AN `AMERICAN' EXPERIENCE LIFE IN NYC'S HELL'S KITCHEN 22 YEARS AGO BECAME THE BASIS FOR THE SHERIDAN FAMILY'S FILM.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Sometime between his two great movies with Daniel Day-Lewis - ``My Left Foot'' and ``In the Name of the Father'' - filmmaker Jim Sheridan decided he wanted to write about his family's journey to America. Sheridan churned out two drafts, full of funny and heartbreaking episodes of the days when, in 1981, he and his wife, Fran, and their two daughters, Naomi and Kirsten, moved to a part of Manhattan that was known in the pre-Giuliani days as Hell's Kitchen.

Sheridan's screenplay told the story of a would-be Irish actor who overcomes long odds to make it in the big city. He didn't much like the story and thought the ending was terrible. So he asked Naomi and Kirsten - then 19 and 16, respectively, and very much chips off the old block - if they'd try making something of it. The girls, separately, wrote their own drafts of about 100 pages, recalling their own memories of coming to America.

``The weird thing about their drafts is that I disappeared as a character,'' Sheridan says, laughing. ``I had no role except sleeping in the morning and maybe coming home drunk and telling them that I loved them and singing songs to them.''

``Yeah, songs with the wrong words,'' Kirsten says, with Naomi adding, ``Or songs that you made up, songs you'd sing in front of our friends to embarrass us.''

Some of those funny songs - along with the sleeping and the drunkenness - made it into the final version of Sheridan's movie, titled ``In America,'' now playing in theaters after winning audience awards at several film festivals in the past year. In its final form, the film turned into something more than an immigrant's tale. It became a stirring story of a family regaining its soul.

The change came when Sheridan decided to include another part of his past - the loss of his younger brother, Frankie, who died from a brain tumor when Sheridan was 10. In the film, the tragedy has been transferred to the Irish immigrants - an aspiring actor (Paddy Considine), his wife (Samantha Morton) and their two lovely daughters (played by real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger) - who come to Manhattan in an attempt to somehow put the death of the family's youngest member, a little boy, behind them.

``The parents can't let go of the dead child,'' Sheridan explains. ``They love him more than anything else, and it's crushing the family. They know that, too, but they can't say goodbye.''

Sheridan says he had always wanted to write about his late brother. It's his heritage, he notes.

``We're addicted to the culture of death in Ireland,'' Sheridan says. ``We're like the Muslims. Who else in Western society has hunger strikes?''

Having his daughters involved made the experience more interesting for everyone (``It's a strange way to learn about your father,'' Kirsten says) and more palatable to his wife, Fran.

``I couldn't have written about our lives on my own ... Fran would have killed me,'' Sheridan says. ``She'd have thought I was exploiting the family just for the sake of a movie. With the girls along, she gave it her blessing, believing that everyone's voices would be heard.''

The Sheridans are every bit the artistic clan. Naomi, 30, has written two feature films, shot a documentary about the Irish soccer team and is in the middle of writing another movie. Kirsten, 27, has written several films, too, and directed one, ``Disco Pigs,'' which premiered two years ago at the Berlin Film Festival.

Watching Sheridan with his daughters, you immediately sense his pride in them - and the women certainly adore their father. They followed in his footsteps, after all, and have wanted to from an early age.

Naomi remembers staging ``The Wizard of Oz'' in the family's Dublin back yard when she was 7.

``All I remember is that she wanted the child playing the witch to go down the sewer to simulate the wicked witch melting, and the child wouldn't do it,'' Sheridan says. ``So Naomi went down and had a squabble with the child's parents. And these were tough people - people who would get drunk and fight each other - and here is Naomi, 7 years old, confronting them.''

Says Kirsten: ``The Irish Arts Center was our baby sitter. Actors would always be staying at our house. The line between reality and drama was always incredibly blurred in the Sheridan household.''

That mingling of fact and fiction is reflected in ``In America.'' Many events depicted in the film really happened: The Sheridans were actually stopped for speeding after they crossed the Canadian border; Sheridan did gamble away the rent money to try to win an E.T. doll at a carnival; and Sheridan stole an air-conditioner during a sweltering New York summer.

But, in remembering the death of his little brother, Sheridan transcends the classic immigration story and tackles larger themes of life and loss, hope and healing. The final product is intensely personal.

``That guy who teaches the screenwriting class, (Robert) McKee says when you're writing a part, you have to imagine the actor's face who could play it,'' Sheridan says. ``But to me, it seems like if you're really writing it, all you see is your own face. Every character is you. But when it's your wife and kids and every character is you, then it's pretty freaky. There were a lot of weird things going on in the writing of the film.''

Reflecting on it, Sheridan says making the movie was a rather expensive series of therapy sessions.

``Not long after my brother was diagnosed,'' Sheridan says, pensively, ``I took him to the pictures. And I bought him an ice cream. He tried to smile, and I realized the smile was false. He was trying to show me he was happy, but he couldn't because the muscles that go to the eyes - the muscles that make a genuine smile - were gone because of the tumor. And you cannot will a false smile.

``Now I don't know why I remember that, but I think it explains why I like working with actors,'' Sheridan says. ``There's a kind of fearful empathy in play. Life is very fragile.''

Sheridan will shuttle back and forth between Dublin and the States in the coming weeks, promoting ``In America'' and hoping the film can pick up some awards. His youngest daughter, 17-year-old Tess, graduates high school next year.

``She's already writing poetry,'' Sheridan brags. ``She's thinking about going to NYU.''

``Yes,'' adds Kirsten, ``she wanted to be a doctor for a while. We were telling her, 'What do you mean, you're going to be a doctor? There's no future in it. Besides, you'll break your mother's heart.' That's our family.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Reflections

The Sheridan family looks back at its immigrant past for the film `In America'

(2) Sisters Naomi, left, and Kirsten Sheridan made major contributions to father Jim Sheridan's ``In America'' screenplay.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(3) Real-life sisters Sarah, left, and Emma Bolger play the young daughters of Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine in the immigrant saga ``In America.'' The film is based on a true story.