Although there are lighting technicians at work on the Peacock Theatre stage, it is pitch black backstage and there seem to be endless layers of dark curtains to be manoeuvred. Stumbling in the dark, unsure of where we're going, I only know I am being brought to see The Man - it could be a scene from so many of Gerard McSorley's films except for a change, he is the one about to be interrogated.
A friend has always said that if he ever came face to face with McSorley, he would confess everything straight away; despite the huge range of roles on both stage and screen that the actor has played, it is as the threatening Northern Irish hard man, that McSorley stands out. Slouched on the sofa in the Peacock dressing rooms, pushing around a plate of salads and playing with a cigarette, Gerard McSorley bears little resemblance to the grim anti-heroes he plays so well.
"Well, it's inevitable with the accent, isn't it?" McSorley suggests as a reason for the frequent hard man roles. He alludes to a much wider range of roles - in An Awfully Big Adventure or Widow's Peak - but concedes that there have been an awful lot of RUC or IRA men. "Terrible Northern savages" he says ruefully, rubbing his chin and making a face at his daughter who is sitting nearby.
"It's much more fun to play these complex characters. The character I played in In The Name of the Father, for example, was very well able to do this job that was merciless and violent but at the same time he had a doubt that what he was doing was right."
It was this complexity that attracted him to the role he is currently playing in the Peacock - Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, in Making History which opened on Wednesday and is the final play offered as part of the Friel festival. "There's an extraordinary complexity to this man's imagination. He was extremely intelligent, articulate and had a huge political vision but you can see the inner conflict going on in his mind. He becomes a wonderfully well-rounded character in the hands of Friel, a kind of political Hamlet. Well, Hamlet was political of course, but a more overtly political Hamlet perhaps. I love that complexity." The play marks a return to stage for McSorley who has predominantly been working in film and TV for some years now.
"That started in about 1992 when Jim Sheridan came to me about In The Name of the Father, and for a two or three-year period I did nothing but TV and film. I was delighted; I felt that over the years I'd learned to develop roles on my own and possessed the techniques and skills to do some good film work. "What's great about film is that there's something tangible there at the end, evidence of the work you've done. And I also enjoyed the experience of working with some great directors - Mike Newell, Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan, Alan Parker, John Carney with whom I did Just In Time."
McSorley has undoubtedly reached a point at which his profile would allow him to make the crossover to big-bucks Hollywood movies, and indeed he took two trips to California last year - one with his daughter and one with his girlfriend - to check out the lifestyle. He loved it there but the idea of moving was aborted following the tragic death of his son, Peter, at the age of 22. "He was a diffident, sensitive and lovely young man. He had been on betablockers and the doctor told us his heart was weak. I was asleep when he died - I found him in the morning."
Although he is willing to discuss Peter's death, he looks terribly shook as he describes the aftermath. "It was the most horrific, traumatic, physical and psychological shock - everything goes through your head, every complexity. I didn't work for some time after his death; I didn't think it was appropriate."
HE gives credit for his return to work to Dr Anthony Clare: "He told me that acting was what I did and I had to work again. It was very healthy - you just cannot spend your time obsessing about something like that. It's all part of a process, but if you're working you just don't have time to think about it."
It is not surprising that it is a Friel play that has enticed McSorley back to work and to the stage - he has performed in a number of Friel productions since he took on the role of Gar Private in Philadelphia, Here I Come! in the Abbey many years ago. "I've always had a lot of time for Friel. Each time I've performed in one of his plays it has marked a change for the better in me, professionally, and I would hope personally. He opens you up."
Of course the Friel role with which he will always be associated is that of Michael in that production of Dancing at Lughnasa. "It was great because we were all experienced enough not to take it too seriously; the West End, Broadway, all that Tinseltown stuff. We had a great laugh and it was also a moment of great pride. Michael was a great role; his final speech has an extraordinarily profound effect on audiences."
But it was far from Broadway that McSorley was reared. A native of Omagh, Co Tyrone, he first fell in love with acting at school in Derry's St Columbs: "It must have been the bad food" is the amused explanation McSorley offers for how the same school produced Seamus Heaney, John Hume and Seamus Deane. He describes his parents as "less than enthused" about the idea of him becoming an actor, and to please them, he took a degree in English and history in Queen's University, Belfast.
It was, of course, a turning point in the history of that city - he describes with a sense of wonder the feeling of optimism in the city when he first arrived in 1968: "There was a whole feeling that things were going to change."
By the time he left the sectarian divisions had become more evident; "The unhappy state of the North was partly responsible for my move to Dublin. There also wasn't as much work in Belfast. I found Dublin a very happy place."
Looking back, he considers his big break a very short takeover role in a play with the marvellous name of The True Story of The Horrid Popish Plot, that happened to be directed by Hilton Edwards. More work with him and Micheal MacLiammoir at the Gate theatre followed, while at the same time McSorley was getting involved with the Project Theatre and the likes of Jim and Peter Sheridan and actor Alan Stanford. "There wasn't the amount of film work that there is for young actors today, but there was maybe more theatre work. I remember it all very joyously."
After some years working as a freelance actor, he joined the Abbey Players in 1981. "It was good timing - I was in my late 20s and I had always harboured an ambition to work in the National Theatre. I was also at the age when I wasn't playing pretty boys any more and was into the terrain of character work - it gave me the chance to play many different roles."
After some good years working with the likes of Ray McAnally and Eamon Kelly, McSorley left in the middle of a three-year contract. "I was suddenly irritated by the fact that I had to do whatever play came along. I got the feeling that I was developing some level of control; in the business of acting, various factors often conspire to ensure that you don't have enough decision-making control which is a bad thing."
Looking to the future, McSorley hopes to maintain the balance between stage and film work. He speaks in a tone that is almost wondrous of his experiences over the years. Suddenly he breaks off and asks with a grin "Am I sounding terribly Californian here - you know, `I'm so terribly happy and I love everyone' and all the time I'm going to a shrink? But I love what I do, I really love it and there's not too many people that can say that, is there?"
Making History is at the Peacock Theatre until Saturday, August 7th.