Oscar Profile #402: Jim Sheridan

Born February 6, 1949 in Dublin, Ireland, Jim Sheridan was one of three sons of Anna and Peter Sheridan, Sr., owners of a lodging house. Anna also worked at a hotel and Peter as a railway clerk to support their young family. The future writer-producer-director was educated in a Christian Brothers School. In 1969, he attended University College Dublin where is studied English and History and became involved in theatre after meeting future writer-director Neil Jordan. After graduating UCD in 1972, the same year he married wife Fran, he and brother Peter, Jr. began writing and staging plays. He and Fran moved to Canada with their two young daughters in 1981 and then to New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in 1982. The family’s immigrant experience would become the source material for Sheridan’s 2002 film, In America, written by Sheridan and his daughters.

After struggling through the 1980s in New York, Sheridan and his family moved back to Ireland in 1989 where he made his first film, My Left Foot which would catapult him to fame at the age of 40. Among the film’s many honors were five Oscar nominations Including Best Picture, and two wins. The wins were for the performances of Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker as cerebral palsy afflicted writer-painter Christy Brown and his mother. The other two went to Sheridan for both writing (shared with Shane Connaughton) and directing.

Sheridan’s second film, 1990’s The Field, was less successful but did earn Richard Harris a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his intense portrayal of an Irish tenant farmer in a bidding war with an American developer for the land his family has farmed for generations. In 1993, he formed his own production company, Hell’s Kitchen Productions, and had another smash hit with In the Name of the Father again starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a construction worker wrongly accused of being an IRA terrorist. Nominated for seven Oscars including three for Sheridan for writing (shared with Terry George), directing and producing, the film also earned nominations for Film Editing and the performances of Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite and Emma Thompson.

In 1996, he produced Some Mother’s Son directed by Terry George starring Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan as mothers of IRA prisoners in a British prison on a hunger strike. In 1997, he produced, wrote (again with Terry George) and directed The Boxer. Another IRA themed film, it earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Director and Actor, Daniel Day Lewis in another acclaimed performance. In 1999, he produced Agnes Browne directed by and starring Angelica Huston as the widowed mother of seven children in 1967 Ireland. In 2000, he produced Borstal Boy which he wrote with his brother Peter who directed Shawn Hatosy as the young Brendan Behan.

A film festival hit throughout 2002 and 2003 when it was finally released into theatres in November of that year to great acclaim, In America, Sheridan’s biographical film about his family’s time in New York, earned Oscar nominations for Best Actress Samantha Morton, Best Supporting Actor Djimon Hounsou and Best Original Screenplay for Sheridan and his daughters.

Sheridan’s most successful subsequent film was his 2009 remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 Danish film about a missing soldier in Afghanistan, Brothers, which was nominated for Golden Globes for Best Actor Tobey Maguire and Best Song, U2’s “Winter”.

Jim Sheridan’s most recent films have been documentaries and shorts, some of which were made for TV. He remains ever busy at 69.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MY LEFT FOOT (1989), directed by Jim Sheridan

Sheridan’s debut film was also one of the best of his career. An emotionally stirring biography of cerebral palsy afflicted writer-painter Christy Brown, the film won New York Film Critics awards for Best Film, Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Supporting Actress (Brenda Fricker) and New Director, then went on to win Day-Lewis and Fricker Golden Globes, Oscars and BAFTAs for their unforgettable performances as Christy and his self-sacrificing mother. Hugh O’Conor as the youthful version of Christy is equally riveting in the film’s early scenes. Ray McAnally won a posthumous BAFTA as Christy’s father.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993), directed by Jim Sheridan

Sheridan’s second film with Daniel Day-Lewis was just as impressive as his first. Based on the wrongful 1974 imprisonment of three men and a woman known as the Guildford Four, Day-Lewis plays purported ringleader Gerry Conlon who is imprisoned along with his father, Giuseppe played by Pete Postlethwaite. Both Day-Lewis and Postlethwaite were nominated for Oscars for their performances as was Emma Thompson as their British lawyer. The film earned a total of seven Oscar nominations including three for Sheridan for writing (with Terry George), producing and directing the Best Picture nominee.

THE BOXER (1997), directed by Jim Sheridan

The least successful of Sheridan’s three film with Day-Lewis, but nevertheless a powerful film that earned Day-Lewis a Golden Globe nomination in another film co-written by Sheridan and Terry George. Sheridan also earned Golden Globe nods for Best Picture and Director for this Irish troubles drama about a 30-year-old Belfast man released after 14 years in prison for taking the rap for someone else. Determined to resume his career as a boxer in a nonsectarian club, he draw the wrath of the IRA who put a price on his head. Excellent performances, too, from Emily Watson as his old girlfriend and Brian Cox as her father.

IN AMERICA (2002), directed by Jim Sheridan

Based on Sheridan’s real-life struggles as an immigrant in 1980s New York, the film features five extraordinary performances by Paddy Considine as a struggling actor, a stand-in for Sheridan; Samantha Morton as his emotionally damaged wife grieving over the death of her baby, Sarah and Emma Bolger as his impressionable young daughters and Djimon Hounsou as a volatile neighbor dying of AIDS. All five were nominated for various awards with Morton and Hounsou receiving Oscar nominations as did Sheridan and his daughters Naomi and Kristen for their original screenplay.

BROTHERS (2009), directed by Jim Sheridan

Sheridan’s remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 film about shifting family dynamics when one brother is sent to fight in Afghanistan and the other one is left to stay at home caring for the first one’s wife and child is even more powerful given the acting talents of Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal as the brothers, Natalie Portman as Maguire’s wife and eight-year-old Bailee Madison as his daughter. Co-starring Sam Shepard and Mare Winningham as the brothers’ parents, it’s all brought home with Maguire’s “Only the dead see the end of war. I have seen the end of War. How do I go on living?”