How ‘Say Nothing’ brought the problems to TV: ‘A pretty tense subject’

Patrick Radden Keefe wanted his 2019 book Don’t say anything to be different from other stories about the problems in Northern Ireland.

Before sitting down to write the book, the author had noticed that partisan politics seeped into many history books he read about the sectarian conflict. “It felt like I wasn’t seeing real people. I saw caricatures – whether they were good or bad, depending on your point of view,” he says The Hollywood Reporter.

He tried to make his story more complex, hoping that his readers would have “complicated” feelings about the people he chronicled. So he began his story with the disappearance of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of ten who was accused by the Irish Republican Army of being a British informant. She is one of the “Disappeared”, a group of people believed to have been quietly murdered by Republicans during the roughly thirty-year period of sectarian violence known as the Troubles. (The IRA has admitted to killing McConville but has failed to play a role in all the disappearances.)

Radden Keefe charted the unbearable consequences of McConville’s kidnapping for her family, while simultaneously charting the radicalization of several young Provisional IRA volunteers – some of whom later became deeply disillusioned with their role in the conflict. This approach was internationally praised, even as it moved into politically and emotionally sensitive territory, reliving a time that is still vivid for some in Northern Ireland.

Now, five years later, FX brings that story to the screen, and presumably a much wider audience: The limited series adaptation of Don’t say anything released all nine episodes on Thursday (on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ in other English-speaking countries). It is a generally faithful adaptation of the book and was produced by Radden Keefe, along with veterans of the literary adaptation Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson (who produced the film). The Hunger Games, The Goldfinch And Crazy rich Asians among them). The team acknowledges that the stakes of their series are high, given the delicate subject matter and the fact that the show will poke an open wound in Northern Ireland.

“There’s probably going to be some kind of emotional reaction, partly because it’s a pretty tense topic,” Radden Keefe says. “My hope is that as people come to the series and digest it, they will see the intention and good faith in what we do.”

Partly due to the complexity of the material, Don’t say anything was not sold in Hollywood before being published in the US in 2019. More than 3,500 people died in the Troubles, a conflict between nationalists seeking an independent Ireland (largely Catholic) and British loyalists (majority Protestant) that only officially ended in 1998. Seventeen people have disappeared and four bodies have not yet been recovered. Northern Ireland has never had a full truth and reconciliation process, which has been used in other civil conflicts to shed light on extensive human rights violations and heal old wounds. A continued effort has been fiercely contested and challenged in court by the British government.

In the book, Radden Keefe reported on family members still grieving for the Disappeared, as well as the past actions of public figures still living, such as former Sinn Féin party chairman Gerry Adams and former Provisional IRA volunteer Marian Price. (Adams has long denied ever being a member of the IRA; Radden Keefe portrays him in a leadership role.) This was sensitive investigative work. “It’s a real story about real people and it felt very delicate and it was something that I understood well in the book, but that I wouldn’t necessarily entrust to everyone” in the entertainment world, says Radden Keefe.

But producer Simpson wasn’t just anyone. Simpson was a friend of Radden Keefe for many years and praised the 2015 New Yorker story that put Radden Keefe on his Troubles reporting in the first place. He requested to see the manuscript, and in early fall 2018, Radden Keefe agreed. Soon, Simpson and Jacobson pitched Radden Keefe for a limited series adaptation, where he would be an executive producer who would be consulted on every decision. “We wanted to use every bit of his expertise,” Jacobson explains. “That would be stupid, to miss all that.” (It helped that the writer loved their work on FXs The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Storyitself based on a non-fiction book from 1996.)

Radden Keefe has had before said that as an American with Irish ancestry but no strong ties to the country, there were advantages to being an outsider in reporting Don’t say anything. Sources didn’t feel he had an agenda; he could ‘say the uncomfortable’ and leave Belfast at the end of the day. And the FX limited-series team quickly tapped another American, screenwriter Josh Zetumer, as a potential top writer. In the 2000s, Zetumer had written a script about British spies in the IRA, The infiltratorfor Simpson on Appian Way.

But overall, the creative team for the series went to great lengths not to jump in and out of a traumatic Northern Irish history. With Radden Keefe’s book at the heart of the story, and top creatives who were all American, the Don’t say anything team found additional employees who paid more attention to the game. In the four-person writers’ room were two Irish voices: Joe Murtagh (The woman in the wall) and Kirsten Sheridan (In America), the daughter of My left foot writer-director Jim Sheridan. British casting director Nina Gold (The Crown) collaborated with Northern Ireland’s Carla Stronge (Kneecap) to fill the series with local talent. The crew was predominantly Irish and British, while cinematographer A, a native Irish speaker, controlled the language used in the production.

