The Briery Gap Cultural Centre, Macroom: More Information

Find out more information about Green Zone

About The Cast

MATT DAMON (Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller) has been honored for his work on both sides of the camera, including an Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay and an Oscar® nomination for Best Actor.

Damon has a wide range of projects forthcoming. He recently filmed George Nolfi’s thriller The Adjustment Bureau, opposite Emily Blunt, and reunited with director Clint Eastwood on the drama Hereafter, written by Peter Morgan. Damon will also film the Coen brothers’ remake of the classic Western True Grit. His upcoming films also include the independent feature Margaret, directed by Kenneth Lonergan.

Damon most recently starred in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus, opposite Morgan Freeman, for which Damon received Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild award nominations.He also played the title role in The Informant!, which marked his fifth collaboration with Steven Soderbergh and for which Damon received another Golden Globe nomination. He previously teamed with the director as part of the all-star casts in the action comedies Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen. Damon also had a cameo role in the second part of Soderbergh’s two-part biopic Che.

For the small screen, Damon both executive produced and appeared in The People Speak, based on a book co-written by famed historian Howard Zinn and featuring dramatic readings and performances from some of the most famous names in the entertainment industry. It aired on the History Channel in December 2009.

In 2002, Damon originated the role of Jason Bourne in the blockbuster actioner The Bourne Identity. He went on to reprise his role in the two hit sequels, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, both directed by Paul Greengrass.

Damon’s other recent film credits include Martin Scorsese’s Oscar®-winning Best Picture The Departed, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg; Robert De Niro’s dramatic thriller The Good Shepherd, with De Niro and Angelina Jolie; and Stephen Gaghan’s geopolitical thriller Syriana, with George Clooney.

Hailing from Boston, Damon attended Harvard University and gained his first acting experience with the American Repertory Theater. He made his feature film debut in Mystic Pizza, followed by roles in School Ties, Walter Hill’s Geronimo: An American Legend and the cable projects Rising Son and Tommy Lee Jones’ The Good Old Boys. He first gained attention with his portrayal of a guilt-ridden Gulf War veteran tormented by memories of a battlefield incident in 1996’s Courage Under Fire.

Together with his lifelong friend Ben Affleck, Damon co-wrote the acclaimed 1997 drama Good Will Hunting, for which they won an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe Award, as well as several critics groups awards, for Best Original Screenplay. Damon also garnered Oscar®, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actor. Also in 1997, Damon starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker and made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy.

The following year, Damon played the title role in Steven Spielberg’s award-winning World War II drama Saving Private Ryan and also starred in John Dahl’s drama Rounders, with Edward Norton. Damon earned his third Golden Globe nomination for his performance in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, under the direction of Anthony Minghella. He also reunited with Ben Affleck and director Kevin Smith to star in the controversial comedy Dogma.

Damon’s other film credits include starring roles in Robert Redford’s The Legend of Bagger Vance; Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses; the Farrelly brothers’ comedy Stuck on You, opposite Greg Kinnear; and Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, with Heath Ledger; and a cameo appearance in George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Damon and Affleck formed the production company LivePlanet to produce film, television and new-media projects. LivePlanet produced three Emmy-nominated seasons of Project Greenlight, chronicling the making of independent films by first-time writers and directors. The Project Greenlight films produced to date are Stolen Summer, The Battle of Shaker Heights and Feast. LivePlanet also produced the documentary Running the Sahara, directed by Oscar® winner James Moll.

In addition, Damon co-founded H20 Africa, now known as Water.org, and is an ambassador for the children’s foundation ONEXONE.

Academy Award®-nominated actor GREG KINNEAR (Poundstone) continues to build upon his already impressive resume with roles in the most diverse of projects. His latest film work includes starring roles in the comedies Baby Mama, opposite Tina Fey, and Ghost Town, with Ricky Gervais, as well as the drama Flash of Genius, with Lauren Graham.

This April, Kinnear will star opposite Miley Cyrus in The Last Song. Based on best-selling novelist Nicholas Sparks’ latest novel, The Last Song is set in a small Southern beach town where an estranged father tries to reconnect with his troubled teenage daughter through the only thing they have in common—music—in a story of family, friendship, secrets and salvation, along with first loves and second chances.

