Ep 156 | Christopher Jacobsen: Daragh and Brando Documentary

We are Ding Wei Media. We are Ding Wei Media. Hello and welcome to episode 156 of the filmumentaries podcast i'm jamie benning coming to you here from my little office here in southeast london a quick word about patreon first if you get something out of these conversations please visit patreon.com forward slash jamie benning and that's how you'll keep them coming You'll get early episodes, extras and a discount if you sign up for the year. Everything else is on the link tree, which is in the show notes, including the merch shop, the videos, all of the filmumentary stuff that I've gathered over the years. OK, so this episode is a bit different.

It's a shorter one and it's about a film that doesn't exist yet. My guest is Christopher Jacobson. Full disclosure, as I say at the start of the interview here, Chris is the brother of one of my very good friends. And back in the day, we spent a lot more time together. in London, going to restaurants and bars and things. He's an actor with long runs in the West End, including a very long stint in Les Mis.

He's also a filmmaker, and he's trying to get a documentary off the ground about the actor Dara O'Malley. If you've ever watched the show Sharp, you'll know Dara. He was Sergeant Patrick Harper, Sean Bean's right-hand man, and he and Bean were the only two in every single episode from 1993 to 2008. Chris grew up as a massive fan, sent him a short film script in 2021 and ended up with a friendship and a lot of long, he says, two hour phone calls. So the spine of the documentary is Dara's friendship with Marlon Brando.

I know, bit of a curveball there. In 1995, they were cast together in a film called Divine Rapture alongside Johnny Depp, Deborah Winger and John Hurt. Two weeks into shooting, the money collapsed and the production shut down for good. But Dara and Brando stayed friends for the rest of Brando's life. Dara took him for his first pint of Guinness in a rural Irish pub.

He still has all the voicemails, and he has somewhere around 30 to 40 minutes of footage from Divine Rapture, most of which nobody's ever seen. So Chris is trying to raise money for the first part of making this film, the shoot with Dara, doing sit-down interviews with him, and I'll tell you how you can help at the end. So here's my interview with Chris Jacobson, and I'll be back at the end for a bit more Jabbering On. Chris, really good to have you on the podcast. Just full disclosure to everybody first.

You are the brother of one of my very good friends. And we used to hang out back in the day, back in London, visiting a few restaurants and bars. But what's brought us back together is this project that you're working on, this project that you want to get done. Tell me about the project. Tell me how it came about.

What's it? Who's involved? What's the subject? Let's just get an idea for everybody listening. Well, so it was back in 2021.

My friend Marco and I, my filmmaker friends, we've done a lot of projects together. We were looking for someone to be in our next short film. And so growing up, I was a massive fan of this TV show called Sharp. which starred Sean Bean. And basically his right-hand man was a character called Sergeant Patrick Harper. I just loved him.

I thought he was brilliant. And so that's an actor called Dara O'Malley. Send Dara the script. And he checked it out, got in contact with us, and he loved it. And he wanted to meet us and chat to us.

And after all that meeting and stuff, he decided to come on board, which we were all very excited about. And basically what happened from there was we struck up this great friendship. And over that course of the friendship, there's been numerous, like, hour-long, two-hour-long phone calls just talking about life. And what kept creeping up was his incredible career, because Dara's been around for years. And one of the most fascinating stories was what the spine of this kind of documentary is about. is Dara's friendship with Marlon Brando.

So they met... Dara was cast in a film called Divine Rapture. Legendary. Yes. For all the wrong reasons.

But he... Yeah, this was back in 1995. And it kind of was a big, big deal for Dara, you know, at this time. It was not only Marlon Brando, it was... John Hurt, Deborah Winger, Johnny Depp, you know, massive cast.

And Dara had a great big part and it was kind of going to, you know, launch a lot of, you know, a lot of hype around it. So it was going to kind of launch his career. He already had a great career before that. But anyway, long story short, there were lots of issues, mainly financial. They'd started filming.

