty about by the church when you were growing up? And I assume that includes some things like you should feel guilty about and some things like maybe you shouldn't feel guilty about? Well, of course, they made you feel guilty about every single thing. They made you feel guilty about everything that was possible to feel guilty about. But I guess it's when you hit your teens, it's, you know, and your sexual awakenings, and all that stuff that I think that's the first time when you kind of, you're getting smarter, and you realize that if these guys care that much about, you know, you touching yourself some evening, then what are they doing? I think that's the straw that broke the camel's back for me. It was, kind of like when I thought, well, shouldn't you be doing something about, you know, world politics or war or, you know, leave me alone in my bedroom to do what I want. And I think that's when things started to go wrong for me with the Catholics. So was it like a heart split? Or like, you decided like, you're not going to church? Did you tell your parents like, you've given up on Catholicism because you like to touch yourself in your bedroom? No, I definitely didn't mention that part. Not to my mom anyway. No, I think the consciousness consciousness about that arose, I think I kind of kept quiet about my disdain for it. I think they were still forcing me and my brother to go to church. I was in the choir, you know, I was I was like proper, proper Catholic little, little kid, around the age of 10, or 11, or 12. But, you know, I think I kind of kept quiet about my disdain for it. I was in the choir, you know, I was I was like proper, proper Catholic little, little kid around the age of 10, or 11, or 12. But I, I think it was like, you know, getting into punk rock and that kind of music, which at that age, that also led to a questioning of all of that. I want to ask you something about Ambrouche. So Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play hitmen. And Farrell is a hitman who was sent to kill a priest. And when he shot and killed him, the bullet also hit him. So he was sent to kill a priest. So Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson also killed a young boy who Colin Farrell's character didn't know was there because he was standing behind the priest. And the boy was carrying a list of pretty innocent things that he wanted to tell the priest during confession. And Farrell's character can't live with himself, but he can't die by suicide because that's a sin. And after that incident, their boss sends them both to Bruges in Belgium for a couple of weeks without really explaining why. While they're in Bruges, they go sightseeing in very old churches and cathedrals. They look at Christian iconography. There's a scene in which Farrell and Gleeson are talking about how they reconcile being hitmen. But Farrell can't get relief from the guilt he feels about killing the boy. And we don't really know why he killed the, like why he was assigned to kill the priest and whether he was a good man or a bad man, this priest. But he does feel guilt about killing the boy. But because of the choices I made and the course that I put into action, a little boy isn't here anymore. I'll never be here again. I'm in here in the world, not here in Belgium. Well, you'll never be here in Belgium either, will you? I mean, he might have wanted to come here when he got older. I don't know why. And that's all because of me. He's dead because of me. And I'm trying to, I'm trying to get my head around it, but I can't. I will always have killed that little boy. That ain't ever going away. Ever. Unless maybe I go away. Don't even think like that. Was that intentional to think about what a character would feel guilty about and what they'd be fine? Yes, definitely. And I think killing a child is always about killing innocence. And I think there was there was probably a bit more of a backstory in the original script about the priest and what he'd been like as a character. But weirdly, you know, none of that made the finished film. And I didn't mind that because I'm vehemently not on the side of priests anymore. You know, I question and respect them at every turn. And that's part of why Colin Farrell's character doesn't feel guilt about that guy. How seriously did you take confession when you were still in the church and not questioning it yet? Very, very. And again, it was around the age of 13 or 14 that I just started thinking, why am I talking to this man and telling him my private stuff when I haven't read? Like I would spend most confessions, you know, trying to think up things that I hadn't even done to have something to say because we had to go like every every two or three weeks. And there was not there's nothing that a 12 or 13 year old kid does that is really worth confessing, you know. And I think all of my, you know, I still feel guilty every day and I never do anything wrong. It's good to have a conscience and guilt about stuff that you feel that's wrong. But all of my art, I think most of the plays, you know, the priest never come out of it well, because I distrust and I'm angry about everything that they did in Ireland, in UK and all over America, all over the world, you know. When you wanted to become a writer, first a playwright and then a filmmaker, did that seem like an impossible journey? Yeah, very much so. I think my first love was movies and my first attempt at writing was screenplays. But that was like, I left school very young at the age of sort of 16 or so. And