This week, John Kelly meets THE Irish film director of the moment, Lenny Abrahamson, whose new film Room has been on something of an awards roll since it started showing at film festivals worldwide in 2015. Based on the book of the same name by Irish author Emma Donoghue, it stars Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as a mother and son who live in captivity in a world called Room. Lenny says: “What you’re also talking about in Room is you’re using that dysfunctional lens on the functional and universal aspects of childhood, child-rearing, parenting, growing up…” Here, he tells John about his own childhood in Dublin and his family’s eastern European Jewish background. He also talks about the links between his own love of Laurel and Hardy and the film Adam and Paul, about directing actors such as Pat Shortt in Garage and about why he put Michael Fassbender in a mask for most of the film Frank!