Colm Meaney has had a long and varied career playing noteworthy roles in everything from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to Layer Cake to Gangs of London, and the Irish actor shows no signs of slowing down. One of his most recent forays on the big screen is in Pixie where he plays Dermot O'Brien, a reluctant gangster who would choose an afternoon preparing a gourmet meal over mob intrigue any day of the week. Meaney makes his character both appealing and intimidating, while establishing his very different relationships with his three children, including Olivia Cooke's free-spirited title character.

Meaney spoke to CBR from his home in Spain about why he wanted to be a part of Pixie, how much he appreciated that the story was led by a female protagonist and what's next.

RELATED: Red Hood's New War Just Resurrected Batman's MEANEST Gangster

CBR: What appealed to you about Pixie?

Colm Meaney: Well, when I got the script, I was so, so overjoyed with it. It was an absolute page-turner and made me laugh out loud many, many times, which is rare, you don't often get scripts like that. So, initially, it was the script. And then I normally do a read through first and then go back and look at the character, and the character was just -- the idea of a gangster who is just sort of fed up with the whole thing, he's just tired of it [laughs], he just wants to listen to opera and eat good food and drink nice wine -- I just thought it's a great kind of complex, interesting thing to play. And then talking to [director] Barnaby [Thompson] before I did this was, Barnaby's such an amazing guy, he's so experienced in film and working with his son [Pixie screenwriter Preston Thompson] was a really interesting dynamic as well. So, there were so many things about it that were just really enticing.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the film was your cooking scenes. Were they fun for you?

Yeah, actually, I do like to cook. I do enjoy cooking, and I enjoy food too much. [Laughs] I had a lot of fun doing that. Those aspects of that character as well, it's such a joy to play. The contrast between his home life and his professional life was so stark, it was just great.

RELATED: Brothers by Blood Director Jérémie Guez Explores Deglamorizing Family Crime Stories

Your character has a unique relationship with each of his three children. What was your process for bringing that to life and depicting those different relationships?

Well, it was very much in the writing and this where I think Preston captured those relationships really, really well on the page. And because each character's so well-drawn, it almost seems to come easy, because the characters are so clear, the relationships become clearer. For example, the kind of bullying older son, I don't appreciate him as much because I'm kind of tired of all of this nonsense, this violence that he has to kind of go through, that he's been going through all his life in his professional life. So because the characters were so clearly drawn that really helped the relationships.

You worked with a lot of younger actors on this film. Did you have any advice for them?

They're young, but they've all been to drama school, they're all well-trained, they're all terrifically talented. You just hope they keep working and keep developing. Olivia is such a joy to work with. She's so good and she has amazing range. And it was great to get to work with her. I really enjoyed it. And everywhere you look though, in this film, there's great characters, character faces, wonderful performances. And so, I didn't feel it necessary to give any advice, really.

RELATED: Pitch-Black Comedy I Care A Lot Is a Wicked Treat

One of the film's climactic scenes involves a big shootout in a church. What was the experience of filming that?

It was very carefully put together. Barnaby is such a meticulous director. He's knowledgeable, so knowledgeable in all aspects of filmmaking that he planned it very, very well. There were a few changes that got a bit wild, but it was all shot in a very, what I would call, a traditional way, which I like. As we go more and more into digital I think it gets more chaotic on set. They just stick cameras [everywhere to] try and grab that there, try and grab that. In the past, when you're shooting a film, you can't waste film because it costs money. And we'd always rehearse things very thoroughly before we shot them to be sure everybody knew what they were doing so you didn't waste any film. But with digital, it tends to be more chaotic, I think. But Barnaby, on that one, he was very meticulous about how he builds the scene block by block, block by block, and then knew from the get-go what he needed and got it.

You've played a lot of different roles throughout your career, but for sci-fi fans, you're probably best known for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. There are so many new Star Trek shows now, do you ever think of returning to the franchise?

No, I've always kind of felt like seven years in space was long enough. I had a great time doing it. And sometimes, you're always a bit loathe to go back, especially with something that you enjoyed and was successful because going back, sometimes things end up being ruined. But, you never say never. I know there's a lot of intrigue and that Patrick [Stewart] is doing his new series [Star Trek: Picard] now, and so, who knows? But it's not something that's ever been sort of in the forefront of my mind to go back and reprise [the character] O'Brien.

RELATED: These Are Star Trek: The Next Generation's Essential Episodes

What's coming up next for you?

Well, I've been pretty busy, actually. The lockdown last year, everything shut down. So, the first half of the year, there was basically nothing going on. And then, I'm based here in Spain, we haven't gotten to Los Angeles for over a year now. So, the work has mostly been in the UK since all these things seem to open up there and there's a lot more production going on there at the moment than there is in the US. And I've actually done three films now since August in the UK.

One of which I'm really looking forward to called Confession, myself and Stephen Moyer. It's basically a kind of two-hander. It's set in a church in Boston, but we shot it in Ipswich in England. [Laughs] But it's an interior, it all happens in one evening in a church. But it's a very fun film noir kind of a feel to it. It was a script I really liked.

Next, I'm going to do a documentary next week, I'm going to Ireland to do it. It's apparently 30 years since we did The Commitments, and The Commitments , The Snapper and The Van were three books written by Roddy Doyle, and we wanted to do a two-part documentary about it with Roddy and Stephen Frears who directed The Snapper and The Van. We, unfortunately, lost Alan Parker last year, who had done The Commitments, so that was a sad one. But I can't believe it's 30 years since we did the first one, The Commitments.

And then there's a couple of other features that are sort of floating at the moment because of COVID restrictions. A lot of things are getting pushed around, dates are being [pushed] back and forth. So, we'll see. April, [I'm] due to shoot a picture in Ireland and hopefully, that will happen. It's just at the moment, things [will happen] and then a whole bunch of stuff comes together. So, you never know. They are not normal times as it were.

But the thing about Pixie, that kind of got me was you never see a script -- I don't see certainly many of them -- that are female-driven like this one is in this way, where the protagonist is a female. And I think that's one of the things that attracted Olivia to it was that fact. I've got two very militant daughters [laughs] who keep me on the right track all the time, and they were both certainly pleased to see that as well, here's a script that's actually driven by a female protagonist. So, hats off to Preston and Barnaby for that as well.

Pixie starring Olivia Cooke, Ben Hardy, Daryl McCormack with Colm Meaney and Alec Baldwin, is currently available in select theaters, on digital and on demand.

NEXT: Gangs of London Combines Criminal Intrigue with Riveting Action