Eddie Marsan on ‘No Ordinary Heist’ and 30 Years of Acting

How many hours does Eddie Marsan have in a day?

You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s twice the amount the rest of us get, considering his vibrant and varied year ahead, or, you know, the last 30 years or so. This is the man who has traversed more terrain than most of his peers, having starred in blockbuster action films (Mission Impossible III, Sherlock Holmes), box office darlings (Deadpool 2, Mowgli, Snow White and the Huntsman, The World’s End), and iconic movies from beloved auteurs (Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams, Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake and Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, to name a few).

He’s no stranger to TV, either — in fact, you might know him as Terry Donovan, older brother to Liev Schreiber’s titular fixer in Showtime’s Ray Donovan, or more recently in Heartstopper, King & Conqueror and Supacell. The born-and-bred Londoner has done it all, and he’s truly thankful: “I’m not a big movie star, and I’m really proud to be an actor,” Marsan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I love what I do.”

He’s catching us up ahead of the release of his next project, No Ordinary Heist, in theaters in the U.S. on Friday. Directed by Colin McIvor and co-written by McIvor with Aisling Corristine, the film earned its world premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Fest in February, before it aptly screened in Belfast and Dublin. “It was great to show the film in Belfast, because the film is such a homage to Belfast,” Marsan says. “It’s part of their recent heritage, you know?”

No Ordinary Heist is inspired by the true events of the 2004 Northern Bank robbery, when over £25 million (around $35 million in 2026) was stolen from the company’s Belfast headquarters in one of the largest bank robberies in British history. Marsan stars as branch manager Richard Murray, who is coerced, alongside lowly colleague Barry (Éanna Hardwicke), into helping the perpetrators while their respective family members are held hostage. The supporting cast includes Eva Birthistle, Michelle Fairley, Andrea Irvine and Patrick O’Kane.

“To be honest with you, films are always set within a certain cultural context, or geographical, ethnic [context], and with any good film, within 10 minutes, you’ll realize it’s a universal story,” Marsan says about the movie’s broad appeal. “This is a story about: What would you do in this situation, if your wife or mother was threatened with death? […] Would you be able to cooperate with someone you hated? Richard and Barry hate each other, and that’s a great premise for a film.”

He’s also got a slew of buzzy projects to come this year, including season three of The Rings of Power, DC’s Clayface, and Peter Gould’s Disinherited for FX. Taking a moment to catch his breath, one of Britain’s most prolific actors runs us through nailing that tricky Belfast accent in No Ordinary Heist, why filmmakers must balance being political without becoming didactic, and the thrill of being an actor’s actor: “I don’t even know who I am really. I don’t think any of us do.”

Eddie, how was the Northern Ireland premiere?

It was wonderful. It was great to show the film in Belfast, because the film is such a homage to Belfast, really. It makes Belfast look really cinematic and everybody loved it. It’s part of their recent heritage, you know? I was walking around Belfast in the daytime, [I] had a couple of hours to kill, and people came up and asked me what I was doing there. And I said I was there for the premiere of a film, and it’s about the Northern Bank robbery. And everybody had an opinion about what had happened, who did it, and where the money is. It’s like an urban myth.

Fascinating, because I know this premiered in Santa Barbara and at the Glasgow Film Festival as well. Have you noticed a difference in reaction with their respective audiences?

I wasn’t in Santa Barbara and I was working so I couldn’t be in Glasgow. But yeah, the Irish response has been fantastic. People have been very kind, very generous, and it’s gone down really well. It’s a lovely film. It’s a really good film.

How much did you know about the Northern Bank robbery before this?

I knew nothing about it. It just shows you how English-centric our news is. But it’s the biggest cash robbery in British and Irish history. When I read the script, I just realized how brilliant it was. I love the premise of the bank manager and the security guard being made to rob their own bank, and the high stakes because their wife or mother will be killed. But I also love the fact that they’ve got a history together. It’s a story, really. It’s a heist movie, but it’s really about two men overcoming their prejudices in many ways.

This is based on a true story and your character is loosely based off a man called Kevin McMullan. Did any research into him go into your prep?

The research that I did was based on whatever was in the script. The way I create a character is it’s all sensory data. I’m not a very literal person, or academic. So it’s all about images and sounds and smells and just trying to achieve what their character is trying to achieve. I mean, what was fascinating is a lot of people think it’s a political story, and they’re surprised that both characters are Catholic. But I never realized how much of a social hierarchy there is within the Catholic community of Northern Ireland, this kind of snobby Catholics [versus] working class Catholics. Richard Murray is a snobby Catholic, and Barry is a working-class Catholic. And I love that. I love that nuance. It’s not a film about a Protestant and a Catholic. It’s a film about class and money and inequality.

Did you find this was a bit of a learning experience for you?

Very much so! Every film, for me, is a learning experience. That’s one of the joys of being an actor for me. I never went to university, but I’ve had an amazing education for the last 35 years.

What immediately attracted you to Colin and Aisling’s script?