I didn't really write at school, but then fell in love with the attempt at it after I left. I read a lot. I watched an awful lot of movies around that time, but never really thinking that it was a possibility. But then I kind of landed on trying to write plays. And at least in London at that time, there was places for you to send a brand new play that would read it, you know, without having an agent or any of that. So I stuck at that for a while. Again, it seemed like a dream. But the more I stuck at it, the better the work got. And because I was writing plays, which wasn't the art form I ever really cared about or loved at the time, I think I was able to bring a sensibility from the movies I liked onto my stage work. And what does that mean? What was the sensibility and how did it translate? I always think of like theater dialogue. This is changing, but theater dialogue being like more formal, less idiomatic. I think that that changed, especially like with David Mamet and other contemporaries. So it's not a thing like it was before. But was that your feeling? Funny you should say that, that I was, I think, 14 when I went to see Al Pacino in American Buffalo. And I didn't know anything about David Mamet at that time. I was a big fan of Al Pacino. And that just blew my mind. I didn't think the plays could be like that, that they could be so sort of aggressive in their dialogue content. I think that was the first thing that taught me that plays could be something more exciting than the other things I was seeing on stage at the time. And I think that allowed me into reading how I was going to read. I think that was the first thing that taught me that plays could be something more exciting than the other things I was going to read. And of course, Mamet, it was a read. And of course, Mamet, it was a big devotee of Pinter. And I think it was Pinter, of Pinter. And I think it was Pinter, especially that taught me that British plays or plays per se could have a danger and an excitement and a truth that was different to the rest of the theater I was reading and seeing at the time. My guest is Martin McDonough. He wrote and directed the new film Wild Horse Nine as well as Banshees of Inishereen, In Bruges, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. And you can keep up with Fresh Air by subscribing to our podcast and leave us a review. It helps a lot. Thank you. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week in exclusive. So subscribe at whyy.org slash fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. Early on, you were inspired by an emulated mammoth and pinter, but it was when you started writing about Irish characters that you really found your voice. And can you talk a little bit about the difference between writing in the voice that you heard growing up in your life? Your family and in your neighborhood versus like a British pinter or American mammoth kind of voice? Well, yes, that's a good question. I think when I discovered those two guys, everything I was writing was sort of a cheap imitation of them. But when I tried to use their approach to dialogue, which I think is a heightening and a theatricality combined with their approach to dialogue, which I think is a heightening and a theatricality combined with their approach to dialogue, there was a strange truth that they found about how weird it is, the weird way that we speak. We speak in half sentences and non sequiturs and all of that. It was only when I tried to transplant that to, you know, the accents of my uncles that I was hearing all around me, something got freed in me. It felt like I was doing something that was new and that wasn't a copy of pinter or mammoth. And, you know, I was like, it was a heightening. I don't think you can ever write exactly how people speak. And I've never really tried to. But it captured a poetry that I think pinter and mammoth captured in their idioms. Now, also, like you've written for Christopher Walken and John Malkovich, and they both have such idiosyncratic ways of phrasing their sentences. So I don't know if you wrote the part specifically for them, or cast them after the fact? No, not in those two cases, no. You didn't write it for them? No. So how did their way of speaking change the way you heard your lines? It's a weird one. But, you know, Christopher and John, I mean, they're two actors that I've adored since childhood, really, you know. And nothing is changed or tailored to the way they deliver a line. But somehow, like right now, I can't imagine anyone else but John Malkovich playing this part. Because they stick exactly to the lines as written, but they make it entirely their own. You know, they've done that through all of their lives, I guess. And there's just an immense joy to it. But, I mean, I always write for Sam Rockwell, weirdly. This was written for Sam, but not for John. But right now, I can't hear, you know, anyone else in it but John. And I love that. So, in Banshees of Inisheeran, Brendan Gleeson is trying to, like, break up with his longtime friend, Colin Farrell. And he thinks, like, Farrell is boring. And he doesn't want to waste his time having, like, idle, boring conversations with Colin Farrell's character anymore. And he's not succeeding in getting Colin Farrell to get the point here that he no longer wants to be friends. So, at some point, he tells him, I'm going to cut off a finger every time you try to talk to me just to prove I really mean it. And no one takes him seriously. He's a fiddle player. I mean, that's his