They'd actually started filming and they did two weeks, And then production shut down. And there was a company in America and it was all, it was like escrows involved or something. Basically the company, I think got done for fraud and yeah, production shut down and that was it. Long story short, to summarize what happened was out of all of this, Dara struck up a great friendship with Marlon Brando. And after two weeks of filming, They became great friends and stayed in touch throughout their lives.

And the more and more Dara talked to me about this, the more I was like, what? And just hearing all these stories and how Dara took him for his first pint of Guinness in a rural pub in Ireland and how they'd talk for hours on the phone. And Dara's got all these old, like an old voice recorder tape, like all these voicemails from Marlon Brando. Yeah. And he's got the original, I think it's about 40, maybe 30, 40 minutes of footage from Divine Rapture that Dara has.

I think little bits of it have been seen over time. But yeah, there's a lot of unseen footage and lots of like archival things. And it's just a fascinating story. Every time I look into the story and research, there's just, other layers, not only to the Marlon Brando story, but to, um, to Dara's story. Like the other day, um, Dara sent me this article, uh, that was written about that Dara wrote about, um, in a newspaper about, uh, the singer songwriter, Neil Sadaka.

And it's just, it's just mental. So Dara has this, uh, this parrot called Vincent and he's, uh, Oh God, I can't remember the name of the parrot now. It says Senelgis? Something parrot. And basically, Neil Sedaka moved in to where Dara lived in LA, a place called Shoreham Towers.

I think it was built on the site where Humphrey Bogart used to live. and they kind of knocked it down and made these towers in los angeles um so neil sadaka comes in he's about to use the lift and he says hi to dara and on uh neil's shoulder there's a the exact same breed of parrot um and i can't remember neil sadaka's parrot's name so but he had the exact same breed parrots and dara started talking to neil sadaka they were getting in the lift together saying i've got a parrot same vincent and um So there's all these fascinating stories that, you know, he ended up being friends with Neil Sedaka. They used to go down to the pool every single morning with their parrots. The parrots would go for a little swim in the pool.

And just like Axl Rose was Dara's landlord, you know, the Guns N' Roses singer. Wow. So you're trying to pull in all these threads and make sense of all of this because it's great. I mean, presumably the idea for the documentary is to sit down with Dara at length and hear all these stories, get them on tape, as it were. and then paint them in some way. Obviously you've got the, the, the footage from divine rapture potentially rights issues there, but you know, we can navigate these things or you can navigate these things.

Then you've got the answer phone messages. You've got these other testimonials from people that are still around as well. It just sounds like, you know, I mean, Brando is already bigger than most of his characters, right. And it sounds like Dara is a real character as well with this parrot. So it's always, I think it's always important when you just feel a connection with somebody that, And they start telling you these stories.

As a filmmaker yourself, and as I'm a filmmaker as well, there's this instinct, isn't there? Like, I need to share this somehow. I need to get this this out and um is Dara pretty receptive to getting some of these stories on tape. I mean yeah I've told him about the idea and he's like sure why not and I I just selfishly I just want to go spend time with him as well yeah and just I just have such great time with him and we one of the other fascinating things for me was the the connections that people get over time in this industry. Because, you know, you meet so many people in this industry.

Not everyone, you know, you might love people and get on with them, but you may never see them again. It doesn't mean you don't like them. So that's why when, you know, one of the most famous movie stars in the world, Marlon Brando, took a shine to Dara. And then all these years later, I get to work on a short film with an actor who I admired growing up. And he takes a shine to me.

Bearing in mind, you know, Dara is quite a recluse person, you know. So it's really lovely that, you know, we have this relationship now as well. And, you know, Sharp is a massive part of this documentary as well. Not only, you know, selfishly for me, but it just shaped his career as well. It's, you know, it was, I think they started back in 1993.

They finished in 2008. Yeah. And that's, you know, Sean Bean and Dara were, I think, the only two who did every single episode. Right. And they were like films, you know, two hours long.