In Little Miss Sunshine, the critically acclaimed hit of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, Kinnear played a struggling motivational coach who leads his family on an eventful road trip so that his seven-year-old daughter can realize her dream of competing in a beauty pageant. Lauded by critics nationwide, Little Miss Sunshine went on to receive several Academy Award® nominations and Film Independent’s Spirit Awards, while Kinnear, along with Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, Paul Dano and Toni Collette, won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Kinnear segued from beauty pageants to the gridiron to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in the film Invincible, the real-life tale of Vince Papale, a 30-year-old bartender who goes to an open tryout of the Philadelphia Eagles organized by new coach Dick Vermeil (Kinnear). He then starred in Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, based on the best-selling book by Eric Schlosser.

In 1997, Kinnear starred alongside Jack Nicholson in James L. Brooks’ Oscar®-nominated As Good as It Gets, and he received his own Academy Award® nomination for his portrayal of Nicholson’s neighbor Simon. Kinnear also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for the performance, and the National Board of Review named him Best Supporting Actor. In 1995, Kinnear won an Emmy Award for E! Entertainment’s Talk Soup.

Kinnear made his feature film debut in director Sydney Pollack’s remake of Sabrina, starring opposite Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond. His performance prompted the trade organization of movie theater owners to name him ShoWest’s Star of Tomorrow. Following his Oscar®-nominated performance in As Good as It Gets, he co-starred in Nora Ephron’s hit romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and Mike Nichols’ What Planet Are You From?, with Garry Shandling and Annette Bening.

Kinnear’s other credits include The Matador, with Pierce Brosnan, and the critically acclaimed biopic of actor Bob Crane, Auto Focus, for director Paul Schrader. Kinnear voiced the character Ratchet for the animated film Robots, and he has also starred in We Were Soldiers, with Mel Gibson; HBO’s Dinner With Friends, for Norman Jewison; the Farrelly brothers’ comedy Stuck on You, with Matt Damon; Sam Raimi’s supernatural thriller The Gift, alongside Cate Blanchett and Katie Holmes; and director Neil LaBute’s black comedy Nurse Betty, opposite Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock.

Born in Logansport, Indiana, Kinnear grew up around the world as his family followed his State Department father to locations including Washington, D.C., Beirut, Lebanon, and Athens, Greece. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.

Internationally acclaimed Dublin-born actor BRENDAN GLEESON’s (Brown) latest project is The Guard, directed by John Michael McDonagh for Element Pictures. This production, co-starring Don Cheadle, was filmed in late 2009 in Ireland. Spring 2010 will see the release of Perrier’s Bounty, directed by Ian Fitzgibbon for Parallel Film Productions. Gleeson will also reprise the role of Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody in the seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. In 2009, Gleeson won the Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the HBO movie Into the Storm, directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan. Into the Storm aired on HBO and the BBC and garnered 14 Emmy nominations.

A former teacher, Gleeson left the profession to pursue a career in his first love, acting, and joined the Irish theater company Passion Machine. Gleeson landed his first starring role in I Went Down, which was followed by his highly acclaimed role in John Boorman’s The General. His performance gained him awards for Best Actor at the 1998 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Best Actor at the 1999 ALFS (London Film Critics’ Circle Awards) and the British Actor of the Year Award at the 1999 Irish Film and Television Awards.

Gleeson’s rise to fame began when he appeared in Jim Sheridan’s The Field, followed by a number of small roles in such films as Far and Away and Into the West. Gleeson attracted the attention of Hollywood when he starred as Hamish Campbell in the film Braveheart, alongside Mel Gibson. Other notable screen credits include John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II, Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, John Boorman’s The Tailor of Panama and Country of My Skull, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later… and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.

Over the past few years, Gleeson has become a household name after appearing in a number of successful films. His film credits include August Nicholson in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village; Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Minghella; Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven; Breakfast on Pluto, directed by Neil Jordan; Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy; Black Irish, directed by Brad Gann; Studs, directed by Paul Mercier; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, directed by Mike Newell; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, directed by David Yates; John Boorman’s The Tiger’s Tail; and Beowulf, directed by Robert Zemeckis. In 2009, he appeared in In Bruges under the direction of Martin McDonagh, alongside Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. Gleeson was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his role in In Bruges.