I love the opening sequence. I thought it was really well set up. I’m used to reading scripts, and I know the first 10 minutes are the most important. A script is kind of like a helter skelter ride where you go up really slowly, and then you reach the top, and then you swoop down. And it’s how you get up there, how you get to that point. I really admired Aisling and Colin’s writing. I thought it really set the story. You know exactly what these men are trying to achieve, the obstacles, and it’s really dramatic. Then I realized that I was going to be working with Éanna, and I’ve always been a big fan of his [since] he did The Sixth Commandment with Timothy Spall. Tim’s a good friend of mine, so I watch everything Tim does, and then I saw this young Irish actor play that part, and I thought it was amazing. So the idea of working with him was something that I wanted to do. I always want to work with good actors. They make me look better.

I suppose you’ve crossed paths with Michelle before?

No, I never have. She was fantastic. And Eva. Me and Aisling [were] sitting in the theater last night watching it and just realizing how brilliant they were. I mean, Michelle carries so much in the story, and she does it so beautifully. She’s an incredible actress.

Your Northern Irish accent was very impressive as well.

Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, I worked very hard on that. I have a voice coach, Liam Robinson, who I work with all the time. I kind of take him with me. I do lots of accents. Very rarely am I asked to play my own accent. I would hate to. I love doing different things all the time. I love becoming different people. I think I’d give up if people asked me just to be me, because to be honest with you, I don’t even know who I am really. I don’t think any of us do. When people say, “Be yourself,” you do an imitation of yourself, you know? Acting is an exercise in empathy.

As someone who has such a colorful career, what still challenges you?

One of the things that still challenges me is the technical aspect. The accent challenges me, the cultural understanding, the cultural context. I’m a great believer that any actor can do anything. There’s a school of thought that you need lived-in experience, and I don’t believe that. I’m almost offended by that. I believe any actor can do anything, but it’s not who does it — it’s how you do it. The challenge is to understand, to be humble, to admit your ignorance and to go in and clean out any prejudices you have, any generalizations. Go and ask people about the cultural context.

To go in with the accent, you have to be prepared to sound like an idiot on set. I keep the accent going all the time, and I sound like an idiot around Northern Irish people, but they’re very generous. You ask them for help. I’ve done Welsh with Welsh actors, Scottish with Scottish actors. I’ve been Ray Donovan for nine years, doing Boston. I do a lot of American accents. So the trick is: It’s not about you. You have to really be prepared to go in and say, “I need some help with this. Can you help me?” And people always help. If you’re going in with an arrogance, I think people resist it.

Do you feel like you had any generalizations or preconceptions heading into the making of No Ordinary Heist?

Yes, I did, because I didn’t realize both characters were Catholic. When I was reading it, first of all, I was surprised. When Colin explained it to me, I thought it was a brilliant, nuanced approach to the story, and it was more about class and money rather than about religious dogma. Lots of films post-Troubles are going over the same issues. And this was much more. This is much more about money, really. Barry is poor, broke, and he’s facing redundancy. Richard has to make everyone redundant, and a major corporation has taken over the Northern Bank, and the bank robbers come in and steal the money. So it’s all about who controls the money, really.

This is a film that will obviously have such a huge Irish and Northern Irish appeal, but hopefully a broader appeal too. What do you hope audiences take from it?

To be honest with you, films are always set within a certain cultural context, or geographical, ethnic [context]. And with any good film, within 10 minutes, you’ll realize it’s a universal story. This is a story about: What would you do in this situation, if your wife or mother was threatened with death if you didn’t steal 24 million pounds? What would you do, and how would you react? Would you be able to cooperate with someone that you hated? Richard and Barry hate each other, and that’s a great premise for a film. As an actor, it’s brilliant, because the audience is with you all the way. It’s very, very clear what they’re trying to achieve. It’s very, very clear what the obstacles are.

You’ve played a lot of antagonists. I know there are shades of gray with Richard Murray, and he’s got a tough job. But did you enjoy getting to be someone who isn’t the bad guy?

I never play good or evil people. I just play unhappy people in search of happiness. An artist’s job is to depict human nature and to depict human nature without judgment. So I never make a judgment on my characters. If I did, I’d be a bad actor, you know? I play lots of villains, but I never play them as villains, because villains don’t think they’re villains. They’re thinking they’re the heroes of the story. That’s the essence of their narcissism.

And often what makes them good villains is when we chip away that exterior and there is something human and relatable to them.

Yeah. We did that in Tyrannosaur. We studied all these case histories of all these abusive husbands and realize that they wanted to be loved. That’s more terrifying — to play someone who wants to be loved but he’s prepared to do terrible things in order to be loved. Because we all want to be loved.

With a resume as rich as yours, what kind of roles grab your attention when a script comes through?

Well, acting has never really been a performative thing for me. I’m not really a very performative person. It’s always been a means by which I can understand people, if I’m honest. So I love to play people in situations that initially seem to be alien to me, and then once I get under the skin, I realize that I can relate to them. I love to play people from different cultures, different backgrounds, different accents, because once you get past that, then you get to understand it from a more personal context. I like to bring my own experiences to it and use those experiences and place them in a different historical, cultural, or political context. I enjoy doing that because it reassures me. I come from a very diverse community, and one thing I realized in living in [the London borough] Tower Hamlets was that one of the joys of diversity is you discover commonality. I love discovering commonality, especially within my acting.

