Ryan McParland is currently starring as Ewen Sheridan on Rosie Jones and Peter Fellows’ comedy “Pushers.” The series, which premiered on Channel 4 last month, follows a woman (Jones) with cerebral palsy who begins dealing drugs when her disability benefits are cut. Next, the Northern Irish actor will appear in Bernard Rose’s “King Lear” adaptation, “Lear Rex,” opposite Al Pacino. This essay is by McParland, as told to Theo Bosanquet.
As a child, I watched a lot of films. My mother tells a story about me mimicking American actors—mainly action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone—when I was five or six years old. That’s probably one of the earliest memories I have.
I was fairly easygoing as a kid. I had an interest in football; I was quite athletic. I’m from a working-class family, so there was no blueprint for me to even have a thought about becoming an actor. But it was always of interest to me, ever since first getting onstage around the age of 10, in a production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.”
When I was about 15, I got a terrible knee injury playing football, and I couldn’t walk for about two months. I slipped into what I now realise was a depression. Acting began to take over from football around that point. I remember coming across a book by Konstantin Stanislavsky, and I swallowed it; it just made sense to me. From then on, I developed a very intense interest in acting.
Shortly afterwards, I got my first professional theatre job: a play in Belfast called “Choices,” about knife crime, with the great Stephen Kelly. I got paid £400 a week, and I suddenly realised I could earn money from this thing I loved. I remember phoning my mum and telling her I wanted to drop out of school and become an actor full-time. She said, “If that’s what you want to do, me and your father will support you 110%.”
I trained on the job. People told me at the time that I should go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), but I remember thinking, Even if I got a scholarship, it’s never going to happen. So, in a sense, the decision about whether I should go to drama school wasn’t one I had to make—I just had to get on with working. I’m very grateful to the theatre, because I jumped from production to production and worked with a lot of great people. It meant, in some ways, I got a head start over my friends who went off to study.
My motivation has always been acting, rather than fame or money. In 2019, I did a one-man show called “East Belfast Boy,” written by Fintan Brady, which was about mental health in men from left-behind communities. We did a performance in an arts centre toward the end of the tour when we were all pretty knackered, and the stage manager told me there were just 20 people in the audience. But I gave the absolute best performance I could, because it felt important.
I’ve been lucky to work with some actors I really look up to. It’s as surreal as it gets to act alongside someone like Al Pacino. We bonded over the theatre, we talked about plays much more than films, and he asked me to send him “East Belfast Boy.” We’ve become good friends—which is mad, really.
Recently, I’ve been working with Rosie Jones on “Pushers.” We actually shot the pilot back in 2021, and I knew it was special. There was a real chemistry between us, and it’s been such a collaborative effort. I’m really interested in subverting stereotypes, and I felt there was an opportunity to do something really groundbreaking around an issue very close to my heart.
I’ve always tried to be fearless. I got my role in the upcoming “Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness,” directed by Johnny Depp, after doing a self-tape which involved an improvisation of myself painting, with socks on my shoulders, while singing to Ukrainian rap. Johnny said something along the lines of, “Any motherfucker who has the balls to do that deserves a role in my movie.”
“Pushers” is streaming on Channel 4. “Modigliani: Three Days on a Wing of Madness” is in cinemas 11 July.