Ciaran Fitzgerald (14) from Greystones, Co Wicklow, is already something of a veteran of the silver screen. He got his first part (in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot) when he was three years old. "I was at Gladys Sheehan's School of Acting because my older brother was doing drama and I wanted to go too," he explains.
Several other small parts followed before, at the age of eight, he got his big break: the part of Ozzie in Gabriel Byrne's charming tale of two runaway traveller boys, Into The West (his co-star was Ruadhri Conroy). an was itching to get back in the saddle.
Next he played the lead in All Things Bright And Beautiful (1994) - "I was an altar boy who thinks he sees a vision of the Virgin Mary" - and had small parts in Some Mother's Son and The Last Of The High Kings, as well as some American TV movies. Then there was a quiet year before his latest role came along: that of Liam in the newly released Jim Sheridan movie, The Boxer.
The main character, Danny, played by Daniel Day Lewis, emerges from a 14-year prison sentence to rekindle a romance with Liam's mother [Emily Watson]. Liam reacts by burning down the gym. What was it like, playing an arsonist? "I know it's not me when I play these parts. When the gym was put on fire it was all very safe. They used gas which made it very easy to control. There were stuntmen and loads of firemen."
He did not have to go through the rigorous boxing training which Day-Lewis underwent. But he does have a boxing scene, and for this he spent six weekends training at the Crumlin Boxing Club: "I don't think I'd like to do boxing as a sport; I'd get the head knocked off me."
When asked about his acting technique, he shrugs: "I don't really prepare myself. I just go out and do it. I wouldn't be a method actor. If some people feel they can do better that way, fine. But I think it would be weird to work that way." He finds it fairly easy to put on different accents: "In Into The West I had a traveller accent and in The Boxer I have a Northern accent. Brendan Gunne was my dialogue coach for both films. It's easy. You get into the mood of it and then it just clicks."
He would like to continue acting, but realises the transition to adult actor is not necessarily straightforward: "It's hard to change from being a child actor, but it's what I really want to do."