joy, is playing fiddle at the pub and writing songs. Colin Farrell wants to apologize and, like, get things back on track with their friendship. He doesn't know what he's apologizing for, but just in case he did something wrong. Um, why? Did you have him go to such an extreme? I mean, I don't even know how he would do it. How he would cut? Yeah, like, what tool he would use. How he would endure the pain of cutting off his own finger. We had a nice pair of shears. So, I think there's a. I think Brendan and I kind of worked it out. You kind of have to hold it with your elbow and kind of push it down. Anyway, I think it's funny that Brendan and I talked about how. How radical his character is being towards Colin's character. And, you know, I mean, it's an awful thing to threaten. It's an awful thing to start going through with. But we realized that even before the story starts, Brendan's character is probably suicidal. And part of that is that he's not doing the art as well enough as he wants to. And in his. Probably unstable mind, Colin's character is another factor that's stopping him from being an artist, which has led him to a place of potential suicide. So, everything that happened that Brendan puts into play after that, as radical and as dangerous and as violent as it might seem, isn't as violent and dangerous as the place he's in at the beginning of the film. That as dangerous as he is being and as awful as he's being, it's not actually necessary. It's not necessarily the truth of how he feels about Colin. It's just the most radical thing he can do to free himself to be the person he wants to be. But just in storytelling terms, I found it fascinating. I never sort of do a treatment or know what's going to happen in a story until it happens. So, I remember I was like 20 pages, 25 pages into that story. And Brendan's character on the page made that threat. And it was a surprise. It was a surprise to me. And that took the story in a whole different, to a different place. And I kind of loved that. It made it radical. It made it dark and dangerous. But don't forget that if Colin had done what he was told after that, after One Finger, you know, it would have been a happy ending and everyone could have lived happily ever after. Brendan, as you know, is a fiddle player. And he did manage to play. One tune without his forefinger after the, you see it in the film. And that's Brendan playing. And so, the story could have been happier after that point. But the nature of Colin's character, he's always in his ear. He never listens. And that's, you know, the dichotomy, I guess, at the heart of the story. I'm on both of their sides. I can see it from both of their points of view. So, in Banshees, Brendan Gleeson is trying to end his longtime friendship with Colin Farrell. And there's a scene in which he explains he wants to devote his time to playing fiddle and writing a great song. And Farrell thinks it's important being nice. And he says, niceness lasts. You, Colin Darley, do you know what you used to be? No, Barak, what did I used to be? Nice. You used to be nice. Didn't he not? And now, do you know what you are? Not nice. Ah, well, I suppose niceness doesn't last then, does it, Barak? But will I tell you something that does last? What? And I don't say something stupid like music. Music lasts. Knew it! And paintings last. And poetry lasts. So does niceness. Do you know who we remember for how nice they was in the 17th century? Who? Absolutely. Absolutely no one. Yet we all remember the music of the time. Everyone to a man knows Mozart's name. I don't, so there goes that theory. And anyway, we're talking about niceness, not what's his name. And my mummy, she was nice. I remember her. And my daddy, he was nice. I remember him. And my sister, she's nice. I'll remember her forever. I'll remember her. And who else? Who else will what? Remember, Siobhan, and your niceness. No one will. In 50 years' time, no one will remember any of us. Yet the music of a man who lived two centuries ago. Yet, she says, like he's English. Come on, Barak. I don't give a feck about Mozart or Borvalvin or any of them funny-name feckers. I'm Barak Suluon. and I'm nice. In reality, even though Colin Farrell's character says, I'm nice, niceness lasts, it doesn't. He does things that aren't nice. He seeks revenge in a terrible way. Yeah, I think that's sort of the dichotomy at the heart of the story is, is all the questioning that I had as a writer is like, is he really nice? Like if he was, if he really cared about the other person's wishes, then he would listen more to what he's being asked to do. So the whole, I think, crux of the story is that if you're selfish in that way, is that nice? Are you being a proper friend? If your friend asks you to stop? Why wouldn't you stop? If it's not some kind of insecurity or egoism on your part, I guess. Because he means so much to Colin Farrell. He's like his only like real friend. And it's been going on for so long, and he can't comprehend why Brendan Gleeson would want to break up the relationship. Absolutely. But I mean, I think the whole film is sort of written from about a breakup of mine, like a proper love breakup that happened as suddenly as what happened. In the story. And your natural instinct when that happens is to, to try and hold on and find out why and how and if it can be solved or resolved. But in a lot of breakups, you can't and you don't know why and you'll never know why. And I think that was sort of what the heart was at the heart of what I was trying to get at, you know, but just made it a platonic story instead of a love story. And you feel wounded in a situation like that. And you, how can you not want to find out why and how? But that's not what life is like, I guess, in terms of breakups, romantic breakups. He wrote and directed the new film Wild Horse Nine. