Kneecap are currently gearing up to release their biopic next month, and a co-sign from a British icon who partly inspired the script has them feeling optimistic about the project’s reception.
Set to premiere in Ireland and the United Kingdom next month, Kneecap stars Michael Fassbender plus each member of the politically driven three-piece from Belfast.
Earlier this year, Scottish author Irvine Welsh praised the film on social media and wrote: “Just saw the #KneecapFilm and it was absolutely fucking phenomenal.”
Considering he penned Trainspotting, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest British novels of all time (later adapted into a film by Danny Boyle), the Hip Hop group is thrilled about the endorsement.
During a chat with NME published on Wednesday (July 3), Móglaí Bap from the trio said: “We love the movie, but we weren’t sure if it would ever go beyond Belfast. It’s very colloquial. It’s kind of like Trainspotting in that way.
“Then we went to Sundance and got the audience award. It’s similar to our music; people just get the energy and the craic out of it. I don’t think Americans know what a tout is, but it didn’t stop them enjoying it.”
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DJ Próvaí added: “Obviously we loosely took some ideas from Trainspotting and stuff, then we had Irvine Welsh who wrote it coming out and saying it was the best film he’d seen in fucking years or something. That’s massive praise for us. Obviously we’re a music band [and] we’re doing fucking acting jobs that we’d never done before and people were dubious about whether or not we were going to make it as fucking actors; but go see it.
“It needed to feel genuine. If it didn’t feel like something we would do, we just went, ‘No chance.’”
The movie’s official synopsis reads: “Based on the origin story of the riotous and ground-breaking Irish-language rap trio Kneecap, the film stars the band’s Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí in their acting debuts. Set in West Belfast in 2019, it chronicles how fate brings the trio together and how they then go on to ‘change the sound of Irish music forever.’”
Kneecap is set to premiere in Irish cinemas on August 8, following which it will debut across the United Kingdom on August 28.
