Volta™ – Irish Independent Film Online

His career as a screen actor began with parts in long-running television dramas such as The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Prime Suspect, where he played a recurring character opposite Helen Mirren in the first two series. FitzGibbon also played a memorable role in Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthew’s Father Ted, as the humourless bishop’s secretary Fr Jessop in one of the most popular episodes, Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse.

After a decade as an actor, FitzGibbon made his directorial debut with the short film Between Dreams, which was accepted into the official competition at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. Irish actor Michael McElhatton appeared in the short and FitzGibbon teamed up with him again for his next project, the acclaimed television comedy Paths To Freedom, co-written with McElhatton with FitzGibbon directing. The series ran for two seasons and won two IFTAs in 2003. The same year, McElhatton and Fitzgibbon expanded the sit-com into a feature film, Spin The Bottle, which continued the story of gormless jailbird Rats as he embarked on a career in music. The film was a critical and commercial success and was nominated for eight IFTAs, winning three.

In 2005 FitzGibbon directed the two part series Showbands, starring Liam Cunningham and Kerry Katona in a period comedy drama about the Irish entertainment scene of the 1960s, before actor Mark Doherty, presented him with the script for A Film With Me In It, a deadpan dark comedy about a series of unfortunate deaths. The film was released in 2008, starring Doherty and Irish comedian and actor Dylan Moran and was nominated for six IFTAs.

In 2009 FitzGibbon directed the crime caper Perrier’s Bounty, from a script by Irish screenwriter and playwright Mark O’Rowe (Intermission), which told the story of a young gambler (Cillian Murphy) attempting to flee from a gangster loan shark who is looking to collect a sizeable debt. In 2011, FitzGibbon completed his fourth feature film, Death of a Superhero, based on the novel by Anthony McCarten, in which a terminally ill teenager who is obsessed with comic books draws an invincible superhero character as a way of coping with his bleak situation. Starring Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Andy Serkis and, continuing their fruitful collaboration, Michael McElhatton, the film will be released internationally later this year.