Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1491103
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 25 Aileen Wuornos. It was a quick production. It was 20+ days and had a kind of low-budget agreement with the union. But just to record Charlize's performance, there were so many times during filming that the hair stood on the back of my head because she poured everything into that role. And to work with Patty, who is an incredible collaborator and was, for someone just starting their career, she knew exactly what she wanted. I loved the fact that she was open to hearing from other people and other opinions. When Charlize won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos, it was another great feeling to have been a part of a film that impacted so many. I recall talking to you about moving to LA. Yeah, I think that was the last film I did in Florida and that's when you and I had conversations about moving out to LA. And I literally said to Maureen, my wife, "I think it's time to move out." Maureen and I had talked about moving out to LA many times, but it's always about the timing. Suddenly there's another job, another job, can't quite do it now. Then, with less filming in Florida, I was going to be commuting more, back-and-forth from Los Angeles. I want to talk about my wife Maureen here because Maureen is somebody that has been with me since the very first day that I went to go for my interview at the BBC. That's just amazing. I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Belfast preparing for the BBC interview and I see a group of girls coming toward me and I can recognize one of them. It was my future wife Maureen. She stopped and chatted with me and saw that I was reading a book. It was a book on sound recording techniques. We chatted further and she wished me luck. Then the next month, we bumped into each other in a bar at the local university. So, she has known me since that first day where I'm going off for my interview for the BBC. There is always a price to pay for people that work in the film business, it's not for everybody. The long hours, the travel on locations, but she has been an incredible supporter through all of my endeavors and, I'm certain, knows more about sound equipment and shipping manifests than she ever wanted to know! [laughs] It really is a delicate balance between work and family, especially since much of my work has taken me out of California. When my son Ruairí was born, I was actually working in LA, which was rare, on Ron Howard's Angels & Clockwise from top left: With Ruairí and Maureen in Paris 2022; a young Ruairí showing his credentials; at the Oscars with Maureen; in Tokyo in 2005 for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (we thought it was so unusual to see people masked everywhere and this was very much pre-pandemic); with Ruairí as my sound trainee in 2008.