Chris O'Dowd on returning to his roots for Small Town, Big Story: "I'd been looking for a reason"

Set in the fictional rural town of Drumbán, it follows a community that’s taken over by a huge Hollywood production. And for O’Dowd — who recently moved from Los Angeles to London with his wife, writer Dawn O’Porter, and their two sons, aged 10 and seven — it was a chance to return to his roots.

Small Town, Big Story took you back home to Boyle. What made you want to film there again?

I’d been looking for a reason to go back and film close to home. I was stuck in Los Angeles during lockdown in 2021 and we were living by a ravine. I’d walk the dog near it for two hours a day and it was the closest I had felt to home – the scenery reminded me of the forests where I grew up. It gave me a feeling of being far away. And this show is how that feeling manifested itself.

How did the experience of making Moone Boy a decade ago inspire your new story about a small town swallowed up by Hollywood?

It’s not a coincidence! The locals love you at first and then eventually it’s like: "Oh my God, my driveway is blocked again!" You get into the practicalities of life and the novelty wears off. It’s interesting how unnatural it all feels. People that you’ve known all your life come up to you wearing a little bit more make-up than they usually would!

Was there anything in particular you wanted to capture about small-town Irish life?

I like that nobody has moved on from the dynamics that they had at school! That happens in small towns more than people realise. You see it in the bar scenes where these middle-aged men are still ribbing each other. It’s so juvenile and silly, although it has its own kind of intimacy to it.

Christina Hendricks plays Wendy, a Hollywood producer with a connection to Drumbán. What’s the story behind casting her?

I hadn’t met her before. I was shooting something and I called my wife, Dawn, and I was saying, "Oh, we’re still trying to cast the female lead," and she was like, "You know who’s in the kitchen? Christina Hendricks." I’m like, "…from Mad Men?!" They had this connection through some fashion line or something. "Well," I said, "she’d be great!"

You recently moved from Los Angeles to London. What was the thinking behind that?

We moved back last summer. Dawn is English so we always knew we were going to come back. We thought we would wait until the kids were in secondary school but then Covid hit and we suddenly felt very far away. Our parents were getting old, I wanted to visit Ireland more… I loved LA, though. I remember somebody asking, “Does it not just feel like being on holiday all the time?” and I was like, “Yes! That’s the draw!”

Cillian Murphy joked that he moved back to Ireland because his kids were developing "posh English accents". Is that sense of Irishness important to you, too?

I don’t know how I’d feel about them having British accents – there’s a lot of generational trauma there! Them having American accents I can live with, but they are a bit of a mish-mash at the moment – let’s see how it plays out!

Do you take them back to Ireland?

We go back a good bit. They love Nana’s pancakes. My eldest has really got into the habit of wearing Ireland sports gear and he’s this kind of fiery redhead. Somehow, it’s been passed through us!

Your kids are growing up the children of famous parents. Is it strange how different their childhood is from your own?

That’s something I think about all the time. I try to regulate it. I don’t think they even knew I was an actor until a year or two ago. And now they only know because every now and then people stop me for a photo. It must be weird for them for people to know who their dad is. But it’s never really a part of our lives.

Is The IT Crowd still the thing people recognise you for?


It depends where I am. If I’m in Ireland, it’d be Moone Boy; if it was America, it’d be Bridesmaids. Although I was at a party once in LA and this guy comes up to me and says, "Oh my God, I play music and I have tinnitus. We’d go touring and I wouldn’t be able to sleep. But I’d put on The IT Crowd and it’d just relax me. You saved rock ’n’ roll, dude!" Anyway, he was the guitarist in Green Day!

Have there been times since The IT Crowd where you have had to suggest "turning it off and on again"?

Yes! It’s true all the time! It works!

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Small Town, Big Story premieres on Sky and NOW on Thursday 27th February 2025.

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