Belfast-born Michael Lennox directed all episodes of Derry girlscame on as executive producer and director after devouring Radden Keefe’s book and asking his manager to inquire about the adaptation. Lennox specifically advocated for the young actors Lola Petticrew and Anthony Boyle, with whom he began working on short films in their teens. “Anthony and Lola grew up in West Belfast. They know this world,” Lennox explains THR. Petticrew was cast as the younger version of the series’ lead, Dolours Price, while Boyle became Provisional IRA officer Brendan Hughes.

When asked if he had any reservations about taking part in an American production about The Troubles, Lennox points to what he believes are great films about the conflict, made by outside filmmakers: Hungry And Bloody Sunday by British directors Steve McQueen and Paul Greengrass respectively. At another point he mentions that of the French director Yann Demange ’71 with admiration. “There have been a lot of people who weren’t from this place who had a really interesting perspective and something to say,” he says.

The Don’t say anything creatives know what they are doing Doing saying it will be investigated locally; as The Irish Times put it“People will look critically for characterization, for clothing, for the validity of the period, for gestures and accents, for an authentic representation of the Troubles.” And when it comes to politics, “we are not going to please everyone,” says Zetumer. But as Radden Keefe did in his 2019 book, they respond to what can become a highly charged issue by attempting to present a range of characters – both Republican and Loyalist – in complex ways that defy easy black-and-white characterizations.

“I’ve heard from readers over the years who say, ‘It’s the strangest thing, I find myself rooting for Brendan Hughes, this guy from the IRA,’” says Radden Keefe. “’And then I turn the page and he’s planting 18 bombs in Belfast and he’s killing and injuring all these civilians, and it’s like my stomach drops.’” He adds: “From the very first conversations Josh and I had about this series, we wanted that precise feeling.”

The portrayal of Adams, a political mainstay in Northern Ireland and a key participant in the 1990s peace process, is sure to turn heads. The series Adams, played by British actor Josh Finan as a young man and Northern Irish actor Michael Colgan in his later years, is a shrewd paramilitary leader with political ambitions and a talent for verbally obfuscating direct questions. Each episode ends with a disclaimer that Adams has always denied ever being a member of the IRA or participating in its violence. Adams has doubled down on these statements so far in response to the series. “I hope he tweets about the casting,” says Zetumer, referring to an earlier casting post on social media from Adams on Pierce Brosnan’s portrayal of an Adams-like figure in the 2017 film The foreigner.

Another one aspect of Don’t say anything What can be scrutinized is how the series portrays the Disappeared and their family members. Days after THR reported in 2019 that Simpson and Jacobson’s company Color Force had optioned the book, one of McConville’s sons, Michael, told the Belfast Telegraph that he was “upset and disgusted” by the plans. “It’s sickening what happened to our mother,” he told the newspaper. Radden Keefe says he didn’t let the McConvilles know in advance at the time that the series announcement was coming “and that was a mistake on my part.” He and Lennox have since met with relatives of the Disappeared, including the McConvilles, through the Wave Trauma Center in Northern Ireland to discuss the series. Radden Keefe has also kept family members informed of the developments, he said.

In a statement, a Wave Trauma Center spokesperson said these family members “appreciated the opportunity” to speak directly with Radden Keefe and Lennox. The spokesperson added: “The deep trauma these families have suffered has not diminished over the years and it is understandable that anything that forces them to relive these events will always be very difficult for them.” In the series finale, a title card provides contact details for the Independent Commission for the Location of the Remains of Victims, established in 1999 to find the remains of the Disappeared and return them to their families.

Although Don’t say anything and the approach to this delicate period will undoubtedly lead to debate. The series’ creators are confident that enough time has passed that general television viewers will be receptive to an ambivalent view of the violence. Newer generations are more removed from the sectarian conflict and the culture of silence it inspired, the team notes, while the chorus of young people fighting systemic injustice by rebelling against the state remains relevant. The question Don’t say anything The question is: what are the consequences of these actions later, years later?

“As sensitive and complicated as it is, I think it’s very important to look at these kinds of topics, especially now, and talk about the past and how we process the past,” says Lennox, who grew up Protestant in North America. Belfast. “I think this is part of the way forward.”

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Don’t say anything‘s is now streaming all nine episodes on Hulu.