Irish Actor Sails Into the Sunset as Elvis Presley

Gary Lydon, best known to international audiences for playing Barry Keoghan's character's father in 2022's The Banshees of Inesherin, passed away suddenly this spring at the age of 61.

But thanks to the magic of film, he will next month grace the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, via the world premiere of his final role. In One Sweet Hour, Lydon plays Gerry, a man who lives on a canal boat in the Irish midlands and makes a living impersonating Elvis Presley in various rural towns. One day, his estranged brother Colum (Bryn F. O'Byrne) shows up after decades living as monk in a monastery under a vow of silence. Together, the two embark on a journey of potential reconciliation.

The film was directed by Declan Recks and written by Eugene O'Brien, whose professional associations with Lydon date back to the 2005 RTE miniseries Pure Mule. After Lydon's death, the cause of which was not publicly disclosed, O'Brien wrote a wonderful tribute:

I remember our time in my home town of Edenderry where we went to see a real-life Elvis impersonator, Greg Traynor, doing his thing. Gary stood and drank him in, every move, every gesture… the job started there and then, a full eight months before we shot.

He would ask questions about every aspect of the character, times and dates of births and deaths and backstories, and then there was the Elvis training which he worked so hard at. Endless hours of singing and movement, determined to pull it off. Putting pressure on himself to get it right. He was becoming the King!

(l to r) O'Byrne, Lydon as Colum and Gerry

One Sweet Hour was produced by Samson Films, a leading Irish independent film production company that has been in business since the mid-1980s. It was one of four feature films the company backed in 2025, along with The Three Urns, Ancestors and Gorky Resort. It also so happens that Samson Films were involved in not just the aforementioned Pure Mule, but also another Recks-O'Brien collaboration, the 2008 drama Eden.

One Sweet Hour, which screens November 16th, is one of 24 films in Official Competition at the Black Nights Film Festival (a.k.a. Pimedate Ööde Filmi Festival). The Grand Prix prize comes with a cash award of $22,500.

In the small pantheon of Elvis impersonator-character movies, One Sweet Hour is closest in spirit to the 2012 Argentinian film The Last Elvis. In that one, a factory-worker father who performs as Elvis on the side reconnects with his daughter Lisa Marie (!) after a tragic accident. The lead role of Carlos Guitierrez was played by real-life local Buenos Aires impersonator John McInerny.

[POFF: One Sweet Hour ]