An actor has revealed that he is staying humble and working at his local Starbucks still- despite being in an Oscar-nominated film.
James Martin, from Belfast, was in An Irish Goodbye in 2021, directed by Ross White and Tom Berkeley, playing a brother who is reunited with his sibling Turlough (Seamus O’Hara) due to his mother’s death.
He has been lauded for his acting in the flick, which has been nominated in the Best Short Film category.
But he has chosen to go back to Starbucks for now, before the Oscars next month.
He said: ‘I help out with all the customers. I’ve been doing that a long time. It’s nice.’
Humble: An actor has revealed that he is staying humble and working at his local Starbucks still- despite being in an Oscar-nominated film (pictured: James at work)
The actor keeps himself busy, also working in local restaurant Scalini’s as a chef.
It comes after he said of the Oscars on BBC Breakfast on Thursday: ‘Well it’s not every day that you go to America, and an Oscar could be a nice birthday gift, because it’s actually on the 12th March, my birthday, so the timing is fantastic.’
He added: ‘I would love to meet Tom Cruise, of course I would, Top Gun is a fantastic movie. I would love to meet Liam Neeson because we’ve got something in common.
‘I would love to meet Robert De Niro because we’ve got something in common as well.’
Meanwhile, the film’s writers, Tom and Ross, are just as excited.
Tom and Ross are delighted to be nominated for the short film and were happy to only be on the longlist.
They realised they had created something special when they discovered how close James and Seamus had become.
Tom said: ‘(When we heard) about the two of them facetiming each other in the evenings to originally run their lines, and then they just ended up doing it because they just became very fast friends, so I think we realised they had something special together.’
Role: James Martin, from Belfast, was in An Irish Goodbye in 2021, directed by Ross White and Tom Berkeley
James revealed that he had a special bond with Seamus and that he just wanted to make people laugh with the film as they were watching it during lockdown.
He also said of acting with Down’s syndrome: ‘Anybody can act, it doesn’t matter if you have Down’s syndrome.
The actor said he always tells people to never judge a book by its cover, referencing Stephen Hawking, who had motor neurone disease, acting in The Simpsons.
He described Stephen as a fantastic actor who knew what he was doing.
An Irish Goodbye has already scooped gongs at the British Short Film Awards, the Indy Shorts International Film Festival and the Irish Film Festa.
Praise: He has been lauded for his acting in the flick, which has been nominated in the Best Short Film category
