‘Say Nothing’ Creators and Cast Talk the Pressures of Portraying the Struggles of Northern Ireland: ‘You Have to Earn the Right to Tell That Story’

As an American, writer Patrick Radden Keefe knew tackling the story of Northern Ireland during the tumultuous 1970s in his book “Say Nothing” would be a challenge.

From an outsider’s perspective, native readers would not be easily convinced his interpretation of The Troubles was worth reading. However, the book went on to spend six weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, quelling his fears of misrepresentation. As he celebrated the book’s FX adaptation with his writer and crew, he emphasized that the doubts he once had made success all the sweeter.

“There’s a responsibility. I think that’s the price of admission, the price of trespassing into someone else’s world, be that an American writing about people in Belfast or a guy writing about young women. You have to get it right,” Keefe said. “You have to earn the right to tell that story. That was part of the reason that, for me, it’s been such a rich and rewarding experience working so closely with [series creator Joshua Zetumer] and the rest of the team to try and get those little details as authentic as possible.”

Keefe and Zetumer were joined by stars Anthony Boyle, Hazel Doupe, Josh Finan, and Maxine Peak for a question and answer panel after the premiere of the hotly anticipated “Say Nothing” series. The discussion was moderated by Samantha Barry, editor in chief of Glamour magazine.

“Say Nothing” chronicles the four-decade-long ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles ,where Unionists and Loyalists wared over whether Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom or leave to join a united Ireland.

Growing up in southern California as the son of two foreigners, Zetumer also knew what it was like to be an outsider. Also, like Keefe, he felt heavy pressure to get all the facts right, and once on shooting, he allowed his Irish cast members to take the lead if anything seemed amiss.

“I tried to absorb as much as I could, not only from Patrick’s book, but also I watched everything I could,” Zetumer said. “There’s the point where you have written the scripts, and you hand them to the actors. Normally, that power dynamic is really clear. You’re like, ‘Here’s a script, say the words.’ In this instance, we tried to empower the cast and said, ‘Hey, I know I’m an outsider trying to do this. Please tell me if you smell bullshit.'”

Boyle, a Belfast native, praised the scripts and said, “It was as if the writer was from Belfast and they’d lived on the Falls Road.” He added that even he felt the pressure of getting the story right at times. “Having lived in the hangover” of The Trouble, the people he was most nervous to show “Say Nothing” to were his parents.

“When I showed them it, I think it was two weeks ago in Belfast, I was really nervous,” Boyle said. “There’s a scene where Dolour’s father gets pulled down the stairs and gets interned. One of my mom’s earliest memories is seeing her father get pulled down the stairs by the British Army. She just let it shriek and started crying in our living room. We had to pause the show and talk to her through it. And I thought, ‘I feel like we’ve got this right.’ You know what I mean? To see my mom’s sort of reaction, that was a real powerful thing for me and a real powerful moment.”

Watch the entire conversation above.