Rough Diamond – new family drama gallops on to 91Èȱ¬ One
Interview with Producer Peter Norris
One of the key men responsible for discovering Hollywood heart throb Colin Farrell is hoping to unearth a new star in Ben Davies.
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Newcomer Ben stars alongside many of Ireland's best-known contemporary actors in the forthcoming series, Rough Diamond set against the backdrop of the world of horse-racing in Ireland.
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Producer, Peter Norris had a difficult task on his hands when casting the lead boy.
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He had to be not only the singular English voice among a cast of Irish actors, he also had to be relatively unknown, from the North of England and able to cope with the demands of filming long hours and working away from home, at a young age ... oh and be comfortable working with horses for four months.
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"We did a huge trawl through Northern England and the casting director saw hundreds of teenage boys eventually whittling it down to about 40."
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"The director and I then got it down to four," he continues, "and we brought those four to London for screen tests."
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In the end, after a very long process the choice was easy to make.
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"There was only one person that shone and that we could really see in the role and that was Ben – he was an absolute natural," he grins.
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Despite never having ridden before, Ben proved to have a way with horses as well as acting.
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"Talk about life imitating art," Norris laughs, "it turned out that just like the script, Ben developed a flair for riding as does his character Jonah – he took to it like a duck to water and by the end of filming, scenes that would have required a stunt double in the early days were filmed entirely by Ben."
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Having worked in Ireland on a variety of drama productions over the years, Norris was immediately attracted to the series because of its charm.
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"Rough Diamond's magic is a combination of things," he says. "The location in Ireland was stunning and the fact that it is set against the backdrop of an industry that hasn't really been exploited in a television drama series before proved far too tempting to resist."
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"When we were researching the show and interviewing people, one fact that emerged was how everybody seemed to be just one generation away from someone who owned or raced horses ... and I hope that the audience will buy into the charm, mysticism and excitement that surounds this fascinating world."
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"The world of horse-racing universally transcends class and wealth and people from all backgrounds can enjoy the sport at any level," he adds.
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"Combine the powerful and exciting world of horse-racing with the intricacy of relationships, competition, good old fashioned romance, jealousy and an abundance of bouncing egos with some Irish charm thrown in and hopefully we have made a drama that will have universal appeal."
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The most challenging aspect of the filming process for the production team was inevitably working with the horses.
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"Rough Diamond isn't like other series where the animals are peripheral. In this drama it is a rarity if there isn't a horse in a scene which brings its own set of problems," he claims.
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"For one horses don't read scripts or understand direction, so we had to be flexible and pretty much learnt as we went along about how we were going to film the animals and how we were going to get them to do the things written in the scripts ... or more like cheat the things that were written in the scripts!," he laughs.
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"Not only that but take into consideration when you are filming that you want a horse to do one thing, then there's probably an actor either on the horse or close by attempting to deliver lines. Add in a spot of rain and a camera on a dolly that is trying to capture the whole sequence and it doesn't always go according to plan!," he continues.
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Norris does claim, however, that there were endless laughs on set and not surprisingly a lot of them involved animals and actors.
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"If I had to have a favourite episode, it would be the last one and without giving the story away it involves a race and is very exciting.
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"But I think my best moment has to be in episode 3 when Stanley Townsend has to try and sing to a horse to make it mate with another one – I've never laughed so much watching a scene as Stanley singing "Hey Bambino" to a stallion – it was just a treat!"
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The production found that they were welcomed with open arms by the racing fraternity in Ireland and no door was closed to the team.
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"We had excellent relations with the Irish horseracing official body who gave us lots of contacts, advice and helped with research and access to stables and stud farms," says Peter.
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"We needed a commentator to do two spots of commentating during filming and I employed the skills of real-life commentator Dessie Scahill who is well known on the racing scene in Ireland. He was fantastic and came in and wrote us a script once he saw what we put together as a race."
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Peter's credits include: Bafta award-winning drama – Between The Lines, The Darling Buds Of May and Nylon.
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