PARTING SHOT
EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE BBC SITCOM THE IT CROWD ENDED, Chris O’Dowd still gets asked to recite the catchphrase of his exasperated computer technician character: “Hello, IT. [Pause.] Have you tried turning it off and on again?” The Irish actor doesn’t mind. “It was my first big job, so I feel very warm toward it,” he says. Just please note that there’s new stuff, like Get Shorty, which has returned to Epix for a second season. Loosely based on the 1990 Elmore Leonard novel of the same name, the show, co-starring Ray Romano, has the 38-year-old O’Dowd playing a violent mobster trying to launch a Hollywood career. There’s also the new film Juliet, Naked, in which he plays Duncan— neglectful boyfriend to Rose Byrne’s Annie—a man preoccupied with a forgotten indie rock star (Ethan Hawke). Juliet is based on the novel by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), and O’Dowd will play another of the author’s characters in next year’s series State of the Union. Says O’Dowd with a laugh, “I’m starting to feel like Nick Hornby’s muse. He enjoys telling his dirty little secrets through me.”
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER