Éanna Hardwicke explains how playing Roy Keane was more about capturing an “attitude” than impression

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Roy Keane was one of the most commanding and imposing players on the football field for the last thirty years.

Roy Keane, the famous Manchester United and Republic of Ireland player, is now well-known as a straightforward pundit for Sky Sports. He was always a powerful player, recognized for his fierce competitiveness and sometimes fiery personality, both during games and in his personal life.

As a film buff, I was really intrigued by the new movie, Saipan. It dives into the famous and pretty messy falling-out between Roy Keane and Ireland’s manager, Mick McCarthy, right before the 2002 World Cup. It’s a tough watch knowing that disagreement cost Keane his only chance to play in the biggest football tournament in the world – it’s a really dramatic story.

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He explained that they seemed to share a clear understanding of the project, and he’d always been impressed by Steve’s authentic performances. He added that how he played a real person depended on the specific movie or show.

He explained that it’s a matter of how much you focus on perfectly recreating someone’s physical appearance and voice, versus simply capturing their personality and inner self in your own interpretation. In this case, he prioritized the latter. They weren’t making a traditional biography, but telling a story about an event, so his main goal was to capture the feeling and attitude of the subject, rather than a precise imitation.

He noted that some projects, like Steve Coogan’s depiction of Jimmy Savile in the 2023 BBC series The Reckoning, demand strict factual accuracy. However, when working on Saipan, he felt liberated from the constraints of making a traditional biographical film.

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Since Roy Keane has been in the public eye for nearly thirty years, director Tom Hardwicke explained that he had a wealth of information to work with and had to carefully select a few key aspects to focus on when creating his portrayal.

I really focused on the source of my anger and what fueled it. I think anger can be powerful and even impressive when it’s understandable or comes from genuine emotion. The challenge was to tap into that feeling and express it in my own way.

I was also really interested in exploring commitment and discipline – what does it take to be that focused? I personally struggle with that, so I wanted to understand how to achieve it. Those two ideas were what I kept coming back to throughout the process.

It was also important to remember to look beyond the public image and consider what these people were like in private. I really appreciated that the script allowed us to delve into the characters’ personal lives, because that added depth and realism to the story.

Saipan is released in UK cinemas on Friday 23rd January.

Authors

Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer

Patrick Cremona writes about movies for TopMob, covering new releases in theaters and on streaming platforms. He’s been with the site since October 2019, and during that time, he’s interviewed many famous actors and reviewed a wide variety of films.

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2026-01-22 18:04