Things are heating up just as Summer is winding up!

ZeroZeroZero at the Venice International Film Festival

When last we heard about this new international television series, it had been postponed due to injuries and delays. Now, it seems, it is ready for its close-up!

Still not expected to hit our home screens until some time in 2020, ZeroZeroZero will premiere its first two episodes September 5 and 6 at the 76th Biennale Cinema in Venice, which runs August 28 – September 7, 2019.

The Los Angeles Times broke the news (read the article to discover all of the new films that will be coming our way over the next months!):

Two anticipated series that will screen episodes in Venice are “The New Pope,” Paolo Sorrentino’s Jude Law-starring follow-up to “The Young Pope,” and “Zerozerozero,” Stefano Sollima’s crime drama with Andrea Riseborough, Dane DeHaan and Gabriel Byrne.

And, according to Alberto Barbera, the Director of this year’s Venice Biennale, Gabriel Byrne will be in attendance!

So, we can hope to see our favorite Irishman in Venice in a few weeks. Ah, Venice in the summertime. What could be more romantic? heart

Stay tuned for more details as they become available!

War of the Worlds: ADR

Here’s a lovely tweet from writer/director Richard Clark, who directs four episodes of this new television series (as reported previously, Gilles Coulier directs four episodes, too).

What’s ADR, you ask?

In films, ADR is Automated Dialogue Replacement. It is sometimes called “looping” or “dubbing.”

Dialog that cannot be salvaged from production tracks must be re-recorded in a process called looping or ADR.

Looping originally involved recording an actor who spoke lines in sync to “loops” of the image which were played over and over along with matching lengths of recording tape. ADR, though faster, is still painstaking work.

An actor watches the image repeatedly while listening to the original production track on headphones as a guide. The actor then re-performs each line to match the wording and lip movements. Actors vary in their ability to achieve sync and to recapture the emotional tone of their performance.

So, this means War of the Worlds is adding those finishing touches and should be heading to our screens later this year! Are you ready!?

Also from Mr. Clark, posted on his Instagram back in February:

An Open Letter from Immigrant Writers Regarding Border Refugees

Gabriel Byrne has spoken eloquently and honestly about his experience leaving his home country of Ireland and moving to the United States. He has observed, on several occasions over the years, that he often feels he neither belongs to the country he left, nor does he quite belong to the place he now lives. He understands, as few Americans born in the USA do, that immigration is a complicated process–and not just legally. It is a process fraught with emotional and psychological trauma, and the severity of that trauma depends on many people and experiences. Now, he has offered his voice with others to urge US leaders to pay attention and put an end to the inhumanity currently happening at the border with Mexico.

Below are excerpts from “An open letter by Ariel Dorfman, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Byrne, Neil Gaiman, Khaled Hosseini, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Wayétu Moore, Reza Aslan, and more” from The Nation. Please read the entire letter when you have a chance.

…Many of you have defended immigrants and refugees with righteous eloquence, invoking our nation’s past and cherished symbols such as the Statue of Liberty. As writers, we appreciate the sublime power of words. But as immigrants, we also remember the brutal reality: when you’re walking in a strange land, herded by strange men who speak in strange tongues, when you’re stripped of basic human needs, when you’re hungry, cold and helpless, words aren’t enough…

…Today, those enduring unspeakable conditions at our border are praying, just as we once prayed, when it was our turn. They may be praying to a different god, or different gods or different entities, but it doesn’t matter; what matters is that the power to address their prayers lies with you, the United States Congress.

Please, do not let them go unheeded.

Hello Again to Hello Again

Gabriel’s first “Hollywood” film was this bright and engaging comedy starring Shelley Long and a cast of familiar film and television stars. Gabriel plays the very romantic doctor. See picture below for proof.

Although Hello Again was a hit (and still has lots of fans) and a nice break for Ms. Long, who was starring in the mega-popular Cheers on television at the time, Gabriel has noted that his own experience was less than wonderful. He would avoid making American films for three more years before finally succumbing to the Coen Brothers and Miller’s Crossing.

Still, it IS his first big American film and everyone should see it!

And now you can. The film has just been released on Blu-ray and is available at Amazon. Also, if you’d rather stream it, you can watch it on Amazon Prime Video.

PS. You may remember a short clip of this film, viewed by Gabriel’s sons with much hilarity, in the 2015 drama Louder Than Bombs. The things he has to put up with for his art… wink

Into The Night Documentary News

The Director’s Cut of this brilliant, ground-breaking, and evocative documentary, directed by Helen Whitney and starring Gabriel and other contributors, is now available on DVD.

You can purchase the DVD at the film’s official website.

Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death, a two-hour feature documentary, features fascinating, unexpected voices from various walks of life: old and young, believers and nonbelievers, the dying and the healthy, well known and obscure. Among them: Caitlin Doughty, an alternative mortician and bestselling author with her own YouTube following; Adam Frank, an astrophysicist and NPR commentator, Gabriel Byrne, renowned actor of stage and screen; Jim Crace, award-winning novelist and environmentalist; Max More, a cryonicist and futurist; Stephen Cave, a British philosopher; Phyllis Tickle, a near-death experience spokesperson and religious historian; Pastor Vernal Harris, a Baptist minister and advocate for hospice care in African-American communities; Jeffrey Piehler, a Mayo Clinic heart surgeon. However varied their backgrounds, all are unified by their uncommon eloquence and intelligence, and most important by their dramatic experience of death. Each of them has been shocked into an awareness of mortality–and they are forever changed. For them death is no longer an abstraction, far away in the future. Whether through a dire prognosis, the imminence of their own death, the loss of a loved one, a sudden epiphany, or a temperament born to question, these are people who have truly ‘awakened’ to their own mortality.

Website Updates

Nothing major is planned, so don’t worry! I just wanted to alert you to some changes made over the summer while you weren’t looking.

The Biography and Career Page for Gabriel has undergone a substantial reworking, including different portraits of our favorite Irishman and lots of changes and updates to the text. I hope you enjoy this new version!

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Hmm. I wonder which header I finally chose
for the Biography and Career Page?

Also, the pages for Film and TV Trailers and Gabriel Byrne Videos now use the YouTube Playlist plugin. This is very different from the previous plugin, so be prepared. This YouTube tool works just fine, though. I think. If you have any problems with this, please do let me know, okay? smile

The Last of the Summer Wallpapers

Here they are. Grab ’em before the leaves on the trees start turning and say goodbye to Summer with Gabriel on your desktop…

Thanks for making it to the end of another edition of the Byrne-ing News. It’s been a quiet summer, but things will be brisk soon, with more news of ZeroZeroZero, War of the Worlds, Lost Girls, and Death of a Ladies’ Man on the way soon. Enjoy the last days of Byrne-ing Summer, everyone! heart