Colin O’Donoghue’s 'Rite' of passage - SEE VIDEO

A graduate of Dublin’s famous Gaiety School of Acting (“I was 18 and it gave me a sense of professionalism that I’ve followed”) O’Donoghue took the scenic route to success, and that’s given him a solid professional grounding that will stand to him as his career takes off.

“What happened was I did an episode of The Tudors last year -- and it was only one episode -- but someone over here in Los Angles took an interest. Soon I signed with an agent in Los Angeles and a few months later she sent me the script for The Rite, saying she thought I’d be perfect for the part.”

O’Donoghue made an audition in a friend’s home studio in Drogheda and sent it to the U.S. “I thought I’d chance my arm a bit. I didn’t think that people really watched those show reels but it turns out that they do, and eventually I was invited over to LA to have a reading with Anthony Hopkins,” O’Donoghue recalls.

“This was over the course of a few months and I didn’t think I was going to get it. But then I got the call saying I did get it and I just couldn’t believe it, you know? It’s something that you’ve worked on for 10 years and you just think is never going to happen.”

Getting cast was a stroke of good luck, and a major step up in his career. But being Irish and growing up in a predominantly Catholic country gave him a good insight into his character, even though the cleric is American.

“The priest I play has his doubts about the supernatural, and he’s going though a crisis of faith. So it was important to me to be as prepared as possible,” O’Donoghue says.

“I read a lot of theological books about demons and possession and the spirit world. I spoke to Father Gary, the priest the film is loosely based on, and I actually went to some exorcisms in Rome. I saw some real ones.”

Some people might say that actually attending an exorcism was going above and beyond the call of duty, but O’Donoghue dived in. What he witnessed fascinated and sometimes terrified him.

“I was more daunted by the thought of going to see an exorcism than when I was actually there. It was the thought of it that was disturbing,” he says.

“Remember that the film The Exorcist was banned in Ireland for years. I remember growing up as a kid seeing a bootleg copy of the film. But it was shunned out of the house by my mother. The mother would come and see it and shout, ‘Get that out,’ as if the video itself was an evil entity.”

Before O’Donoghue went to Rome to see genuine exorcisms all those famous Linda Blair scenes from The Exorcist were playing at the back of his mind, he says.

“What fascinated me was that when I got there it was ordinary people going in to be blessed. It was so ordinary for them; it was nearly like a weekly or bi-weekly event. They sat there and the priest laid his hands on them and prayed. I didn’t see anything majorly extreme,” he says.

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Nster.com