New king of Comedy? Well, he can make Wills and Kate laugh: As his latest film promises to be a smash, Chris O'Dowd reveals how he won over two royal fans

By Richard Barber

PUBLISHED: 21:00 EST, 1 November 2012 | UPDATED: 04:44 EST, 2 November 2012

When Chris O’Dowd was four years old, everyone in his sleepy home town of Boyle, in Ireland’s County Roscommon, turned out for a parade to honour their most famous offspring, Hollywood actress Maureen O’Sullivan, who played Jane in the first Tarzan film.

She was returning after 40 years, and although little Chris, watching with his parents and three older sisters, didn’t know who she was, or why 3,000 people — Boyle’s entire population — were cheering, he remembers being overawed by the celebration and adulation.

Now, at the age of 33 and a gangly 6ft 4in, he is an acclaimed comedy actor and writer, the star of Bridesmaids and several other hit movies. He made his name on TV sitcom The IT Crowd and is currently in Sky One’s Moone Boy. Now, he is undoubtedly Boyle’s most famous son.

Star turn: Chris with The Sapphires' Jessica Mauboy (left) and Deborah Mailman

Royal approval: Chris met Prince William and Kate after they had watched Bridesmaids, and a photograph of the royal couple with him takes pride of place in his parents¿ house

‘Watching the O’Sullivan homecoming was a big influence on me,’ he recalls. ‘It’s no coincidence that I decided then and there that I wanted to take up acting. Perhaps one day, I’ll be given my own parade. . .’

He says this, tongue firmly in cheek, because he refuses to see himself as an international star. Indeed, while filming his semi-autobiographical series Moone Boy, set in Boyle, he turned down offers of a comfortable trailer to relax in between scenes, and refused to be whisked off to the luxury of a country hotel at nights.

Instead, he spent the freezing winter staying with his parents, Denise and Sean, and changed off-set in a portable loo.

‘It was strange coming back. I love the place, but old friends I grew up with weren’t sure how to treat me, and it was all very awkward.

‘I’d deal with it by making jokes, but in all sincerity I couldn’t tell them “I’m still the same old me”, because that would be even weirder. But I love the people. They fascinate me. And my family are all very funny.’

Pictured with wife Dawn Porter as the couple arrive for the premier of The Sapphires

Although these days he may be more used to being a friend of Hollywood A-listers — Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Seinfeld have all declared themselves fans of his — it’s his royal connections that the O’Dowd family are most proud of.

He met Prince William and Kate after they had watched Bridesmaids, and a photograph of the royal couple with him takes pride of place in his parents’ house.

‘I’d just told a joke and they are laughing. It’s a good picture, and you can’t miss it.

‘It’s right there as you go in through the front door and Kate is blown up to 8ft by 10ft!’ he jokes.

With them in the picture is his wife, TV presenter Dawn Porter, whom he married in August. He proposed to her on Boxing Day last year in Guernsey, where was she was raised.

‘We went for a walk on the beach with her father and the aunt and uncle who brought her up after her mother died. I’d been traditional and asked for their permission in advance. Dawn and I walked on ahead until we reached a pretty harbour wall. I’d even bought a ring in Ireland.

‘I said: “This is nice,” and she replied: “Yes, it’s where people throw themselves off.” I thought: “Great, I’m about to propose at a  well-known suicide spot.”

‘But then she added: “It’s where kids take big leaps in the summer when the tide’s in,” and that sounded more appropriate.’

When she turned around, Chris was down on one knee. She said yes. ‘Then we went to the local pub where she used to work and we celebrated with shepherd’s pie  and champagne.’

Afterwards, he felt ‘an incredible sense of relief that I won’t have to worry about all that stuff again. I just love the person I’m with’.

With his personal life settled, his hopes are pinned on The Sapphires, the feel-good film of the year. An independently-made Australian movie that was highly praised at the Cannes Film Festival in May, it’s released here next week and is also assured of success in America, with Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein buying the U.S. distribution rights.

Chris plays Dave Lovelace, the dishevelled, disorganised, borderline dysfunctional manager of the all-girl Aboriginal band — a sort of Australian version of The Supremes — that gives the film its title.

