Mrs Brown’s Boys star Brendan O’Carroll has revealed Gary Hollywood was “family” and we miss him” — as he also opened the door for a return to the show for Rory Cowan.
The 66-year-old. who writes the scripts and plays potty-mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown in the award-winning sitcom, still seems shellshocked at Hollywood’s bombshell exit from the cast after working with him for more than 20 years.
Brendan said: “He was a great actor and we miss him.
“He used to call me father. He was part of the family and we haven’t spoken since and haven’t heard a word from him since.”
The former High Road star joined the Mrs Brown’s cast in 2004 as Dino Doyle in the stage show and then in the TV series, which began in 2011.
It is filmed in Glasgow and became a massive ratings hit, winning five BAFTAs, and continues to be a Christmas mainstay. The cast also starred in chat show All Round To Mrs Brown’s.
But in 2020 Hollywood quit, claiming he was paid less than other cast members, along with fellow actor Damien McKiernan who replaced Cowan as Rory Brown.
The Scot launched a legal action in 2021 against O’Carroll, the BBC and TV production company Hungry Bear Media Limited, citing discrimination and unfair dismissal.
He also bad-mouthed his former “father” in the press – claiming the show was like Mrs Brown’s mafia because many of the cast members were O’Carroll’s family members. The actor claimed he was paid 25% less than his colleagues for his role in last year’s six-part chat show spin-off, All Round To Mrs Brown’s.
And he says he was dropped from one of the two Christmas specials just days before filming started.
However, he dramatically withdrew all claims in June last year during a preliminary hearing.
Brendan admitted the whole episode has left him puzzled and he doesn’t see a way back for the actor — despite his sadness at losing him. He said: “I think that is it. It was the most bizarre time. I don’t know where it came from. It came out of the blue.
“I got a call from the office to say Gary has been on to the office and wants his flight home to Spain changed to tomorrow.
“I was like ‘But we haven’t been to Glasgow [where the chat show was being filmed] yet? We are meant to be isolating. We haven’t started yet’.
“He said if he’s not going to be in both episodes he’s not going to do it. And then he was gone.”
Hollywood then went public with claims about pay. Brendan said: “He came back in the press saying he didn’t get paid as much as everyone else. He did.
“In fact he got more than some because he’d been with us longer.
“He was saying stuff to us about why he was leaving that didn’t exist.”
However, while the door seems to be shut on Dino’s return Brendan is hopeful his old friend Rory Cowan, who quit the series in 2017, may make a return.
The main reason the 60-year-old left Mrs Brown’s Boys was his mother Esther’s ill health but he also felt the show was getting stale and he was bored.
Rory said: “We were in Australia and my mother was dying. Now, she was dying for four years, God love her.
“I was told she had days to live and I couldn’t come home and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’
“Also, I got very bored with it as we were doing the same venues in the same order every other year.”
Brendan said: “His mother’s passing really took it out of him.
“She had Alzheimer’s as well as cancer. He was trying to deal and cope with that. She’s passed away and he’s now recovering so see what happens. Never say never.”
Brendan, who based Mrs Brown on his own mother who raised 11 kids, has made his hit show a family affair. From a radio show in 1992 it became a hit stage show but found its success not in Ireland but at the Pavilion in Glasgow.
It was in the city that the BBC offered Brendan a series and from 2011 he has stayed loyal to Glasgow where the sitcom and his chat show All Round to Mrs Brown’s have always been made.
While Covid stopped Mrs Brown touring, Brendan spent lockdown in his Florida base.
