Owen McDonnell Breaks Down His ‘Bad Sisters’ Finale Turn — and Going Full ‘Pragmatic Psychopath’

Editor’s Note: The following article contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Bad Sisters” (and “True Detective: Night Country” if you still haven’t watched that one).

When he first turns up in Season 2, Episode 1 of “Bad Sisters,” Owen McDonnell might make you nervous. An avid TV viewer (who shares IndieWire’s taste) might have recognized him from “True Detective: Night Country,” in which McDonnell plays the unexpected key to solving two murders in scientist Raymond Clark.

“I’ve been lucky this year, or rather last year, to get to do such a big show, but also really, really interesting work, and working with some great women as well,” McDonnell told IndieWire.

He beats me to the question, aware of the thread connecting his work on “Bad Sisters,” “Night Country,” and “Killing Eve” before.

“That’s kind of my happy place, it seems to be, working with amazing women — it’s a really nice way and a nice place to work,” he said. “It’s not a conscious choice because I’ve worked with brilliant male and female directors, actors, writers, but it just seems to be that there’s been this pattern in the last few years, and I don’t know whether that is because of certain roles I’ve chosen, or that I’m a person who is known to be happy in that space.”

McDonnell’s characters run the gamut from supportive husband to tortured lover to heartless criminal — or in the cast of “Bad Sisters” character Ian (if that’s really his name), the whole spectrum. With the Season 2 finale now streaming, McDonnell sat down with IndieWire to discuss a character for whom he has little sympathy, as well as his character on “Night Country,” favorite scenes, and fight scenes with a world champion like Kali Reis.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

IndieWire: I talked to a lot of female performers who find comfort in that space, but it’s rare that you see a male performer who’s had that kind of consistency.

Owen McDonnell: When I went to drama school, it was very unfair. There was always loads of girls auditioning for less places, because traditionally, in the canon of work, there were more parts for men and less for women. So when you get to my age, when you’re working with women who are successful, they have had to work harder and be better than men of the equivalent standard. I just find it fascinating to work with these extraordinary people like Sandra Oh, like Jodie Foster, like Sharon [Horgan)], Fiona Shaw. You get to work opposite them, and they elevate what you’re doing, [and] you just learn so much. I’m not sure that I’ve had an experience where someone in that position who is a woman has not behaved brilliantly and been an example of how to be on set. So it’s a very comfortable world to be in.

It speaks to the fact that you are probably a comforting male presence on a set like that, which is not always easy to find.

I hope so! I hope so because you don’t want to be an uncomfortable presence on whatever set you’re on, or whatever job you’re in. I grew up with two older sisters, a very strong-minded mum. I have a very independent, successful wife. I suppose I grew up never to feel threatened by women who are successful, and I’ve never looked at the job as being a competitive act. It’s more of a collaboration. I spent years working in theater before I ever did any television. That sense of collaboration is what I really love about acting, about the job and about the business. It’s the best aspect of the business, and you really feel that when you’re working with Sharon and she’s banging away at scripts in between takes and asking you what you think and really, really working well and giving everybody their space and their say. So yeah, I hope I’m not an uncomfortable presence on set. That’d be really weird and wrong.

I don’t think you would keep getting these types of jobs.

But also where is the fun in going to work every day and being the person that everybody’s like, “Oh God, I can’t talk to him because he’s a bit weird, he’s a bit iffy, or he’s a bit tricky.” You want to be able to talk to people that you’re working with, and find out what works for them and what works for you, and then hammer that together.

How did you get involved with “Bad Sisters?” What was the casting process like — did Sharon approach you?

I’d done a series called “Women on the Verge” for Merman (Horgan’s company) a few years ago, which wasn’t written by Sharon, but she produced it. A bunch of us ended up in it from a play I was doing, “The Ferryman” in the West End. I met her on that and then just got a call to audition. I sent off a tape, and I was asked to come back, and there was a bit of a flurry, because there was another job on the go and it was coming down to the line. They were brilliant — Apple and Sharon and [director Dearbhla Walsh] all decided very quickly that they wanted to go with me for the for this role of Ian-Reilly-stroke-Cormac-Sweeney.

I just thought it was interesting, because he is such a horrible individual, but he does need to appear to be, for all intents and purposes, a loving, supportive, kind type of man that you would really want on your side or in your corner or in your life. So that was like, whoa, this is really kind of complicated and hard to do. I hope that people will be able to watch it back, and maybe in certain circumstances, see reactions that could possibly be read either way, that I kind of have a thought and go, “Oh God, this is bad news for me,” for his objectives — but having to cover it up. That was really, really fun to play that duality all the time. It’ll probably go over most people’s heads, but for me, it was a real challenge.

What are some techniques that you used to dig into the performance aspect? Were there days when you had to be evil Cormac and nice Ian in different scenes?

We shot in blocks, so it was largely in order. I did quite a lot of research into people who are fraudsters, romance fraudsters, and it’s funny: What they’re brilliant at is sensing what’s missing in someone’s life and filling that gap — but that is what you want in a partner. That phrase, “They complete me,” it sounds corny, but what he’s very good at is also what people need. So I found that fascinating, that he is an excellent judge of character and emotionally very perceptive, while at the same time capable of having no empathy whatsoever. But then within that, I had to also find the joy of it. He does like to be liked, he does like people to go, “Oh, you’re great.” And at the same time he can then steal their money or ruin their lives.

There’s also quite a bit of physicality to the role, especially when we get into the finale episode — falling against the table, jumping off a cliff.

