The continuing mission of 40-year-old actor Colm Meaney is to stretch his talents beyond "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and even "Deep Space Nine."
Meaney stars in the new film "The Snapper," proving once again that there's more to acting than fixing replicators as intergalactic engineer Miles O'Brien.In "The Snapper," Meaney stars as Dessie Curley, a working-class father in present-day Dublin, Ireland. Meaney made a brief appearance as Dessie in 1991's "The Commitments," and revives the character for the new film.
Dessie's already-tumultuous family becomes a little crazier when his 20-year-old daughter Sharon gets pregnant. "Snapper," short for "whippersnapper," is a slang Irish term for a new baby.
Considering that the father of Sharon's baby is also the father of one of her best friends, the neighborhood is less than accepting of her situation. But Dessie refuses to have his child drummed out of the house and becomes her biggest defender, not to mention a better father and husband.
"I think it's a little parable about a family who got into a situation that many, many families are faced with," Meaney said. "I think they dealt with it very well, and I think we could all learn about dealing with adversity from them."
Based on the second volume of Roddy Doyle's popular Barrytown Trilogy novels (the first was "The Commitments"), "The Snapper" has little in common with its bigger-budget predecessor.
BBC Films originally produced "The Snapper" for television, with Stephen Frears ("Dangerous Liaisons," "The Grifters") as director.
"Stephen fell in love with the script, which is why he did it. He'd never been to Ireland and didn't know very much about it," Meaney said. "From my point of view, it was the character, obviously. I'd sort of done a small cameo with this character in `The Commitments,' and to get a chance to develop it and flesh it out is great. You don't often get that second shot."
The character of Dessie is a familiar one to Meaney. He grew up on the streets of Dublin and knew many Dessies as a child. Today, as the father of a 9-year-old daughter, would he take such news as well as his big-screen counterpart?
"I would hope I would," he said. "I think Dessie's reaction was wonderful. It was loving and caring but at the same time not totally happy about the situation, you know. And so I would hope that I would be able to react the same way . . . given if in 10 or 15 years the same situation arises."
Although some critics have argued that "The Snapper" really doesn't go anywhere, Meaney says that's the exact approach they were looking for.
"I read in the LA Weekly that, `Well, I guess every film can't be a tragedy.' Which I think is a very odd thing for a viewer to say," Meaney said. "Do we want everything to be a tragedy? Do we want every film to be an examination of the dysfunctionality of people? Because if this is what this guy is looking for, then this is the wrong film to look at.
"This film doesn't glorify these people, it doesn't sanctify them or purify them in any way. You see them as they are, warts and all, you know. But I think it's written from a very caring perspective."
Meaney is currently a regular on the syndicated TV series "Deep Space Nine," continuing the character of engineering whiz O'Brien that he created for "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Ask William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes or any other of the dozens of actors who owe their fame to the "Star Trek" legacy if they're bothered by fans, and you're sure of getting at least one horror story.