Ciarán Hinds says goodbye to The Dry

As Ciarán Hinds films his last scenes for the final season of RTÉ One comedy-drama The Dry , the stage and screen favourite tells RTÉ Entertainment that this is one job he is really going to miss.

It's that familiar feeling: excitement mixed with sadness as a series you've loved nears an end.

You've cheered the characters on when they got things right, cursed them for some of the decisions they've made, grudgingly admitted that you wouldn't do any better in a similar situation, and now wonder just how the story will wrap up as the final credits loom.

For devotees of The Dry , all will be revealed, if not necessarily resolved, come Thursday, 23 April on RTÉ One at 10:15pm as season three premieres - and all eight episodes arrive on RTÉ Player.

That's next weekend's binge sorted...

That's just for starters, mind.

Before the projectiles, Hinds had a good feeling that The Dry 's aim was true, but right at the start of filming season one came a sign that this little show could turn into something bigger.

"I'd started on it," he recounts, "and we were about two or three weeks in Dublin on the first series and I got a call from Hélène going, 'Hi, Ciarán.

Eh, my agent got in touch with me about something in Dublin that somebody called Paddy Breathnach is doing.

What are you doing?' And I said, 'Hang on a minute.

Hang on here...

I think I know what's happening here...' I said, 'Wow, ok.

Just wait a minute.

Don't say [yes or no].

I'll get back to you, ok?'
"Fifteen minutes later she rings again - 'I said yes!'"
Good move, good casting.

That opening season worked out lovely as a one-and-done series, but just like that serendipitous phone call, fate had other plans for Hinds and the rest of The Dry - the chemistry was just too good.

"It's very special to all of us," he says.

"We started this, I think, just after Covid.

There was something that happened that, because of the nature of it, we formed a family very quickly.

Not just about acting as a family, but a kind of a true, honest complicity in what we had to do.

And suddenly, you found that we were all more than happy with each other's company, which probably stems from Paddy Breathnach (director) - how he chose people's qualities and put us all together.

We got on and we had a good time.

"Of course, we don't know with the first series what happens [after filming].

Have we hit the right mark?

Have we hit the right tone?

It's Paddy's responsibility to guide us through.

'A little more.

A little less.

This is truthful.

This is a little bit quirky, a bit funny' - trying to balance the whole equation.

When we finished it, we didn't know what would happen."
Eventually, came the news that season two was a runner.

"Maybe Nancy Harris had thought about a little run of what would happen to the family," Hinds suggests.

"We weren't aware.

Like, we weren't hired to say, 'We're going to do three series of it and we need you to be free'.

It was just a one-off of this story about a rather dysfunctional family.

And then the reaction to it, I think, was very positive, bit by bit...

And then suddenly it was all harnessed and they said, 'We think people really like it'.

It wasn't a one-off!

They said, 'We'll have another go'."
"I think instantly we were all delighted," he continues.

"We all immediately put our hands up.

And not just the cast: the entire crew came back, which is a true gauge of what we're creating.

Generally, I know people talk about, 'Oh, we had the best time, blah, blah, blah', but this was an engagement between all the crew, all the different departments, and the actors, and everybody just like a giant community going in the same direction."
Hinds admits he had some doubts about a third season happening, an old pro thinking that The Dry would become a victim of its younger stars' breakout success.

He needn't have worried - everyone was all-in again.

"When we came to the third time, I was thinking, 'Siobhán Cullen and Róisín Gallagher, I mean, they're flying now.

I wonder if they go again, will they be able to wrangle us all?'" he explains.

"And immediately, everybody hands up again!

It was lovely to know that it was genuine.

It wasn't a false camaraderie, which is part of the work and all that.

This was something true."
"This series, what Nancy has written between Pom (Boyd) as Bernie and Róisín (Gallagher) as Shiv is mind-blowing.

It's that big issue about the eldest daughter and mother.

We all know it goes on between who's running the family or thinks they are.

The stuff that she's written is so powerful, deeply moving, and kind of based on love, but we know it goes on in greater or lesser degrees in all families.

"I was in awe before of how Nancy was doing it by herself, but this...

And also, trying to draw to some kind of conclusion while at the same time giving people still directions to go in, but also trying to wrangle it into a place."
There'll be plenty of laughs too as Harris and Hinds deliver more comedy with Tom's one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach to being a man of a certain age.

"Tom is now on his own mission to reinvent himself," Hinds says ruefully.

"Sadly, the way men do in their sixties or whatever!

Either you get the version of them in the suit and the ponytail, or you get something else.

Well, you get something else with Tom!

"At the same time, it doesn't change the character of who he is.

He still likes to help people, sometimes - mostly!

- ineffectually, but that's who he is.

What I really enjoy is playing Tom as ineffectual - decent but confused.

I love those moments where it's all going [wrong], but he's still trying to justify what he's doing, even though it's no help at all!"
With that, Hinds is called back to make Tom make a mess of it again, enjoying every minute on set all the more because there are so few left.

"There's just this great warmth and drive when we're making it," he concludes.

"You're really connecting rather than just standing waiting to be in the role when the cameras turn.

"We're all going to feel the loss of it.

That's the way you do - that commitment that people kept giving."
"It's always nice when things turn out well."
Episode one of the third and final series of The Dry airs on RTÉ One on Thursday, 23 April at 10:15pm.

All eight episodes will drop on RTÉ Player on the same night.

Catch up on series one and two on RTÉ Player .

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