Original-Cin Q&A: Flora and Son's John Carney on Bono's Daughter Eve Hewson's Reluctant Singing

Flora and Son – about a Dublin single mom who rescues her toubled son through music - is the latest feature film from musical drama specialist John Carney (Once, Begin Again, Modern Love). It stars Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Knick) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

In Flora and Son, single mom Flora (Hewson) is at a crossroads with her teenage son, petty thief Max. Encouraged by the police to find Max a hobby, she rescues a beat-up guitar from a dumpster and discovers that one person’s trash can be a family’s salvation.

In addition to Hewson and Gordon-Levitt, the film also stars newcomer Orén Kinlan as Max.

Flora and Son premieres globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, September 29.

Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with writer/director John Carney about his process.

Eve Hewson and Orén Kinlan in Flora and Son

ORIGINAL-CIN: You have such a knack when writing your films for combining the drama with wonderful music. Do you write the drama first and then the music,  or is it combined all at once?

JOHN CARNEY: It's a little bit combined mainly because of my office at home. My studio space is not just a typewriter, and an ashtray. It's a typewriter, a guitar, a piano, a bass and another guitar and my chair has wheels on it.

I throw myself around the room during the day between these four or five little ports and that's the way I work.  I'll pull the screenplay and go and do music for a few days,                                                                                                                                                                          and that feeds into that and that bleeds into this. So that's the way Flora got made and the way all of my movies got made.

O-C:  What I love so much about your films is how clearly music bonds the characters. It is the connection that they all need and in turn connects with the audience. How do you do this so seamlessly?  What's your secret?

Director John Carney

CARNEY: There’s really no secret.  I think it seems seamless because it has happened to me a number of times in life.  I'm replicating that, so it's easy. It's not that challenging for me.

I lived and breathed music when I was a teenager. I cycled home from school and I couldn't wait to get home to dig into my brother's vinyl collection. I have such fond memories of just sitting there and listening for hours.

O-C: What were some of your favorite albums?

CARNEY: So many, but a stand out was Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life. I couldn’t stop listening to that one. When I got a Walkman, I remember listening to that over and over.  I felt like my bike had wings and I was flying off the farm as I was listening to music.

Music gave me the confidence to go up to the girl who was sitting on the other side of the room, nervously with a can of beer and start a conversation by saying Simon LeBon from Duran Duran had this great song and she should listen to that.

The best and most fun moments of my life have all been music-related so I guess I'm trying to replicate that and I've gotten good at it because I believe in it. I like finding the balance between the music and the drama and I never want it  to become a big, huge musical. I want to keep it in the kitchen sink if you know what I mean.

O-C: I think doing it this way makes your films more relatable as well.

CARNEY:  It's fun for me to think about how I can do a musical  in a tiny flat in Dublin. How can I do a musical on Grafton Street in Dublin with a busker and make it work? It’s a great challenge but it’s also so much fun.

O-C: Once again you’ve also gathered a great cast for Flora and Son.  Not just spotlighting such talented unknowns, but for this one you have Joseph Gordon Levitt who has great musical talent, but had never done a musical before and the wonderful Eve Hewson in the lead.  How challenging was it to get Eve to sing on camera, because having Bono as your dad must come with some pressure?

CARNEY: I think she looked at the singing in this film in the right way, which was not about the actual singing. It's about the risk of just opening your mouth and not about having a great voice.

Once we made that decision, we knew that from the script and from the very beginning she's not going to be Mariah Carey or something. It's not about the amount of notes you can cram into a song.

So it doesn't matter that your dad is Bono and is rock royalty, and she never wanted to go near that. She never goes there, she wants to go on this journey on her own terms.  So I think when she read the script, she must have gone, “I’ve got to sing.”

But it never fazed her because it wasn't about being the best,  it was just doing it.