Éanna Hardwicke: ‘A lot of TV fetishises people who do appalling things’

The Irish rising star tells Tom Murray about playing one of football’s hardest men, Roy Keane, in ‘Saipan’, the perils of acting opposite one of his heroes, Steve Coogan, and the state of true crime TV

Éanna Hardwicke by Pip. Styling: Tom O’Dell. Grooming: Alexis Day. (Pip)

As men of a similar age, Éanna Hardwicke and I suffer from the same minor affliction: our social media feeds are constantly clogged with clips of Roy Keane on The Overlap podcast. The former Manchester United enforcer is an inescapable pundit these days. His trademark brand of withering takedowns – all in that distinctive Cork accent – is almost tailor-made for social media impressions. Lines like, “I might smash into somebody, just to make me feel better,” delivered after a particularly poor United performance, for instance.

For Hardwicke, this presented a problem. The 29-year-old actor, who hails from the same neck of the woods as Keane, was preparing to play the footballer in a new film about the infamous Saipan incident that erupted ahead of the 2002 World Cup. “I kind of had to wean myself off it,” he says of the podcast, “because it’s really only so helpful listening to things from 2025.”

Hardwicke stars opposite Steve Coogan, who plays former Ireland manager Mick McCarthy, in Saipan. The remote Pacific island after which the film is named played host to Ireland’s pre-tournament training camp in 2002, as well as the notorious fallout between McCarthy and Keane, who was then the team’s star player and captain. The pair clashed over what Keane perceived as substandard training conditions and facilities (“You think the Portuguese are eating cheese sandwiches?” Hardwicke’s Keane demands during one team meal.) It culminated with Keane flying home in a rage before a ball had even been kicked at the tournament in Japan. Ireland, shorn of their captain, nevertheless advanced to the last 16, where they were eliminated by Spain on penalties.

Hardwicke, best known for playing Paul Mescal’s troubled pal Rob in Normal People and his unnerving turn as murderer Ben Field in the BBC drama The Sixth Commandment, was just five when the Saipan incident became a media frenzy in Ireland — and scythed the nation in two between those in Keane’s camp and those backing McCarthy. “I’d be lying if I said I remembered the details,” Hardwicke admits. “But I remember the headlines and those really iconic photos of Roy in the airport or Roy walking out of the training session. The iconography was really strong.”

For those wondering what all the fuss was about, Keane, at the time, was not just Ireland’s captain but the axis around which the team revolved. He was – literally in some cases – leagues above his teammates, with seven premiership titles under his belt. At the height of his powers, he was a brick wall in defence – all crunching tackles and snarling authority. Just Google “Roy Keane Alf-Inge Haaland tackle” for a flavour of his playing style. To lose him on the eve of the World Cup was nothing short of catastrophe.

Like anyone, I crave validation. To get it from Roy Keane… You'd always appreciate the thumbs up

Hardwicke says his family fell “quite strongly on Keane’s side” of the debate, “being Cork people.” His brothers were particularly fervent. “Keane cast such a big shadow and was so influential in terms of his commitment and dedication that a lot of young people, especially, really went with him. And there was kind of a generational divide of who you empathized with or whose vision you subscribed to.”

The actor recalls hearing the Irish director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank) talking about “soundness” – the idea of being sound as a human quality. “I can’t speak for other countries, but it is a really big virtue in Ireland, to be sound is to get on with people and not cause a ruckus or a stir. I think that was maybe one of the dividing lines. Roy wasn’t afraid to stand out from the crowd. He wasn’t afraid to piss people off, and he didn’t diminish himself in front of people.”

Hardwicke plays Keane with a frightening electricity, like a rattled Coke can ready to fizz over at any moment. He is brilliantly cast – as is Coogan as a perma-cringe McCarthy – though, admittedly bears little physical similarity to the footballer. “Roy Keane has the face of a mercenary,” the playwright Alan Bennett wrote in one 2005 diary entry. “Meet him before the walls of 15th-century Florence and one’s heart would sink.” Hardwicke, appearing over Zoom from his home in north London, is less brutish and more avian. His name, Éanna, literally means “bird-like” in Gaelic. His long, angular jaw tilts sideways as he considers a question, small black eyes flicking skyward.

It’s getting hot in here: Hardwicke stars opposite Steve Coogan in 'Saipan' (Vertigo Releasing/Wildcard Distribution)

Hardwicke was part of the generation that grew up on Coogan and his delusional radio presenter, Alan Partridge. “When we were teenagers, we were just endlessly quoting his work,” he says. “I would say he was one of the most influential actors and writers on my career.” Was it daunting, acting opposite one of his heroes? “There is that bit of you that worries that you’ll get nervous or very self-conscious in front of them when you’re acting,” he says, “but in my experience, when I’ve worked with very brilliant actors, they just make it easier, not harder.”

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Hardwicke doesn’t know whether Keane has seen the film and he chose not to contact the footballer while preparing for the role, relying instead on the wealth of source material already available. “We weren’t making a biopic,” he reminds me. “I felt his perspective was so clear… My job was just to tell his story and obviously, it’s a dramatised version of it.” Still, what if Keane were to give the performance his rare seal of approval? Hardwicke laughs. “Yeah, like anyone, I crave validation. To get it from Roy…” he trails off. “You’d always appreciate the thumbs up. But, at the same time, I’m conscious it’s a strange thing for anyone to have a film made about something that they lived through.”

It’s not Hardwicke’s first time playing a real person. In 2023, he won plaudits for his truly chilling performance in The Sixth Commandment. The series followed the horrific true story of retired Stowe schoolmaster Peter Farquhar (Timothy Spall) and his neighbour Ann Moore-Martin (Anne Reid), both of whom were befriended and later murdered by a young churchwarden, Ben Field (Hardwicke). Field ingratiated himself into their lives and persuaded them to rewrite their wills in his favour after months of poisoning and psychological cruelty. The deftly handled series – more interested in Field’s victims than his crimes – stood in stark contrast to exploitative true crime fodder like Ryan Murphy’s gory Monsters franchise.

Hardwicke as the terrifying Ben Field in ‘The Sixth Commandment’ (Wild Mercury Productions/BBC)

“I think there’s a lot of TV that does [true crime] in quite a manipulative way,” Hardwicke says of the genre. “That is about wanting to fetishise people who do appalling things. I have no interest in getting into the head of someone who committed these crimes, because I actually think – when you boil it down to the narcissism that it is – it’s very uninteresting. What I am interested in is the families of Peter and Ann, the police who investigated the case, the lawyers who worked on the case. I’m interested in how that affects all of their lives and how they respond and how they persevere through it.”

Hardwicke is part of a wave of Irish talent that seems to dominate the film industry at the moment. On Thursday, Jessie Buckley was among the nominees for the 2026 Academy Awards, joining a roll call of recent Irish Oscar winners and nominees including Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Cillian Murphy and Paul Mescal. Hardwicke says he was lucky to come up alongside the latter, as well as the half-Irish Daisy Edgar-Jones, with Normal People. The Sally Rooney adaptation – released during a period of international wallowing during the pandemic – “brought Irish culture to a kind of global level,” Hardwicke contends. “We were very, very lucky to graduate at that time when that TV show was being made. It was a bit like college or school or something. It was kind of a formative experience.”

He’s still close with Mescal, with whom he went to college, and Edgar-Jones. The careers of both actors have gone stratospheric since they co-led the 2020 series. Seeing as he’s already run the acting gamut from sociopathic killers to celebrity footballers, it’s not hard to imagine Hardwicke doing the same.

‘Saipan’ is in cinemas