And you’re such a chameleon. This is partially a pretty political film, in the context. Do you think the movies we watch should be political?

Yes, I do. I do think films should be political. But the problem when people make political films is they become didactic. And I don’t like didactic films. I did a show a few years ago for the BBC called Ridley Road, which was about Jews in the 1960s taking on the fascists and the anti-Semites in London. And a friend of mine was a Jewish writer [on it] and there was a rise in anti-Semitism [at the time], and she said people were trying to win the argument on social media. You could never win an argument on social media. We all think we’re going to make the comeback with the perfect tweet or say the perfect thing that’s going to win an argument. You never do. And Sarah Solemani, she’s an actress and a writer, she lives in L.A., and she said to me, “But art is persuasion.” I love that. I mean, for instance, Sinners. I think Sinners is a great critique on white supremacy and the Black experience in the South through the context of vampires. But then that’s brilliantly persuasive, isn’t it? Because it’s so evocative.

What else have you enjoyed recently?

I thought Adolescence was amazing. I saw a film recently called Dragonfly by my friend Paul Andrew Williams. I thought it was an incredible performance by Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn. I don’t like films where you lose the authenticity of characters because you want to give a political message. What I loved about Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake is it’s a film about an abortionist and it’s a film that champions the right for women to choose, but it’s not didactic. It’s a very spiritual film in many ways, because it makes you have empathy for the abortionist. And I think that’s the best of what art should be.

So, in answer to your question, I think one of the problems with political discourse at the moment is that it’s very binary. There’s a great saying by the [Danish] physicist Niels Bohr that said for every great truth, the opposite is also true, and for every simple truth, the opposite is always false. On social media, which is where the main form of political discourse [is happening] at the moment, it’s people demanding that you adhere to their simple truths. I don’t think film can deal with simple truths. I think film and art has to deal with greater truths, which are always paradoxical, or else characters become two-dimensional.

Are you feeling optimistic about the future of British film and television and the stories that we’re telling?

It’s getting harder to make films now. It’s getting harder to make lower-budget films, films under five million, but creativity is like water. It finds a way through. I’m finding that what filmmakers are doing now, for instance, it’s like No Ordinary Heist. And I did a film that came out last year, All the Devils Are Here, and they’re beautiful films, but for under five million, all you can do is make a really good script. Because the script, the development, doesn’t cost that much money, really. It just takes time and patience to get that right. So I’m finding now that I’m playing major parts in really well-written films under five million. And I love it. I much prefer that to television, if I’m honest.

What do you enjoy about making films over TV?

Because the film is a limited amount of time — it’s 90 minutes — you feel like you’re creating a piece of art within itself. You feel like you’re creating a piece of art within itself. And I love TV. I’ve done TV. I’ve had a good living at TV. I’m very proud of Ray Donovan, I’m very proud of the way the characters developed. But there is a craft that I admire when somebody writes, directs and the whole crew get together and you do a film under 120 minutes. That’s my greatest pleasure.

What have you got coming out that you can talk about?

I have a film [that premiered] at SXSW called Campeón Gabacho and it’s made by Jonás Cuarón, a Mexican film. It’s a rich, a beautiful story about a young Mexican immigrant that comes into United States and he fights his way through to it, becomes a boxer. It’s his story about trying to build a life for himself in the U.S. I play the bookseller that he first meets when he comes into the U.S. It’s a great story about an immigrant, so with all this going on in the U.S. — with ICE and anti-immigration [policies] — it’s great to make a film about the immigrant story. That’s what I mean about it being persuasive, rather than didactic. Because anyone will go and see that film. And some people may have a very prejudicial idea of immigrants, and they may think that they have a fixed idea. What stories can do is they can become universal. You see it, you suddenly have empathy for that young man. That’s the persuasive nature of art.

You also have Clayface coming this year?

Yeah. And a show coming up for Sky, Prisoner, [this month]. I’m doing Rings of Power for Amazon coming out later this year, then I’m doing a show for FX called Disinherited, which is written and directed by Peter Gould. That’s been picked up by FX and Hulu, so hopefully we’re going to shoot that later this year.

How many hours do you have in a day, Eddie?

Well, it’s just like everybody [else]. Bus drivers work every day… I’m not a big movie star, and I’m really proud to be an actor, and as an actor, I love working. I love working with actors. I love working with crew. I love what I do, really. I enjoy it so much.

Can you think of a highlight for you over the last 20, 30 years of your career?

I think realizing how much people love Ray Donovan. People come up to me all over the world and talk about Ray Donovan. They love that family. I’ve never played a character that people loved before. People loved Terry. I usually play the bad guys. [Laughs.] And suddenly I was playing someone who people love, and people were very disappointed that I wasn’t Terry. Well, they’d hear me speak in the London accent and realize that I wasn’t as charismatic as Terry. You could see the disappointment in their eyes!

No Ordinary Heist is in theaters April 24, 2026.