From Fair City kidnapper to Love/Hate gangster

GROWING up in a creative family in Greenhills, Johnny Ward and his two older sisters have always been involved in acting for as long as he can remember.

The former Templeogue College student has honed his craft and was recently crowned Best Actor at the Goss.ie awards for his portrayal of Ciaran Holloway in Fair City.

Now, in the midst of an explosive storyline where we find out that unassuming car mechanic Ciaran has actually kidnapped one of the women in Fair City and has been holding her captive, Johnny took some time out to talk about his early beginning in acting, what it was like to star as Paulie in Love/Hate and what tips he would give burgeoning actors.

What was your first role, and what was that experience like?

I went to a lady called Mary Birch, she was from Walkinstown, and she gave speech and drama lessons to me and my two sisters. I remember she got auditions for a film called The Boy From Mercury, this was in about 1994 or 1995, and that was the first role I ever did.

It was cool, it was really good. And even though I was so young I still kind of built connections with the casting directors, and I’m still involved with a lot of them to this day.

I never had a ‘this is what I want to do’ moment, it was always sort of there. I can’t remember the first acting lesson I ever did, it was just always something that my parents put me and my sisters in, and I’m pretty glad that they did it because I’m pretty bad at everything else!

You played the role of the gangster Paulie in Love/Hate, how difficult was it for you to get into his mindset and film some tense scenes?

Love/Hate was something that I always wanted to get into. I went [to audition] twice for different parts, but the parts never really appealed to me.

But when I heard of Paulie there were just so many things we had in common. He was living in Spain, I used to live in Spain, he drove a motorbike, I drive a motorbike.

I did six auditions for the part, and I didn’t hear from them for weeks. It’s happened to me so many times before, and I suppose that’s the nature of the game.

Where [the directors] are down to the last two [auditionees], and it was this big thing, especially with Love/Hate – everyone was talking about it. So there was all that pressure and I didn’t think I had a chance, so when they rang and said that I got it I was chuffed.

I only had about a week to prepare and read the script, so we didn’t have an awful lot of time. I think getting into character was easy when I met the other people I was working with.

You currently play the role of Ciaran Holloway in Fair City, and you’re involved in an explosive storyline where you kidnapped Katy and you’re keeping her captive, what was your reaction when you first read that storyline in the script?

When I saw the script for Ciaran, I saw that he was a mechanic and a happy-go-lucky guy, who loved his motorbikes and I thought, ‘this is a great part’.

Brigie De Courcy (Executive Producer, Fair City) and Sam Atwell (Series Consultant, Fair City) took me to their office, and just gave me this thing, top secret, and said, ‘Listen, this guy’s got a bit of a secret, he’s got a bit of a dark edge’.

And I said, ‘What is it?’, and they said, ‘You’re going to be kidnapping one of the girls in Fair City’. And I asked who it is, and they said it’s Katy O’Brien, who’s played by Amelia Clarke Stewart.

I laughed myself stupid [about it], because me and Amelia were childhood friends and we used to hang around the same road and stuff.

The two of us had to keep it a secret, we weren’t allowed to tell anyone. Even when Katy O’Brien went missing no one had a clue – the cast, a lot of the directors and producers didn’t have a clue until about a month before it was revealed. It was amazing, when you see the reactions that it got.

How does acting in Fair City compare to acting in Love/Hate?

You get a lot more time in Love/Hate. Love/Hate do six episodes a year, and Fair City do four episodes a week, so it’s a lot more of a challenge in Fair City.

You had a lot more time with Love/Hate if you made a mistake or you didn’t know your lines. When I went into Love/Hate I had five episodes because I got killed in the fifth one, but I had all my episodes and I had a week or two to prepare them.

They were in my head, and I knew that those scripts were just going to be in my head and I had to learn them all off – that was it.

Whereas with Fair City it’s very difficult going in because now I’m learning scripts for next week, and then there’s scripts for the week after.

It’s really difficult to fill your mind full of all of this dialogue and then completely empty it because you know you’re never going to say it again, and then build it all up again for the week after.

What do you find most enjoyable about working as an actor?

When you’ve worked extremely hard, and you see the feedback and the reception of all your hard work – it’s worth it.

When you’re playing a really intense role, like someone like Paulie or Ciaran Holloway, it’s completely different to going into panto and you’re looking down at the little kids’ faces and they’re looking up at you thinking that you’re Peter Pan. It’s amazing doing things like that, it’s just very rewarding.

What advice would you give to any budding actors who might be reading this?

Never give up on your dreams and don’t listen to the people who will try to knock you down.

The other piece of advice is, I’ve seen so many actors who’ve gotten a lucky break and it can change them. I think it’s very important to be careful who you meet on the way up because you’ll meet them again on the way back down.

Don’t ever change who you are as a person, and I think that some of the success that I’ve had is not only because I’ve been working hard but because I’m a nice person, I try to be a nice person.

I just think it’s important to be kind to people. I’ve seen it myself on nights out where people ask people for selfies, or can you sign this or can you do a video message, and I try to be like, ‘yes, absolutely’. I enjoy it and I try to be as nice as possible.