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. When you started writing, you were living with your brother in an apartment together. Your parents had already moved back to Ireland. I think you were in your 20s at this time. And your brother, I saw one of his films. I saw Calvary. Oh, that's a very good one. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was great. And Brendan Gleeson is in it. And Domhnall Gleeson, his son, is in it, too. And they're both great in it. But anyways, you were writing together and you described it as like a, I think you called it like a writer's frat house. Well, frat house would be too, too strong a word. Maybe the writer of the article described it that way. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Because probably the saddest, loneliest frat house there's ever been. There wasn't a lot of anything in that house. But yeah, he'd be, I'd be downstairs writing, he'd be upstairs, I'd be downstairs writing a play, he'd be upstairs writing a film. We'd meet for a sandwich and watching, you know, a terrible soap opera on TV and then go our separate ways for the rest of the afternoon. So it was, it was, yeah, it was, it was a place I'd never want to go back to, but it served its purpose. Would you describe the neighborhood where you grew up? And I ask because setting is so important to your films. Like Three Bullboards is set in Ebbing, Missouri. Your new movie is set on Easter Island. Banshees is set on an island off of, an imaginary island, off of the mainland of Ireland. And In Bruges is set in Bruges. A surprise. Yeah. I mean, like setting shows up in the title often, not only in the script itself. So where, like, tell us where you are from, like the first setting that you knew. Oh, me personally, it's in a small working class area of, of southeast London, called the Elephant and Castle, weirdly. And even though it's like a little working class London neighborhood, every little house on my little block was. It was Irish, you know, so all the, obviously the kids are kind of London Irish kids, but all of the families were from Dublin or from the west of Ireland. Four, no, eight little prefabricated bungalow houses, each with a little garden. So you could hear, you know, the kids playing in the next door garden. You could hear the, the Irish accents of calling the kids home. We'd play football in the streets. It was kind of idyllic, you know, because, because. I've got cousins who grew up in, who at least started their lives in tower blocks in London. And, and the, the, growing up in a little bungalow with, you know, Irish neighbors like that was, was, was a beautiful way to, to, to come into the world, I think. Do memories still stick in your mind from that? Well, like, because all of the neighbors were Irish, it felt like that's what, and all of my uncles and aunts around. in different other pockets of London were Irish. That sounded like the natural accent to be surrounded by, you know. Also, especially growing up then, there was a lot of prejudice against the Irish in, in London. I'm sure there probably still is. So, so, so that kind of feeling of being an outsider within your own community too was probably part of it. And, you know, from mum and dad, they were, they were always very proud to, to bring us up as Irish kids. And as a teen, you, you sort of kick against that a little bit too, until you find the Irish sensibility that, that, that you like. You know, I didn't want to go and study Irish dancing like, like my mum wanted me to do, or go to play Irish football or any of that stuff. Or, or listen to traditional Irish music? Well, I'd hear that because they'd play it all the time. People like the Chieftains would be on all the time. And you'd hear that from the other houses in, on the block. But. As a kid, I sort of kicked against that, but it wasn't until I started hearing the Pogues when I was in my early teens, who used Irish traditional music, but brought a punk rock sensibility to it. That's when everything fell into place for me about not just music, but an Irish sensibility and a London Irish sensibility that I could run with and be especially proud of. And make your own, like do your version of it. Yeah, I think I followed in the footsteps of Shane McGuire. Shane McGuire and the Pogues in theatre as much as anything. And we forget that back in Ireland, when the Pogues first came out, they were disrespected by a lot of the media who thought they were rowdy drunks who were, you know, portraying Ireland in a bad light. You know, I remember those days very specifically. And, and that was all part of it, you know, to have a bit of a punk rock ethos. Do you feel like you still have a punk rock sensibility? I mean, I think. I think it's, it's leveled out over the years. You know, Wild Horse Nine has a bit of a, it's probably the most political thing I've done. And it's probably got the most anger in it. And I guess those are sort of punk rock sensibilities there. Martin McDonough, thank you so much for doing this interview. