Oscar Nomination For 'The Crush'

An Interview With Writer Director Michael Creagh

By Sean McCarthy N.U.J.

Holding a nomination for an Oscar alongside four others in the category Short Film (Live Action), Belfast writer and director Michael Creagh (37) remains calm and thoughtful about the news his short film The Crush is making across the globe.

The film, which stars his son Oran Creagh, was shot in coastal Skerries in Dublin during the Easter of 2009 using some personal savings, a bank loan, and funds from his Dad.

Interestingly enough, the news of the film's nomination reached Creagh through just that, the news.

"I was just having a coffee by the seaside, just hiding out a bit. I didn't want to be sitting in front of a broadcast or the internet bitting my nails so I just got out of the way. Then the phone started to go, and there was a voicemail from a BBC reporter wishing me congratulations. I figured, that was it. The phone started ringing more, and I checked the Academy website, and there it was, official. But I got the official letter yesterday," says Creagh.

Born and bred in Belfast, Michael Creagh studied at York Street Art College before moving to Dublin to work in commercial advertising. He has been working as an art director for the past ten years now.

Starring his son actor Oran Creagh, The Crush tells the tale of Ardal Travis, who is in love. There's just one problem. He's an eight-year-old schoolboy and the object of his affection is his teacher, Miss Purdy, played by actress Olga Wehrly.

One day Ardal gives her a toy ring to show his affection. But heartbreak awaits when he bumps into Miss Purdy and her boyfriend, played by Rory Keenan, having just bought a very real engagement ring. Devastated and spurned, Ardal hatches a plan to get her back.

The Crush, written by Michael Creagh, tells a fascinating story of childhood attraction. But is the story auto-biographical?

"I get asked that a lot Sean," Creagh chuckles. "Who hasn't had a crush on their teacher? Think I had a bit of a crush on my first teacher when I was in primary school," Creagh ventures. "But I think that's as far as the auto-biographical bit goes. I never challenged any boyfriends to duels! In the story, as part of the plot twist, there is a gun involved. Whether it's a real gun or a fake gun, we don't know until towards the end. I'm from Belfast with lots of experience with that kind of thing. So it all seeps into the subconscious".

Produced by Damon Quinn, The Crush also stars actors Charlie Bonner and Neili Conroy, with Creagh's brother Jim providing a high standard of cinematograph on the three-day shoot.

The film went on to become a selection for the Tribeca International Film Festival 2010 and was put forward for Academy Award consideration after winning Best Irish Short at the Foyle Film Festival in Derry.

"I was very nervous the first day" says Creagh about the shoot for the film. "It was a big thing, my first real go at something like this. We bit off a lot in that first day, and we over-ran a bit. So that was quite nerve wracking. The other two days became very relaxed once we got into the swing of it. My brother Jim Creagh who is a BBC cameraman was the cinematographer on the film and he was just brilliant. Whenever I was loosing the plot or loosing my nerve a bit he was able to just keep me going and pick up the slack and get ready with the next shot. The shoot was a great experience. It was always going to go either way, I was going to hate it or I was going to love it. And it turned out that I love the experience" Creagh beams.

Meanwhile, the word has spread quickly across Ireland and the lovely seaside town of Skerries in North County Dublin about 10-year old Oran Creagh and his performance as Ardal Travis in The Crush.

Indeed, well-wishers from the young actor's school of Realt Na Mara have been flooding the Skerries Facebook profile since the news struck town. So how was it for Michael Creagh to direct his own son Oran in The Crush?

"Very good, very good. It has a lot of advantages, being my own son, to say what I want to and he can say what he wants back. It also made him feel more comfortable, he was more at ease. That was just very good for the whole dynamic of it, and because I was a first-timer as well. After I had done a few tests with him just with a home video camera, we kind of spitballed a script together, we did wee bits of rehearsal just sitting in the bedroom. I realised he had something, he had a real natural flair, and because he wasn't an experienced actor he had a deadpan quality which really worked for it" Creagh recalls.

Online, Michael Creagh wittily quotes himself as harboring "dreams of making films or winning Euromillions. Either will do". And with that straight-talking sensibility and ambition, this grounded filmmaker is wasting no time trying on both:

"I have a couple of projects in mind. The film board are looking at a couple of things for me, and I have a feature script which is a love story set in the Irish Famine. It's a period of time that I always wondered why it was missing from the cinema. Everything else in world history, every catastrophe seems to have been covered on the silver screen but never the Irish Famine. So that's something that has been a bit of a baby of mine for quite a few years now and I have a full-length script for that. A couple of other ideas rattling around. I have a treatment for a story that's set in Belfast during The Blitz, so there's a few things that I'm going to be trucking on with".

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards takes place at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on February 27th, 2011 and is hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

For more information on The Crush, visit: indiegogo.com/The-Crush or the official Academy Awards website Oscars.Org

Tune into America's Only Irish Station RADIO IRISH for an extended interview with 'The Crush' writer/director Michael Creagh at www.RadioIrish.com