Ed Burns’ latest film project was borne from personal tragedy and profound sadness.
And in the deeply emotional way that has become a calling card of his as a filmmaker and actor for some three decades, Burns nails it with a loosely autobiographical film, “Finnegan’s Foursome,’’ which is centered around golf and the deep relationships it cultivates.
Some 25 years ago, I was randomly paired with Burns’ father Ed and his uncle Pat — both NYPD officers at the time — at a Metropolitan Golf Writers outing in Westchester. And I was struck with some surprise to hear that Ed’s son didn’t play golf.
A quarter century later, Burns is a certified golf junkie, a direct result of the death of his mother, Molly, which was the impetus for him writing and creating “Finnegan’s Foursome.’’
“This is one of the most special films I’ve ever made,” Burns told The Post at the world premiere of the film at the Tribeca Film Festival. “This project came first from my mom dying during COVID from COVID. She was cremated down in Florida. I got the ashes back up here in New York … and I said to my brother and sister, ‘Why don’t we take her ashes and go around New York to all the spots and distribute some of the ashes there?’
“We went back to our house in Valley Stream, our old apartment in Woodside, up to the South Bronx, where my mom was from, went to the lobby of her building, her Catholic church where she was baptized. There was obviously some sadness to that day, but it was also kind of ridiculous and funny because we didn’t have permission to do any of this, so we ended up having a couple of laughs.
“There was something in that experience I knew I was going to use [in a movie] someday.”
So he did.
And the film, which delivers a profound blend of humor and melancholy with a good dose of golf as the backdrop, is a feel-good story about family bonding and forgiveness. It’s set for public release June 19 for streaming and purchase.
Burns said his mother’s death pushed him to take up golf to spend more time with his father, who he calls “a sick golfer.’’
“I started playing golf to hang out with him, to spend a little more time with him,” Burns said. “And then within a year, I became a complete junkie. My wife [supermodel Christy Turlington] was like, ‘What’s going on with you and golf? You seem like you care about this more than your job.’
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, I absolutely do.’ So that’s when I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to figure out a way to make a golf film. How do I take this new obsession and build a story around it?’ ”
The premise behind “Finnegan’s Foursome’’ comes from the father of Burns’ character dropping dead of a heart attack during a round with the family when the son of Burns’ character has a hole-in-one in an annual family competition, called the Finnegan’s Cup.
In character, Burns, along with his son (Brian Muller), his brother (Brian d’Arcy James) and brother’s daughter (Erica Hernandez), travel to Ireland to scatter his father’s ashes to cherished places in his ancestral homeland as requested in his will.
Burns’ dad in real life turns 89 on Father’s Day. His uncle, Pat, died several years ago. But Pat’s daughter and Ed’s cousin, Sharon, took up golf after her dad passed away.
“Sharon said something that reminded me of a little bit of magic about this game,” Burns said. “She said, ‘I never played when my dad was alive, and now I’ve played a couple of courses where he played, and I sometimes think I’m standing on a green in a spot where he probably stood over a putt. I can almost feel him here with me.’
“So, my uncle’s daughter is kind of living it a little bit through him — playing the same golf courses he played, connecting with him posthumously in an odd way,” Burns went on. “That’s the weird, spiritual thing that cooks through this game. I only started playing really about five years ago. … It’s been a fun discovery for me.”
This labor of love for Burns, who first made his name as a successful writer and director with 1995 low-budget hit “The Brothers McMullen” and later went on to fame as Pvt. Reiben in Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic “Saving Private Ryan’’ in 1998, is a different, more personal project for him.
“A lot of my films are not autobiographical, and this one, given the loose connection to my mom’s passing — given that her death is how I ended up playing golf and given the ashes story I use in the film — is autobiographical in places,” Burns said. “I pulled a lot from my family’s personal stories and worked that into the screenplay. Without a doubt, this is one of the most personal films I’ve ever made.
“[Legendary filmmaker Martin] Scorsese has this line where he says the role of the filmmaker is to make the audience as interested in your obsessions as you are.”
Burns, who carries a 10 handicap, said, given his “obsession with this game and my love of it,” his goal was to make a golf a golf movie that was a “mid-handicapper’s golf film — a film that the vast majority of us can look at and say, ‘That’s me and my family, me and my buddies, me and my brother, me and my son.’
“There’s competition in it, but the bigger gift the game has given me is the laughs, the bonding, and those quiet, more spiritual moments where something else is cooking out there — when the sun is low or it gets a little misty. That’s what I wanted to try and capture.’’
Mission accomplished.