ONE of the stars of RTÉ drama Smother has revealed that an Ennis instructor helped him to overcome his fear of the water.
While filming the second season of the popular RTÉ show in North-West Clare, James O’Donoghue who plays Calum had to learn how to swim two months before shooting began.
For this, the services of Bernard Cahill from Cahill Aquatics were enlisted. A past pupil of Rice College, Bernard has competed internationally for Ireland in lifesaving championships, his last victories are the men’s oceanman during the European Championships 2019 and the men’s surf race during the European Championships 2019. He competes in 200m super lifesaver, board race, oceanman, ski race, surf race, 4x50m medley relay, board rescue and ocean relay.
Bernard told The Clare Echo of the experience working with the promising Irish actor, “I had a great time with James, he’s a great fella and we made some good progress together”
Overcoming his fear of swimming was aided by Bernard and arose due to a planned scene with show newcomer Finn where James had his head shoved underwater.
“It’s so funny. I’ve lived in many places known for aquatics, my school is so close to Dun Laoghaire and I live here in Wicklow where swimming is a big thing, but I just did not know how to swim whatsoever. Going into the season I had zero ability, but I worked with this brilliant guy, Bernard Cahill. There was a lot of buildup to that sequence. I started learning how to swim about two months out,” James said.
He added, “I have a really bad fear of the water, I was terrified of putting my head underwater. I had to go on a journey just for that sequence, to be able to do it. We knew we didn’t want to have a stunt double. It’s not something particularly spunky but it is a mental thing I had to overcome. Bernard was brilliant and everything turned out really well”.
Learning to swim in Co Clare was another perk of working on the show, the Leaving Certificate student told The Clare Echo. “That’s the great thing about acting sometimes, you learn some life lessons through it, acting can take you anywhere, I was being drowned in the ocean so you learn skills naturally. I came out of filming, it was the start of summer by the time we finished filming and we went straight into summer and I was able to go swimming with my friends which is something I had never been able to do before which sounds very sad, I was able to go out, go to the beach and I wouldn’t have been able to do that only for Smother”.
