The Winter Lake, available through VOD, is an Irish thriller about the secrets that lie beneath the surface when a woman and her son move to a family farmhouse. They and their two neighbors become in embroiled in the mystery while feeling the effects of isolation.

Michael McElhatton, who plays neighbor Ward, spoke to Screen Rant about bringing his complicated character to life and connecting with his costars.

What drew you to the role and this idea? These characters are very dark, but this is a coming of age story at its core.

Michael McElhatton: Yeah. I loved the script, and I thought it was beautifully written. I like all the symbolism with the hands and the touching, and all that kind of stuff. But I suppose, primarily, it's always really interesting to have a character who is in conflict with themselves and with the world around them, and this guy very is that.

I think this movie is really about secrets; the secrets of the past, and trying to bury the past. And, of course, the lake is hugely symbolic in all of that. But Charlie and Anson (who play Elaine and Tom),  they have their secrets to keep, we have our secrets to keep, and it's about the floodgates opening during the course of this movie.

You're working with first-time feature director Phil Sheerin. Can you talk about the collaboration process and how he helped you shape your character in this film?

Michael McElhatton: Yeah, I hadn't met Phil before. They offered me the role, and we just had a quick Skype. I'd seen one short that he'd done before, and I really admired it, and I loved the relationships that he had; the delicacy and the intimacy. He knew what to cover, and he knew what to shoot. We just had a chat, but we didn't do a great deal of talking, really. We were on the similar page from the get go.

When we finally got to set, literally by take two, you knew that he was a very self-assured director who was not intimidated by actors as a lot of directors are. They don't quite know how to talk to actors or to get a better or different performance out of them. But he was extremely confident about that, which gave me confidence and gave the actors confidence...

It was great, and he was up for adding stuff and taking away. But then at the same time, he was very specific and you had to respect that. Which I did.

The character of Ward can easily be a monster in this film, but you bring a sense of humanity and complexity to him. Was that something that you wanted to do right off the bat?

Michael McElhatton: Yes, absolutely. Otherwise, you just end up making him a one-dimensional monster, really. There's plenty of those written, and I just don't have any interest in doing that. From his point of view, obviously, bad people are people who've done things wrong. He doesn't see himself that way. I think there was a genuine love of his daughter, and as atrocious as the acts that happened were, we can compartmentalize things in our brain. He's lonely, and there's a possible romantic dalliance with Charlie's character. And she seems up for that too, so who knows?

But I think the more complex, the more vulnerable he is, the better. Phil actually had a very good point. I was quite far into the shoot, and he said, "We don't know what happened to the wife, but I get the feeling that he was abused by his wife." Maybe just physically or something like that. But he was a weak, repressed man - which he is - but then the anger and the volatility is so suppressed, that when it comes out, it's lethal.

I also love watching your chemistry in the scene with Emma McKay, who played Holly. Can you talk to me about what Emma brought to the role that you weren't expecting?

Michael McElhatton: I knew very little about her. I'd seen some episodes of Sex Education, though she's done so little. She was absolutely gorgeous, lovely, beautiful, and nailed the Irish accent, which is not an easy accent to do.

It was a low-budget movie; we mainly filmed in this pretty bleak, damp house, which was awful. And the rest of the time, there was one trailer that we all huddled in together. We all got on incredibly well, and it was really nice, and it was a very creative, fun thing. So, we didn't do a lot of talking; we just did it. A lot of the time, it just happens like that. They know what they're doing; I knew what I was doing, or thought I did. Everybody was of a similar mind. There were no drama queen, there were no tantrums, it was just about the work and getting on and doing it. So, she was a joy to work with.

Can you talk to me about what attracted you to the writing? Because it's peeling the layers back of each character, and there's so much internalization going on with all of them.

Michael MclEhatton: Yeah, there is. And there's a lot of symbolism. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff didn't make the cut; a lot of really beautiful things. It's quite a strange edit. I don't know who [edited it]; I know it's not Phil's fault. But there were lots of tiny [moments] that created a lot more tension in it of this need for violence. Something could be happening with that all.