And the stories of that were great. And we're hoping to get contributions from Jason Salke, who was in the show Sharp. He wrote a book about their crazy times and how, you know, Brian Cox was in it. Oh, my God, Daniel Craig was in it. Pete Postlethwaite was in it and they ran out of water where they were staying.

Pete Postlethwaite was brushing his teeth with lager. It's just all these fascinating stories were just... But it's like the heart of it is also this man, Dara, a portrait of his legacy and then the friendship. And it's just... The thing is, me telling the stories doesn't do it justice to the way he tells them, because he's such a, he's a great storyteller.

And his Brando impressions are just, you know, spot on. And there's a lot, a lot of stuff to delve into here with it all. But yeah, I can imagine as well. I think when we spoke initially about it, um, I've got this picture in my head of Dara living in this sort of quirky little village in Ireland. He's got this parrot there.

Just that alone is enough to want to shoot it. You know, it's, um, And clearly so many amazing stories and big names. I think before, did you mention he worked with Richard Harris and Hugh Grant? So Richard Harris has a massive family connection to Dara. I can't remember where it comes from now.

Don't worry. I think he, oh no. So Dara's dad dated or went out with Richard Harris's daughter. Right. So that's how that relationship started.

And Dara, I think it ended in tragedy. I think Richard Harris's daughter died quite young. Dara became very friendly with Richard Harris. And I mean, those stories are crazy. He lived in the Savoy Hotel for years.

He had a place in, I think, Barbados. He was a resident there. All for nothing. I don't know if this should go on the podcast, but all for tax reasons. But yeah, what a character.

But yeah, and Hugh Grant's first job. I can't remember the name of that now, but Dara spent, I think, six months in a cabin with Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy. Wow. On Hugh Grant's first ever job. And it just, yeah, he said Hugh Grant was lovely and they just had a great time.

And yeah, it's just all these times, like, Every time someone says something, I'm just like, oh my God, yeah, Dara did that. And Dara, it's just like, Ron Perlman, they worked together. So Ron Perlman worked with Dara on a TV version of The Magnificent Seven. Right. And Dara and Ron swapped Brando stories because Ron worked on The Island of Dr.

Moreau. Another ill-fated project in many ways. I think Brando was being fed lines in an earpiece famously out of that film. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it was the original director. I think left the production and Brando got in. Who was it? Was it John Hughes or was it Jerry? Oh, something Heimer.

Jerry Brookhart. No, John Frankenheimer, wasn't it? John Frankenheimer. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't put that in the podcast. Forgetting all these legendary names. John Frankenheimer, I think, came in and shot loads. But yeah, they swapped stories. I'll have to try and remember the Ron Pullman story because there was this really funny story where Brando was being brought in on this...

I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, I'll try and remember that story. But yeah, there's loads of different times where he's worked at different... And they swapped stories and yeah. Yeah, we should also point out that you're an actor yourself, having done long stints in shows in the West End and here and there.

And it's interesting, isn't it, when you work in those environments with people, you work on a show, on a stage or in a film, on a set, you sort of become family, don't you, for that period of time? And you have these weird bonds with people that just go on forever somehow. Yeah. Um, like you might not see somebody for 10, 15 years and suddenly it's like, you're back there again, working with, so it's like, you know, with live TV that I do, you go and do something in an, an extraordinary thing in an unusual place. Um, and, um, yeah, you just have those bonds, don't you?

So, so to hear that he's had, or Dara's had all of these bonds with all of these amazing people, um, would you, would you hope further down the line to speak to people like Hugh Grant, um. I've got a long list of people. Obviously, we want to reach out to Barry Navidi, who was the original producer of Divine Rapture. It'd be great to talk to him and get him on camera to talk about his experience and also his experience with Dara. Long list of names.

Johnny Depp, Deborah Winger. We'd love to talk to Deborah Winger because she notoriously left Hollywood after that film. So it'd be great to sit down with Debra Winger. We need to get Jason Sulkey on board because he just has such a wealth of knowledge and archival material from the times and sharp as well. And I tell you what, reaching out to these communities, like the sharp fans in the Facebook communities and stuff, it's, it's amazing.

