Punchy

Jim Sheridan (pictured) gave an onstage interview at the Edinburgh Film Festival a few years back. MY GOD he was brilliant. He’s a very good filmmaker but a SENSATIONAL talker (Karl Francis was very good too — if his films were half as good as his storytelling he’d have been one of the greats). Huge long anecdotes that were hilarious and extreme, and then he’d draw remarkable life lessons out of them too.

One little story I remember concerns prep for THE BOXER. Sheridan and his wife watched a video of ON THE WATERFRONT with Daniel Day-Lewis. ‘He came at me with a left, I hit him with a right,’ says Brando at one point (or words to that effect), his fists making little jabs as he re-stages the scene in his memory.

‘What mistake did he make?’ asked Mrs Sheridan.

The menfolk admit to being baffled.

Jim’s wife explains: ‘He moved his right hand when he said “left” and his left when he said “right”.’

‘And then I realised,’ Jim said to us, ‘that women triangulate violence. They always have to know where the next punch is coming from.’