Why I'm happy to be in it

Dylan Moran is quick to give a lot of credit to Mark Doherty's script. Photo / Supplied

It's a very funny movie - much smarter than your average comedy made for four cents. That is 37-year-old Irish comedian Dylan Moran's verdict on a film with him in it, called, well, A Film With Me In It.

And he's right, it's very funny in that bleak, black, deadpan way the Irish seem to have patented.

The film, out on Thursday, stars another Irishman, Mark Doherty (who also wrote the script), as a pathetic sadsack would-be actor, also named Mark, who lives in a basement flat with his disabled brother and long-suffering girlfriend. He fails to find work or pay the rent.

Moran plays Mark's best mate, Pierce, a dissolute wastrel who fills time between alcohol rehab sessions sitting in the pub dreaming up ideas for the perfect screenplay. When things go horrifically wrong for the pair and bodies start comically piling up, it is Pierce who comes up with a series of increasingly unhinged, elaborate ways to get them out of it.

It's a role not a million miles away from Bernard Black, the drunken, ranting, repellent yet strangely charming bookshop owner Moran played in Black Books, the TV sitcom which served as his introduction to New Zealand audiences. But for Moran, career moves aren't based on which role is similar to what or trying to do more film than television. It simply comes down, he says adamantly, to script. "I had a great time with this film because I liked the script a lot. Mark is an old friend and he did a super job," he says from Wellington where he is finishing a lengthy Downunder tour of his stand-up show What It Is.

"It's not a perfect film. It's got rough spots and cracks but that's not the point for me. The point is the script is good. I think it's very funny." He's largely backed up by the critics too, who have generally applauded the film's blackly farcical tone, reserving particular praise for Moran's mouthy, shiftless Pierce.

Since Black Books, Moran has built up quite a film history with supporting parts in modern British comedy classics such as Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run as well as more dramatic roles (2003's The Actors opposite British acting heavyweight Sir Michael Caine).

Ask him though, if he wants to move more into film and television work and you can practically hear his eyes roll.

"The thing is, I don't understand how the film business works but I can tell you one thing I do know - whether you've decided to make a film or not is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with whether you end up making a film. It depends who asks. "Obviously you can try and generate your own stuff, but that is the only way to make sure you're involved in making more films." That begs the question of whether he has more plans - Moran created and co-wrote Black Books - to do screenwriting. "I wrote a movie script years ago - it was awful," he says. "But I would, sure I would do that."

There are no immediate plans though and Moran is still realistic about finding continued success through broadcasting. "The thing about writing is that it really is all up to you. There's no one else to blame if it doesn't work. The script and the movie that bears its name are two different things.

"And if you starred in it yourself you'd be clucking over your own egg all the time."

In the end there is always stand-up, which is serving Moran pretty well these days.

His recent New Zealand shows in Auckland and Wellington were sell-outs and attracted rave reviews. He has long been called a "ranter", the kind of guy you meet mid-tirade in a bar. But he's a little resistant to the idea.

"I didn't rant last night," he says of his Wellington show. "It was more me talking, trying to work something out.

"Stand-up is really my chance to argue - in this show about the tide of infomercials or info-tainment or whatever you want to call it."

But for now, after seven weeks in Australia and a couple here, he's keen to get back to the home in Edinburgh he shares with his wife and two young kids. Even with A Film With Me In It making its mark in cinemas and at film festivals worldwide, Moran will happily settle back into relative anonymity at home.

"I do get recognised in New Zealand and sometimes at home. But I'm always surprised when someone comes up. At home it generally happens when something old has been on cable or something.

"That's the thing with television now. Once something's on tape it's like rolling news - they can use it whenever they want."

* Black Books plays on Prime, Fridays at 8pm. A Film With Me In It is in cinemas on Thursday.