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Terry, for having me. I enjoyed it very much. Martin McDonough wrote and directed the new film Wild Horse Nine. After we take a short break, Maureen Corrigan. Maureen Corrigan will review new books about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. This is Fresh Air. Both Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle explored the shadow side of human behavior in their works. And both writers have generated mountains of literary criticism. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan says that two new smart books about Poe and Conan Doyle remind us that there's still a lot left to discover. Edgar Allan Poe is our founding literary. Edgar Allan Poe is our founding literary enigma. Born in Boston in 1809 to actor parents, he was orphaned and taken in around age three by the prosperous Allan family of Virginia. What followed was a short, troubled life. Poe died under mysterious circumstances at age 40, leaving a legacy of essays, eerie poems, and short stories. Among his triumphs is the detective story. The greatest mystery Poe generated, however, remains unsolved. That of the source of his almost supernatural talent and its lasting hold on readers. Many biographers and critics have tried to crack that mystery. But if I were rash enough to speak for Poe, I think he might give Emily Ogden's slim, strange new book, Darkness Becomes Bright. His blood-red, waxen seal of approval. Ogden, who's a professor at Poe's alma mater, the University of Virginia, says she fell under his spell when she had to teach his work. Here's how Ogden explains her project. This is a book about Edgar Allan Poe, but as much as it is about Poe himself, it is about Poe's followers and fellow travelers. Those of us who have let him be our guide into the darkness. Much of the time, the dark side is the last place we want to look. To join his crew of castaways, you need to be ready to go to the edges of human experience. to madness, to loneliness, to pain and the causing of pain. You need to follow him. Ogden's book is an unconventional mix of biography, exploration of the obsession he inspired in translators like Charles Baudelaire, and her own account of how Poe's work infiltrates her thoughts. She frames Darkness Becomes Bright with a true-life incident drawn from the diary of one of Poe's friends, a Philadelphia engraver named John Sartain. In 1849, an agitated Poe turned up at Sartain's workshop and insisted they go on a midnight ramble to the Fairmont Waterworks, an early municipal water facility. There, for hours, on a platform high above the Schuylkill River, Sartain kept his friend from jumping. Ogden incisively explores how Poe's work emerged both because of and despite such personal torments. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle regarded Poe as unsurpassable when it came to detective fiction. Poe, wrote Doyle, was the father of the detective tale, and covered its limits so completely that I fail to see how his followers can find any fresh ground which they can confidently call their own. Fortunately, Doyle needed to supplement his unprofitable medical practice, so he tried his hand at a mystery story anyway and published his first Sherlock Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887. In total, 59 more tales would follow, and Holmes and Dr. Watson would attain that rarest form of literary immortality. People so believe in their existence that letters from hopeful clients still arrive at 221B Baker Street. Conan Doyle and his characters have been so thoroughly excavated by scholars, it's hard to believe any clues have been missed. But I've learned not to underestimate medical historian Lindsay Fitzharris. Her non-fiction book, The Facemaker, about pioneering World War I plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, was one of my top books of the year in 2022. In her new book, Sleuth Hound, Fitzharris delves into the story of two doctors, surgeon Joseph Bell and early forensics expert Henry Duncan Littlejohn. Sleuth Hound, who made such lasting impressions on one med student at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary, that along with a ballistics expert named Dr. Watson, he gave them all a second life in literature. Bell is the best-known figure, nicknamed the Demon of Diagnosis. He could tell a patient's occupation by reading the scars on his hands. What Fitzharris illuminates, is Bell's investigative work with Littlejohn on some of Scotland's most horrific murder cases. Even, she says, the Jack the Ripper case. Along the way, Fitzharris gives readers brief but fascinating histories of, among other things, toxicology, anesthesiology, and the field of public health. Both these revelatory books delve into figures whose stories have been overshadowed by the history of the United States. The book, The Facemaker, have been oft told. And yet, as Poe's detective story, The Purloined Letter, suggests, sometimes telling details still hide in plain sight, waiting to be discovered. Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Darkness Becomes Bright by Emily Ogden and Sleuth Hound by Lindsay Fitzharris. How much money would it take for you to stop worrying about money? Tomorrow's guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mona Chalabi, spent five years following 10 Americans, from those struggling to get by to those earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Her new book, 10 Lives, explores why financial security can feel so elusive. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering today from Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Boldenado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.