It is amazing how, much this one tv show there's something about you get lots of with cults hits but sharp fans it's so loyal to the actors and they just love it and and they've been really great at kind of getting behind the project and supporting it and and jason has posted into his facebook groups and has been very generous with his support so we really need to get him and want to get him on board to get a sit down interview and to talk about all those amazing sharps. So, I mean, we'd love to get Brian Cox because not only was Brian Cox in two of the most recent, not most recent, the earliest sharp, um, episodes, him and Dara were good mates. Um, and the stories of, uh, him and Brian, uh, in LA and, um, oh my God, my, there's so many names.

Um, Downton Abbey creator. What's his name? Oh, um. Oh. Hang on.

It'll come to me. Oh, God. Julian Fellows. Yes, yes, Julian Fellows. So, Dara's good friends with him.

Ian McNeice? Is that the name? No. So, um... And, like, Dara and his wife, Gabriel's.

Oh, Ian McNeice, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do know who he is. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, Dara and his wife, Gabriel would, uh, you know, she would drive them round, um, and rest in peace. Gabriel's no longer with us. And that happened just not too long ago. And, you know, she was his world, Dara's world. So I think Dara and I have bonded a lot over the years over, you know, personal circumstances as well, which is, you know, it's, it's really, um, nice to have people like-minded and, you know, especially someone who's, I think he's 72 now.

It's weird. As you said, this industry, you end up being friends with people who are years older, years younger. Your relationship with people in the arts, they seem to form quicker as well. Yeah. Your guard is down.

You seem to, rather than meet someone, you know, back in the day at school or something or university, takes a while but yeah it's uh in the arts it's just like you meet someone and automatically you're i don't. Know oversharing perhaps i don't know it's yeah yeah maybe yeah it's yeah there's a vulnerability there isn't there like an openness like you said and you sort of maybe you're more sort of willing to let people in listen this is this is sounds like a fascinating. Project it's a long road ahead you know but what are your initial steps that you want to do and what can people do to to help. So we have already started a campaign on GoFundMe to try and raise funds for the initial shoot of the project.

So our initial hope and aim is to go out, like you said, go to Ireland, spend some time with Dara, at least a whole week with him. And we would be taking him to locations that would be... to do with either divine rapture or lots of memories, memories of islands and memories of his time growing up there. Um, and we are looking to raise at the initial stage, we're looking to raise about 7,000 pounds. And that would be for the first two weeks. So that would be a week in Ireland with Dara and a week in London, um, with people, uh, contributions and people that we'd love to sit down with on tape.

And obviously that just, you know how it is with documentaries and how much it costs sometimes to get things made. But luckily with Marco's production company, we already have all the gear. We just need the logistics and the money to get there and an extra crew member, the flights, the petrol, the car. And then, so we really do need people's support to get this initial funding off the ground. What has come from it, from one of the sharp groups.

We've actually got someone who reached out who wants to come on board and help us out as an archive producer. Great. That's a big deal. Yeah. Massive sharp fan.

I've got a friend who's a sharp fan. Who's an editor who said he would love to help us out at some point further down the road. But this initial chunk is for the initial filming of, And the core filming, because obviously we don't want to tie Adara out too much and spend two weeks. We want to make sure we get it all done in this week chunk and plan it all properly. So that's the main thing.

So we have a GoFundMe link available at the moment. It's on my Instagram page. I'll put it in the show notes as well for people to click on. And I'll share it on my social media as well. Because I love these projects, you know, and I've been the benefactor of so much support from people for my Joal's project.

You know, we're still forging ahead with that when we can and with the finances being a difficult part of it. But, you know, we've had trips out to Martha's Vineyard, trips out to L.A. that people have really helped with us funding. And we couldn't do it without that. And this is the thing, I think, with particularly the creative industries, that you're on to the next project always as an actor, as a producer, as a director. People don't stop and go, hang on a minute.

