Our Editor-in-Chief interviews Stephen Mullan about his life and new show, Rascal.
Stephen, you were born in Cork but also spent spent some of your early years on years on extended breaks in Argentina. How did that come about?
I grew up in an interesting home for 80’s and 90’s Ireland. My mother is from Buenos Aires and at the time there were very few people around from outside Ireland. My father is from Cork, my parents met on a missionary ship. My Dad’s work in my childhood was as a church planter and leader of an Evangelical church. So their Christian beliefs brought them together.
Although everything suggests you should be catholic, your background is fundamentalist Born-Again Christian. How did that impact your life?
Yes both my parents came from Catholic homes, my Dad’s in particular was pretty strict. It was almost his rebellion to become a Born-Again Christian. With regards to understanding love, the religious upbringing really messed up. Contrary to what I would have been told the Bible said, I learned that love was very conditional. My family home was and still is very much God and church first, family second. It’s a weird one as my siblings and I are not religious at all and have no connection anymore to that world. My daughter and nieces are not religiously affiliated at all, but my parents are still very much involved. It’s their thing now, but I feel like it leaves a gap between us as a family. We all get on etc but we wouldn’t be a close family at all.
I have lived for a long time with a lot of shame and guilt and I felt all that from a very young age. When every meal means praying and a word from the Bible, and then you are the rascal out of the home and getting up to all sorts of trouble, your parents don’t have your back; they're disappointed in you. But I think religion was a way for them to find meaning in their lives. I tend to find more meaning in the lessons my daughter teaches me everyday. If there is a God, I know he shines through her, and there is plenty to be listening to through her.
I read that growing up was a world of macho culture, building sites, football dressing rooms and all boys schools. What sort of foundation did that provide for your emotional development and understanding of love, which is a central pert of you new show?
My first thought is that it would have provided little to no foundation with regards to understanding of love. However that would not be entirely true. In my experience of macho culture there is actually a lot of love, but it has strict rules. In fairness to men, in a good friendship they are extremely loyal. I think the problems start to show when it’s men in groups; competitiveness takes over and it seems that it is nature. I have noticed this working with parents in coaching my daughters sports team. The boys start to play competitively much younger than the girls, because they are just naturally much more competitive at a younger age.
Being funny as a boy, teen and man buys you credit in the pack. Making others laugh means no one is making fun of you, but the down side is that you can show no weakness, as you are liable to be attacked. You also cannot be different, you cannot stand out, you’re perceived as a threat. If you’re not funny and you are different you are vulnerable to all sorts of punishment including physical. Love has rules in those scenarios. You are loved if you celebrate the philosophy of the group. I mean, call it a philosophy is way too complementary. If you are the funniest, the strongest, the best fighter, or the best worker or the best whatever, but you honour the group, they will love you back. If you don’t stick to the rules - good luck. I learnt to do my best to hide my differences from a young age: my ethnicity, my religion, coming from the ‘rough estate’. Religion was also a big thing in my home that really messed with my idea of love.
Your new show is called Rascal. Does that date from your days as a teenager learning about macho culture or is it how you see yourself now?
It wasn’t my idea, the name came from a comedian friend of mine. I asked a few people and they all agreed. There is something about the spirit of the rascal in me. I really don’t actually think about it and I see what they are saying, but I think if I do analyse it too much I start to see all the failings I have in my life because I’m just this rascal, messer-energy type guy. I think I was always like that as a child and I still am now, I would just say that now, I have many more sides to me. The rascal side is nearly a secret weapon I can use in times of trouble.
I got into a lot of trouble in school and with my parents, but actually I don’t look back and think I was a bad kid or cruel, I was still very lovable. Back then and now, I get away with a lot of things that others can’t, but for some reason it’s endearing to other people. I know the very loyal fan base I have love that about me and I carry that spirit strong on stage.
Do you think the ability to mock religion or least laugh about it helps to overcome the indoctrination?
Yes and no. On one level it does help to make light of some of the perceptions that Christianity lays out. Born again Christians say that homosexuality is wrong yet Jesus was hanging out with 12 lads for three years; we’ve all been there, I don’t believe nothing happened!
Weirdly making jokes about Christianity helps me to look closer at the religious beliefs. What I found was that Jesus was actually a good guy and in modern times, most people wouldn’t argue with pretty much anything he had to say. He had some good pointers for life. The problem is the people in the organised religions and their perceptions of what Jesus said or meant. They make up their own rules and that’s where the problems arise. The shame and guilt is created by these man-made rules, that they say come from the Bible, which is rubbish.
I don’t know if I’ll ever overcome the early doctrination- it’s engrained from childhood, I was made to think and believe certain things and even though I’m happy with who I am in life, there are certain insecurities, worries, guilts that I know stem back to that. My parents are not strict religiously at all with their kids now because we are not religious - but we have different beliefs in how to live life and raise kids in the world and I think that’s a constant reminder on a daily basis that religion is still holding some power through the relationship with my parents.
I’ve learned to separate and protect my daughter from all of that stuff. My main job is to follow her and let her know she is loved no matter what, there’s no religion between me and her.
You narrated Love Island Australia and this, your 4th EdFringe show, apparently revolves around your failures in looking for love. Did you ever wish you were on Love Island instead of just narrating it?
Absolutely not! For a start I have the perfect body to be the voice of Love Island. I wouldn’t be taking my top off with the beautiful bodies all over the place. However the one aspect of it I do like is people being straight up about what it is they are looking for and the winners of the last season were two genuinely lovely people. They were honestly two very impressive young people. It was good fun narrating the show for a couple of seasons but I am not going to do it any more. I’m enjoying more acting in film and TV and I’m looking forward to some new upcoming projects.
Is it right you feel that as your daughter grows up you need to get a grip on this love thing that encounters with therapists have been largely counter-productive?
It was something I worried about when she was younger. That I didn’t really understand how to love, how to show her love or how to receive it. I was never lucky in love, I’m a single Dad. Even though I have a good relationship as a coparent with her mother now, my relationship with her when we were together did not work. So I was there in a failing relationship, having never had a successful one, while having a mother myself who in her own words, ‘was not a very good mother’. So I did go to therapy to figure it out, but I found therapy useless in many ways. Obviously it’s different for everyone, but for me, I had done a lot of therapy down the years and I think I grew out of it. I have been to many therapists and done different types of therapy but I got frustrated at therapists being so slow and there are many bad ones out there. One therapist, I was two years telling her I thought the relationship with the mother of my child was falling apart. She was practically rolling her eyes at me and never took it seriously and only wanted to talk about being a comedian.
I find reading Aristotle way better than therapy and psychology. After I studied some for a year I was left feeling more unimpressed, it’s still such a young subject matter, it’s given way too much of a pedestal in modern times and as the fella says, "It doesn’t address the soul".
There have been some pivotal moments in your affairs of the heart: your junior infants teacher being one.
Yeah that was a tough one. To be honest all the childhood crushes are: to be completely in love with someone and they have no idea. I don’t think many lads admit this and I’ve only heard this kind of stuff from the girls, but I would have a crush so bad I’d be dreaming about our wedding day at night. When Isla Fisher was on Home and Away, I had this recurring dream about taking her to the school Christmas disco. I hear she and Sacha have ended it and I am a younger looking Sacha so maybe I still have a chance.