In the Irish psyche, repression is a huge thing, and the inability to honestly say your feelings and what you're thinking about. It's totally opposite to the American way; totally opposite. That's probably why we all drink so much. There is that darker question, and I liked that inability to try and express the heart. Slowly, as it goes along, he does open up about his daughter and his fear of the boys and getting hold of her and all that kind of stuff. But that's his own paranoia.

I just thought the pacing of the script and the writing of the characters was really interesting. How the relationships developed or didn't; they went this far but he either didn't have the courage or the nerve, and it just disappeared. It was two years ago we made it.

Can you talk to me about the relationship your character has with Charlie Murphy's character, Elaine?

Michael McElhatton: Yeah. I think he likes her. I think he's wary of her initially. The son, he can't make out at all; he's a very strange child. But he likes Charlie, and Charlie is so open. She is desperate for Love, or for something in her life. He's aware of that, and he sees that, but he's terrified by it as well. So, they're two very damaged people looking for something, but it never comes to fruition. And that's probably a good thing for her.

So much of the challenge for Anson's character, Tom, is internalized. Can you talk to me about what Anson brought to the role of Tom that wasn't on the page?

Michael McElhatton: He just brought this real strangeness. It would be probably quite extreme autism. There's an autism there, I felt, that he did. I just utterly believed him in his strange movements, it was a kind of fractured way of talking, delivering, never looking you at directly in the eye.

It's very hard to break it down, because I've only seen it once, and I didn't have a huge amount to do with him. But he's so committed, Anton, and he's so much fun offscreen. I was really blown away by him; he's quite method in his performance. I loved it, and it really came to life much more so than on the page.

The Winter Lake movie

You guys shot in Sligo, Ireland in the winter. Can you talk to me about shooting there in the winter, and how the area helped informed everybody's performance?

Michael McElhatton: Yeah, Sligo is on the border town. It's not in the north, it's in the Republic of Ireland. I've never really been there before, and it's incredibly beautiful. I mean, there are ruins there and burial grounds that precede the pyramids, which is extraordinary - old Druid burial sites and stuff like that.

There's a wildness to that place, and there's a wildness to the people. I mean, they're wonderful and warm, but there's a crazy, feral wildness about those people as well. The guy who was driving me around, he was nuts; he just said, "Follow the dotted line, Michael. Follow the dotted line, and that's how you do this." I wondered how he drove really fast on these bendy roads... He was fantastic; slightly crazy, but an incredibly warm, lovely thing.

I think that was a huge help. And we shot in March, so almost exactly two years ago. The weather was nice, but it was bleak and cold. But you don't mind if the weather is good, and the work was intense, and you went home to your house and set. It was very intense five weeks.

A lot of this film is about what lies underneath the surface. What do you hope the audience experiences with The Winter Lake?

Michael McElhatton: I hope they're hooked on the story and the characters, really, like anything. They stay with us, and I think it's beautifully shot. I hope they follow it to the end, and that they market it right and they push it right. Obviously, it's a tough time for independent film, and in the current climate it's such a shame it's not getting a cinema release. But I just hope it gets a decent push on whatever platform it ends up coming out on.

It really blew me away, what you did with that character. There's so much complexity there, all the way to the end. Amazing job on your performance. Michael.

Michael McElhatton: Thank you very much. I loved doing it...

I loved going to work every day on this film, because there was always something; you could take some things too extreme, and Phil would say bring it back or give it more. If there was complexity, yeah, he was a grisly, hairy old man. And I wasn't playing some evil lord or some evil scientist, which I've done quite a bit. Yeah, there was the complexity - and I think the more interesting it is for the actor to play, I think the more interesting it is for the audience to watch.

Every time that you're on the screen, there's a new facet of your character to reveal. That comes to a crescendo when we get to to that third act of the film. It really took me took me by surprise. 

Michael McElhatton: The lake actually was cut down that took a whole night to do, and that was physically the toughest thing I've ever done. Because it was a man made lake, but underneath the mud was thick, thick glutinous mud. It was about a foot deep, so when your feet went in, you couldn't pull them out. To struggle and do that for a long time was exhausting. They actually cut it down quite a bit, because it went on for quite a while. It was brutal, but it worked.

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The Winter Lake is available on Blu-ray March 23, 2021.