Academy Award® nominee AMY RYAN (Lawrie Dayne) has made her mark working with some of today’s most prolific directors, writers and actors. Whether in film, on television or on stage, Ryan continues to turn heads with chameleon-like character turns and compelling performances.

In October 2007, Ryan impressed audiences and critics alike, starring in Miramax’s Gone Baby Gone as Helene McCready, a drug-addict mother from Boston’s working-class Dorchester neighborhood, whose child is kidnapped. In this film directed by Ben Affleck, Ryan co-starred with Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris in what The New York Times called “a gutsy, sensational performance.” Her sympathetic portrayal of an otherwise despicable character was recognized with Academy Award®, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category. Additionally, she won Best Supporting Actress awards from the National Board of Review, the Broadcast Film Critics Association (Critics’ Choice Awards), the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, among others.

In the fall of 2007, Ryan also appeared opposite Ethan Hawke in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,directed by Sidney Lumet. Her work was recognized with Best Ensemble awards from IFP’s Gotham Awards, the New York Film Critics Online and the Boston Society of Film Critics, and she was nominated for a BFCA Critics’ Choice Award.

Following these two profoundly dramatic performances, Ryan opted for a lighter turn, guest starring in the season four finale of NBC’s The Office. Showing off her comedic chops, Ryan was introduced to the group at Dunder Mifflin as Holly, the new head of human resources. Applaudedby New York magazine for “raising the show’s game” and given a “cheers” by TV Guide, she returned for several episodes in season five, in which sparks continued to fly between her and Michael (Steve Carell).

In October 2008, Ryan returned to the big screen in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, for Universal and Imagine Entertainment. Ryan starred opposite Angelina Jolie as a prostitute who is wrongly confined to a mental institution as revenge for speaking out against LAPD atrocities in 1920s Los Angeles.

This year, Ryan will star alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega in Jack Goes Boating, adapted from the well-received off-Broadway production written by Bob Glaudini and originally produced by LAByrinth Theater Company. The film is currently in production and will also mark the directorial debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In 2005, Ryan garnered attention for her work in Capote, directed by Bennett Miller, playing the wife of the Holcomb County sheriff (Chris Cooper) who welcomes Truman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to the small Kansas town. Her other film work includes Dan in Real Life, directed by Peter Hedges; War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg; Keane, directed by Lodge Kerrigan; and You Can Count on Me, directed by Kenneth Lonergan. Ryan also completed two independent films: Bob Funk, by writer/director Craig Carlisle, and The Missing Person,by writer Noah Buschel, both released in 2009.

In addition to her film credits, Ryan has achieved major success on the Broadway stage. In 2000, she was nominated for her first Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Uncle Vanya. In 2005, she astounded critics with her moving portrayal of the character Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. Directed by Edward Hall and starring opposite John C. Reilly, Ryan was nominated for her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She also starred in Neil LaBute’s The Distance From Here in London’s West End.

Ryan’s television credits are extensive, with more than 30 guest-star performances and eight series-regular or recurring parts on prime-time television shows. Most notably, she starred for five seasons as Officer Beatrice “Beadie” Russell in HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire.

Ryan was raised in Queens, New York, where she attended the High School of the Performing Arts. She resides in New York City.

KHALID ABDALLA (Freddy) was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to Egyptian parents. He grew up in London, before beginning his studies at Cambridge University and then training in Paris at École Philippe Gaulier. He speaks English, French and Arabic.

In 2007, Abdalla performed the lead role of Amir in The Kite Runner, for director Marc Forster. He previously collaborated with Paul Greengrass in 2005, portraying Ziad Jarrah in United 93. Abdalla is currently workingas a producer and lead actor on an independent feature film directed by Tamer El-Said,In the Last Days of the City, filming in Cairo, Beirut and Baghdad.

Abdalla’s non-film work includes leading roles in Tamburlaine, at The Rose Theatre; Cue Deadly, at Riverside Studios; Bedbound, for which he shared the Judge’s Award for Acting at the National Student Drama Festival in 2003; and BBC Radio 3’s The Incomplete Recorded Works of a Dead Body, winner of the 2008 Prix Italia for Best Drama. He is on the board of the U.K.’s National Student Drama Festival, a fellow of the Serpentine Gallery’s Edgware Road Project and a co-founder of Zero Production, an independent film production house in Cairo.

