Development

In November 2021, it was announced that James Marsh was to direct the bio-pic with Gabriel Byrne playing Beckett from a screenplay from Neil Forsyth and a title taken from Beckett's ethos on life of "Dance first, think later". The project was developed with Sky Arts in the U.K. and produced by 2LE Media's Michael Livingstone and Tom Thostrup, alongside Viktória Petrányi of Hungary's Proton Cinema and Belgium's Umedia.^[5]

Casting

The project isn't the first time Forsyth has written about Beckett - his Sky Playhouse short film Waiting for Andre was about the real-life friendship between Beckett and a teenage Andre the Giant.^[6] In May 2022, it was announced that Aidan Gillen joined the cast along with Sandrine Bonnaire and Fionn O'Shea as a younger Samuel Beckett.^[7] Gillen confirmed to The Times that his role was that of James Joyce and that Marsh is “a great film-maker, so the Beckett story is in good hands.”^[8] In September 2022, it was revealed that Maxine Peake, Robert Aramayo, Leonie Lojkine, Bronagh Gallagher, Lisa Dwyer Hogg, Barry O'Connor and Gráinne Good had joined the cast.^[9]

Filming

Principal photography began in Budapest in May 2022.^[10] Filming locations in Budapest included the corner of Gerlóczy utca and Vitkovics Mihály utca, the steps of the Vígszínház, Dohány utca, the lobby of Hotel Gellért and the New York Kávéház.^[11]

On set in Budapest Byrne was interviewed by The Guardian and described the project as an effort to flesh out a character whom “people know very little about. He was a man who had a sense of humour, who was deeply emotional, who was a failure in his own eyes for a great deal of his life”. Byrne described how the man's sense of self contrasts greatly with the global notoriety and fame that came from being subsequently awarded the Nobel prize, and yet how he remained a man “who lived the last part of his life alone in a very simple room in a nursing home”. Discussing his performance Byrne said “Physically I can sketch him, but with this film we are not looking for an impersonation of Beckett, rather a sense of who he was. What you want is people to believe the man, not focus their attention on the wig or the makeup or the false nose.”^[12]