A struggling musician himself, he is convinced the four girls can become world stars, and, this being 1968, he books them for a three-month tour of American military bases in war-torn Vietnam. It is based on a true story set in a very racist Australia.

The four young actresses who play The Sapphires are very good indeed. But it is O’Dowd who provides the film’s beating heart. After all, he managed to steal every scene in which he appeared in Bridesmaids as sweet and gentle police officer Nathan Rhodes, the man who fell in love with the spiky chief bridesmaid played by Kristen Wiig.

He is typically self-deprecating about his contribution to both films. ‘Saddam Hussein could have played Rhodes and women would have found him adorable,’ he maintains. ‘All the attention I got was because Rhodes was such a nice guy. It’s not me.

‘I joined the set of The Sapphires three weeks after everyone else,’ he says. ‘When I got there, I assumed the girls must have known each other for years because there was so much bickering and banter going on.

‘I grew up in a household full of women so I immediately felt comfortable. I also know what it’s like to be loved and humiliated.’

Indeed he  does, as his TV  series Moone Boy reveals. It shows his alter-ego Martin, played by David Rawle, at the mercy of his sisters — being forced to wear  make-up was one ritual.

‘They’d hold me down and tickle me, and then it would get worse. But we didn’t put that in the show because we thought no one would believe the lengths older siblings would go to.’

Sapphires: Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Shari Sebbens, Miranda Tapsell, Jessica Mauboy and director Wayne Blair attend the premiere of 'The Sapphires'

Not that he encountered any similar problems with the Sapphires — Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell. 

Jessica, who came runner-up in Australian Idol in 2006 and went on to enjoy chart-topping success, plays Julie, the youngest member of the band.

‘I’d seen Chris in Bridesmaids,’ she says, ‘so I was thrilled to find out he’d been cast. I was quite nervous when I first met him. I knew I could sing but I’ve never been to acting school so I was worried I might not measure up. But Chris put me at ease.’

It didn’t end there. ‘I was at a party in Cannes when Dawn suddenly approached me. She was stumbling over her words, which wasn’t like her. Finally, she managed to blurt out: “You don’t have to if you don’t want to but I’d really love it if you would sing Chris and me down the aisle.”

‘I couldn’t believe it. She gave me a short list of songs to choose from and I immediately went for Halo by Beyonce.’

Jessica’s mother, Theresa, is part Aboriginal, part white Maltese; her father, Ferdy, is Indonesian from Timor. ‘I call myself a spritzer but it’s with my Aboriginal blood that I identify most,’ she says. ‘Although the situation has improved since the Sixties, I was still subjected to snide racist comments at school from the white kids. It certainly toughened me up and made me grow up fast. I learnt to bite my lip — although you can push me so far and then I’ll snap back.

‘And then I met the real women who were in the original band — in my culture we refer to them as Aunties as a mark of respect — and it brought home how much they paved the way for the generations that followed.

‘Our first meet-and-greet with the Aunties was in Sydney. This was before filming began and we wanted to find out as much as we could about the experiences they had singing in the outback and then being transported to Vietnam. We quickly realised that these were strong, opinionated women. We weren’t playing those particular women but our characters were certainly based on what happened to them.’

The film has broken box office records in Australia. Chris, though, is too busy to wait around to see how it will do here.

Following the completion of a new dark comedy, Calvary, in Dublin opposite Brendan Gleeson and Dylan Moran, he is due back in Los Angeles where filming is about to begin on a new TV series, Family Tree, in which he plays a man reeling from the loss of both job and girlfriend. His life only begins to take on any meaning again when he unearths a box of belongings bequeathed to him by a great aunt and so begins a trawl through his heritage.

Chris has slightly ambivalent feelings about Hollywood. ‘It is fun,’ he says, ‘but it feels like one of those towns in the north of Scotland where there’s an oil rig just off the coast and whether or not you work on it, everyone’s connected to it.

‘People think because you’re in the movies you get mobbed everywhere you go. Very often, though, I don’t even get recognised.

‘I wear my status like a hair vest,’ he insists. ‘It’s very fleeting and it’s fun, but I can’t be dealing with all that nonsense, simply because it’s not me.’

• The Sapphires is in cinemas nationwide from November 7. The soundtrack is released via Sony Music on November 12.