I love all that stuff. I loved that in “True Detective,” that I got to do all that. But, yeah, I absolutely love it. The stuntmen get really nervous, like, “We’ll just get somebody along, can I do that bit? Can I do that?” But I push it as far as I can go. When we were shooting the stuff around the cliff, that was a night shoot, and everybody was pretty worried about me because I was literally chained to that rock. They had a safety harness hammered into the rock when I was down there, and we were short on time, so I was like, “I’ll stay here, it’s fine!” for, like, two or three hours. Everyone’s going, “Oh, my God, that’s terrible,” but it was so lovely. You at the bottom of a cliff, completely safe. There was two Special Forces guys hiding behind a rock to make sure nothing bad happened. The sea is crashing all around you and it was really kind of calm and peaceful.

That’s one of the things I love about the job, is that you get to do stuff like fall off a cliff or have these fights that you don’t get to do normally. I always embrace that. When I am going, “No, I don’t want to do that,” I’ve maybe become a bit jaded, and obviously you need to be safe. There are people like stuntmen who are there for a reason, but I love to do as much of it as I can, and I’m trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt and that I’m not in agony a lot of the time.

Eve Birthistle, Sarah Greene, Owen McDonnell, Sharon Horgan, and Eve Hewsom in ‘Bad Sisters’Natalie Seery

Tell me about doing that work also on “True Detective,” because obviously the setting for that was very challenging for everyone as well.

We did a lot of stunt work with Kali. She was doing loads and loads and loads of stunt rehearsals. I was like, “Why is she going in? She’s a fighter, she’s a double world champion. Why is she doing all this?” They were like, “Owen. Kali has trained herself for 20 years to basically punch through your face, and we really don’t want that to happen, so we’re trying to deprogram her to not hurt you.” She was great. Her and Jodie, they were so kind when I was tied into that chair in between takes like, “Oh my god, there’s a little bit of gaffe tape there, I’ll just take that out of your eye. Do you need anything?”

It’s even the same with the sisters in “Bad Sisters,” before Fiona clocks him on the head. The girls in those scenes, they were so present and supportive, and going, “This is great.” They’re a brilliant, if slightly intimidating, bunch to work with because they have this chemistry between them that is just extraordinary. It’s amazing, amazing to work opposite, because you’re just like, “Wow, this is very, very, very special.” That’s one of the things I loved about the first season, and this season, is getting to spend time with them. It’s just a lovely experience to actually sit with them and be in their company.

You also knock down Becka (Eve Hewson)!

That was fun, too. When we were working that out with the stunt people and the stand-ins, Dearbhla wandered in, and she was like, “Oh, I think it should be like this,” and she literally leaped across the room on top of the stuntman, knocked him off the chair. “Can it be something like this?” He was like, “Whoa.” That’s a real collaborative thing, and you’ve got to be very conscious of people’s safety and all that, so it’s got to look real, but again, be incredibly safe.

It’s such a mirror of what the persona of Ian is supposed to be experiencing, right? He’s welcomed into this family, this existing group and dynamic.

Yes. It’s interesting as he gets to know them more after Grace [Anne-Marie Duff] dies and his whole plan is turned on its head. I think it’s really interesting that he starts to see the vulnerabilities in Sharon’s character, Eva. It was interesting to find the point where he goes, “OK, she’s not the strong woman that she portrays, that I’ve always thought she is — the really quick-witted, sharp, acerbic one.” There’s a vulnerability there that he can exploit, and he says, I’m gonna stay around and try and make this work for me.

We’ve been talking about Cormac-slash-Ian, who is a bad guy and masquerading as this nice person. Raymond is such an interesting contrast to that. Obviously, no one created them thinking about this, but he’s not necessarily an evil man, yet he has been complicit.

Yes. I think Raymond is a victim. He’s a person who makes mistakes because he’s not very good at dealing with the world, whereas Ian makes terrible decisions because he wants to make those terrible decisions, and they are good decisions for him. What’s important is the motivation behind it, and that Ian would look at what he does and genuinely be able to say to you, “It’s OK. It’s not my fault they’re stupid. I’m just doing what I need to do to make a living. If they’re stupid enough to fall for it, then that’s fine. Maybe they’re better off, because at least they think they’re in love with someone who’s amazing, and I’m giving them something really good.”

That would be his justification, whereas I think Raymond was genuinely in love, and he was a man who probably had never been in love before, and he was consumed by it. If the object of his love had never met him, she wouldn’t have ended up in that station, and she wouldn’t have ended up being stabbed — and then he kills her almost as an act of mercy in his eyes. But he then is complicit in covering it up. He makes some bad choices.

Because you mentioned being tied up to the chair, and I want to give you your flowers for that scene because it conveys so much for how little screen time Raymond has.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It was a joy. But part of that was people like Jodie, Kali, and Issa genuinely treated me, and I think everybody who had their parts to play, as an integral part of that project. There was no sense of exclusion or, “Oh, you’re coming in for a couple of weeks here and a few days there.” It was, “We need you to be this.” Issa was another one who was rewriting on set as we were going and [saying], “Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, let’s try that, let’s change this up” — constantly talking. They gave you an ownership of your work, you didn’t feel like you were coming in and filling a gap.

Do you have a favorite scene from both or either show?

From “Bad Sisters,” I think the scene within the final episode with Grace in the bar [see video above]. I like that you have a flip, and you can see how he’s gone from being this seemingly empathetic person to just being this pragmatic psychopath. I love working with them all, but Anne-Marie Duff was great and really made me feel very welcome because we did all our stuff at the start. That felt like a special scene. Obviously it’s a horrible thing, but it felt like we were doing something good and worthwhile when we’re shooting that. From “True Detective,” it’s being tortured by Jodie and Kali because who wouldn’t give their left arm to be tortured by them?

“Bad Sisters” is streaming on Apple TV+.