There's some really awesome history here. Let's not leave it behind. And it takes people like us to do that. And people like the people listening right now to support those projects as well. So listen, all my listeners, I know there's a few thousand of you for each episode.

If you can just chuck a couple of quid at Chris, you know, you're going to spend it on a coffee or something stupid or a pint of beer. So send it Chris's way, because I'd love to see this project come to fruition and just getting that initial step done. you know, the next bit of the track is kind of laid in front of you. Once you're up and running, you know, yes, the complexity comes at you, you know, from every direction, but there's just something about making that first couple of steps. And as a community, we can help Christopher do this. So let's try and do it.

I mean, if anyone from that community has, because as I said, the Dara story is so layered, if anyone has any particular branch of that story that they want, you know, me to kind of ask Dara about or because there's sharp fans and also a massive thing we haven't talked about is with Neil and I. Yeah, of course. Dara was in that film for, I don't know, five minutes. Yeah. But it's such, people remember that.

It's scary and people talk about it to this day. Yeah. You know, the angry Irish man in the pub. I think in some films, in some cuts of the film, he was credited as a, Oh God, was it Irish wanker or Irish bastard? Something like that.

But yeah, I think someone's, I can't remember if it was Dara's mum wanted them to change it. Right. Maybe leave that out. That might be bullshit. I don't know.

Okay. I'll just keep the laughing. Yeah. As I said, fascinating project. So many strands to it.

I want to hear these stories. I've heard this little sprinkling from you in our chats that we've had, but I'd love to see this on the screen. So, Wishing you the best of luck, Chris. And I know you can do it. And as a community, let's help Chris do this.

So check the show notes, click on the link and throw a bit of money in his direction, please. I appreciate that. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Cheers, Jamie.

So that was my conversation with my old pal Christopher Jacobson. And I'll be straight with you about why this one's on the feed. I've been on the other side of this. You know, the Joe Owls film still doesn't exist out in the world, but it exists as a thing because people listening to this podcast and friends and family chipped in and got us to Martha's Vineyard and to L.A. a couple of times. And we couldn't have done it any other way.

You know, it often takes people who are into making these stories, fans, film fans, to make these films. So what Chris is asking for is a few thousand pounds to pay for a couple of weeks, one in Ireland with Dara, taking him back to places tied to Divine Rapture and growing up there. One week in London with the people who can fill in the rest of the story. They already have the kit, but, you know, these things cost money to do. As I said in the interview, and I'll say it here again, there are a few thousand of you listening to every episode.

If each one of you threw in a couple of quid, the price of coffee, not a pint, I mean the price of a pint, I'm glad I don't drink anymore. But if you threw in the price of a pint, Chris would get to his target pretty quickly. So the link is in the show notes. And if you search for Dara O'Malley and Chris Jacobson, you'll find it on GoFundMe as well. I'll put the GoFundMe link on the show notes as well.

This industry is always about, you know, what's the next project? Nobody tends to stop and say, hang on, there's a bit of history here. Let's not leave it behind. You know, Dara is 72. These stories need to get on tape. while he's still around to tell them in his own voice with his Brando impression which Chris tells me is spot on if you've got a question you'd love Chris to put to Dara whether it's Sharp or Brando or that scene from Withnail and I get in touch and I'll pass it on thanks to Chris for coming on and good luck with it mate I know you've had a rough time and you're going through a rough time at the moment with some family stuff so I just want to send lots of love to you and hope for some light in the future If you want to support this show, patreon.com forward slash jamiebenning, with a discount if you go annual.

Everything else, including the merch, is at the link tree. That's l-i-n-k-t-r dot e-e forward slash filmumentaries. I'm jamieswb on Twitter, and filmumentaries just about everywhere else. Right, that's your lot this time. Thanks for joining me, and I hope you can do so for the next episode of the Filmumentaries podcast.

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