JASON ISAACS (Lt. Briggs) previously worked with Paul Greengrass on the BBC’s The Fix (1997), in which Isaacs starred as the disgraced footballer Tony Kay.

Isaacs recently finished filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Part II, reprising the role of the Death Eater Lucius Malfoy after appearing in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In July, he will be seen in the surreal black comedy Skeletons, starringas The Colonel.

In 2009, Isaacs executive produced and appeared alongside Viggo Mortensen as the doomed Jewish psychoanalyst Maurice, in an adaptation of the Nazi-era stage play Good, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Award by the Critics’ Circle. From 2006 to 2008, he starred as Irish-American gangster Michael Caffee in three seasons of the Peabody Award-winning hit Showtime series Brotherhood, for which he was nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Series, Drama. In 2008, he starred as Harry H. Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe on the BBC, and was nominated for a Best Actor award at the BAFTAs. That year, he also guest-starred as Fredrick “Freddy” Lyme in the HBO series Entourage.

In 2006, Isaacs starred in three diverse roles: in the BBC’s six-part conspiracy thriller The State Within as Sir Mark Brydon, the besieged British Ambassador to Washington, D.C., for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television; in the ensemble comedy Friends With Money, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, as Catherine Keener’s patronizing husband David, alongside Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack and Frances McDormand; and in Channel 4 Television’s critically lauded and disturbing film Scars, as the damaged and dangerous Chris. The film explored the birth of conscience via a series of monologues that were verbatim transcripts of a violent career criminal.

In 2005, Isaacs appeared in equally varied roles. He starred as the heartbreaking romantic Damian, reconnecting with his old love Robin Wright Penn, in Rodrigo García’s award-winning Nine Lives (The New York Times “film moment of the year”) and as the repressed suburban dad Mr. Parker in The Chumscrubber (both films premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival). He also starred as the homophobic movie star Johnny Green in Donal Logue’s independent comedy Tennis Anyone?. On television that year, he was the war-weary photojournalist Colin Ayers, romancing Donna (played by Janel Moloney) in a recurring role on NBC’s The West Wing.

Isaacs has been working nonstop since his portrayal of the cruel Colonel William Tavington in 2000’s The Patriot, opposite Mel Gibson. His scene-stealing turn in that film garnered him a London Critics’ Circle Film Award nomination for British Supporting Actor of the Year and a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination. The following year, Isaacs appeared in a sequined, strapless gown as Chaz/Cherry in the romantic drama Sweet November, with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron, and was then virtually unrecognizable as the bullet-headed ranger Capt. Mike Steele in Ridley Scott’s critically acclaimed war drama Black Hawk Down. Isaacs went on to star in John Woo’s World War II drama Windtalkers, with Nicolas Cage; in the bittersweet romantic comedy Passionada; and in the action-comedy The Tuxedo, with Jackie Chan. In 2003, Isaacs starred in the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in the live-action feature Peter Pan, for director P.J. Hogan.

Isaacs has also made several movies with his friend, director Paul W.S. Anderson, including the sci-fi thriller Event Horizon, Soldier and the British cult film Shopping. Eagle-eyed viewers can spot his uncredited cameos in Anderson’s Resident Evil, Rob Bowman’s Elektra, Mike Figgis’ experimental film Hotel and, most recently, Grindhouse. Isaacs’ other film credits include The End of the Affair, the box-office giant Armageddon, Dragonheart, Divorcing Jack, the musical The Last Minute and the romantic comedy The Tall Guy, which marked his feature film debut.

Born in Liverpool, England, Isaacs attended Bristol University where, while studying law, he directed and/or starred in more than 20 theater productions. After graduating from London’s prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama, Isaacs starred for two seasons on the zeitgeist hit British television series Capital City, and then starred in Lynda La Plante’s controversial Civvies,for the BBC.

On stage, he created the role of Louis in the critically acclaimed Royal National Theatre production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America—Parts 1 & 2, and has performed to packed houses at the Royal Court Theatre, the Almeida Theatre, the King’s Head Theatre and the Edinburgh International Festival. He most recently returned to the stage to star opposite Lee Evans in the sold-out, critically acclaimed West End revival of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, which ran through February and March of 2007.