When we caught up with Glen Hansard, the star of “Once” and longtime leader of the Irish band the Frames, he had just finished having breakfast in a Los Angeles restaurant at a table next to Britney Spears.
“It was amazing, actually,” said Hansard. “She was a real normal mother having breakfast with her kids. It was really an eye opener.”
The media whirl that surrounds the pop diva is a long way from what happens to the characters in “Once” or even from the 37-year-old singer- songwriter’s own modest career.
“Once” — the surprise indie hit and audience award winner at Sundance that was released this week on DVD — tells the story of a busker (Hansard) who meets a young Eastern Czech pianist (Marketa Irglova) on the streets of Dublin.
The street musician and the young woman (they are never given names) first strike up an uneasy friendship and then a collaboration, rehearsing and then recording the busker’s songs, which is how the music is woven into the the film.
(The score — mostly songs written by Hansard and Irglova — just won the L.A. Critics award.)
The role was one that Hansard knew firsthand. The beat-up guitar with the hole in it, a 1990 Takamine NP15, was the one that he had used himself on the streets, which he hit when he was 13 after leaving school with the encouragement of a headmaster whom he would talk music with.
Here’s the story; just add an Irish lilt.
“He called me into his office one day totally out of the blue and said, ‘Listen, Glen, I’ve been having a think. You love music. You can tell me who played bass on Neil Young’s “Harvest” but you can’t tell me the square root of nine. I think you’re an intelligent guy, but you’re not using your intelligence in the way we need you here. Here’s an experiment: Take your guitar and go into the city today and start playing on the streets come back to me in a year and tell me how you got on. If you feel like you want to stay playing music, then go for it.’
“I left school that day and never went back, and it was the best decision I ever made.”
Though he had a small role in Alan Parker’s 1991 “The Commitments,” Hansard wasn’t looking for an acting gig when old Frames bandmate John Carney, “Once’s” director, offered him a role in the film after Cillian Murphy bowed out.
With the movie’s success, Hansard even received a new guitar from the Takamine people while promoting the film in Japan. Turns out they were embarrassed by the hole, which he says occurred from trying to get more volume from it during his busker days.
