Jim Sheridan, Filmmaker: ‘My Mother Never Celebrated Her Birthday Because She Believed Herself Guilty Of My Grandmother’s Death’

It’s time for the interview and Dubliner Jim Sheridan, 77, has not yet appeared. The press pack have been warned. That morning, in the Madrid hotel where he is staying, there was no tortilla. And after asking at reception, he has sought out a pincho with his wife in the neighborhood. “He said that he loves it and wanted to get his hands on a good one,” the press was told. Through the windows of the hotel, you can see the man who made My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, and In America, walking at a leisurely pace, which is reflected in his delivery during the interview. He likes to talk but calmly.

The film Sheridan is promoting in Spain is Re-creation, a film in the courtroom genre that takes cues from Sidney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men. In it, he explores the highly publicized 1996 murder of French filmmaker Toscan du Plantier, which is already the subject of various podcasts and documentaries. Sophie Toscan du Plantier, 39, was found dead at the beginning of Christmas 1996 on her farm in Dunmanus West in the southwest of Ireland. British journalist Ian Bailey was named as the prime suspect despite a complete lack of DNA evidence. He was convicted in 2019 in absentia by a French court, but never served the 25-year sentence as Ireland refused to extradite him, and Bailey, who denied any involvement in the murder, passed away.

“He was the perfect culprit because he died in January 2024,” explains Sheridan. “He was a violent man, he contradicted himself on several occasions in his official statements. The police knew him from several previous complaints of domestic violence.” He also had scratches and a blow on his forehead the day after the murder, which he blamed on wrestling with a Christmas tree. The police were not able to reproduce those injuries when an officer recreated the scenario. There were also several witnesses who accused him in their testimony, but in Ireland, he was never charged due to a lack of evidence.

All these details are known to Sheridan because he directed the documentary miniseries Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie in 2021. Sheridan also starred in that series, and now plays Juror No. 1 in Re-creation, joining a cast that includes Colm Meaney, Aidan Gillen, and Vicky Krieps.

Sheridan breaks down the whole case chronologically before answering the following two questions: Is this, like almost all your films, the reparation of an injustice? Was Bailey the killer? “The whole damn true crime genre is based on In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote. It’s pure revenge. I prefer empathy,” he says. “I knew Ian well, he was unknown and was desperate for attention. When I started the documentary, I thought I would get the confession out of him. He beat his wife, he had had run-ins with other people, he knew Sophie. With the investigation came the doubts: why did the French police dismiss the DNA of an unknown man who appeared at the scene of the crime? Why did they look down so much on their Irish colleagues? They were not brilliant either, to be honest.”

Sheridan then talks about his other work. “My films have portrayed numerous injustices due to family trauma. My own mother never celebrated her birthday because she believed she was to blame for the death of my grandmother, who died in childbirth. After lockdown, I looked for my grandmother’s grave, and on May 28, 2021, I found it covered with flowers. It was the day she would have turned 100. Incredible. And my mother was the first falsely accused person I ever knew. That has fueled my narratives throughout my career, and that’s why I’ve always talked about injustices. By the way, many of the actors in Re-Creation are also personally familiar with stories of injustice.”

According to Sheridan, there are also different judicial approaches. “Depending on the country, a defendant has to prove his innocence or the prosecutor confirms his guilt. France and Ireland are opposites in this respect. When the French arrest someone, they are already 90% guilty.” Sophie’s family is against both the miniseries and this film, believing that Bailey was the murderer.

“There is a lot of material and recordings that were dismissed that we have been able to analyze,” says Sheridan. “It was such a high-profile case that the noise blurred any investigation.” With a low budget and only three weeks of shooting, Sheridan decided to use the frame of Sidney Lumet’s 1957 classic Twelve Angry Men because “that way you expose evidence and reflect on it.” Sheridan asked Lumet’s daughter for permission to use her father’s film as inspiration.

Sheridan is disappointed with the current digitalization of cinema, “which makes everything filmed seem pixelated, too made-for-television, losing strength and intention.” With the return of his go-to actor Daniel Day-Lewis to the screen to star in Anemone, Sheridan says: “Look, he never said he was going to retire. You should ask him, but for me, Daniel has always been an introspective man, very spiritual. He pours so much into each role that he has always needed recovery time. Otherwise, he would be dry, as if he’d run out of battery. This time that period may simply have been longer, or maybe no interesting scripts came his way.”

One last question: was the walk for the tortilla worth it? His small eyes narrow even further with a smile: “It was delicious.”

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