And then a young Irish actor, Fionn O’Shea, plays the younger Beckett, and he looks just like Samuel Beckett. It’s uncanny. This is your first film in a few years. Did you take a step back?

An Oscar winner for his documentary Man on Wire and the filmmaker behind 2014’s awards juggernaut The Theory of Everything, James Marsh has been away from the big screen for a few years (his ...