(October 2009)
In talking to the actor Brendan Gleeson the terms ‘generosity of spirit’, ‘integrity’ and ‘making the right choices’ crop up pretty often. Brendan has, like us all probably, had to make a number of life-changing choices in his road ‘less travelled’. He has now arrived at an elevated level in his chosen acting career. His generosity of spirit was exemplified in his giving me an interview which he might have given to more luminous commentators. I have been friendly with Brendan for many years and this was a token of that friendship. Brendan has been coming to the Boyle area for over thirty years. When I asked him how this happened he explained thus; “ I was into music and had been down the country a number of times and wanted to explore new horizons. At that time I was working for the Health Board in Dublin and asked a Roscommon lady working with me if she knew of an area where there was music and she nominated Boyle. I went down and discovered Grehans and the Ceili House Bar and I have been coming since. I found an openness, a generosity of spirit and a welcome that might not be present everywhere, especially for a Dub! I tapped into that and have made very good friends in Boyle”. Here he pursues one of his passions playing music with his local musical friends. So Boyle has continued to be a place to recharge the batteries between high profile projects.
I first asked Brendan about his most recent project, for which he won an Emmy award in Los Angeles in September. That was playing Winston Churchill in the Home Box Office (H.B.O.) film ‘Into the Storm’. This depicted Churchill’s time as British Prime Minister during World War Two. It posed an interesting challenge since Brendan had given an outstanding performance in playing, an earlier nemesis of Churchill, Michael Collins. This was in the Irish T.V. Series ‘The Treaty’ in the early nineties.
His reaction to the Emmy award was that; “It was a bit of a surprise but because of the number of nominations it got I felt we were in with a shout. You also have to consider the quality of the other actors who were nominated and who I admire greatly, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Kline, Sir Ian McKellan, Kenneth Brannagh and Kiefer Sutherland. To take one, Kevin Bacon is a great actor and one I admire greatly. He makes brilliant choices”. ‘Choice’ is a word that crops up from time to time in our conversation. In his Emmy acceptance speech he expressed his particular appreciation to the film’s producer Frank Doelger for allowing him to show an early print to his mother who was ill and has since passed away. She was a great influence in Brendan’s ‘choices’
I asked Brendan about the lesser known traits in the Churchill character that he became aware of. “Taking on the character of Churchill was challenging perhaps because of our history and his role in it. People have their own images of him. He was a bully of sorts, a completely different class, age and mindset. He was almost everything I wasn’t. He drank a lot, worked through the night….he was an extraordinary mixture. His wife Clementine was his confidante. He was an actor, journalist author. He had made big mistakes and hadn’t distinguished himself, in relation to Ireland for example, earlier in his career. But he had been warning about Hitler and this was his time. He gave the people a trust that defeat wasn’t in his equation of prospects. It is noteworthy also how he accepted the defeat in ’45 in saying that ‘This (democracy) is what we fought for’. He was such a contradictory man. He lived by his lights. Yet for me there was the challenge and that is what is involved in acting. It presented a new arena”. The film is due to be shown on BBC in the near future.
Of course the project close to Brendan’s heart is transferring the quality of the Flann O’Brien book ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ to film. This is a project which Brendan is passionate about. This becomes evident in his demeanour as describes its initial influence on him when he first read it at seventeen and ‘rolled out of bed at its anarchic humour’. In talking to Brendan there are moments when his own great sense of humour is accompanied by his infectious laughter. He has enlisted the interest of the Irish actors guild in terms of Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne and Cillian Murphy. They’ve had a preliminary reading and gelled so next year holds out the hope of advancing the idea to completion.
Brendan likes to do at least one piece of artistic merit what might be referred to as challenging piece of work each year whereas he refers to his role as Mad Eyed Moody in the Harry Potter series in lighter fun terms. He is no snob in terms of work however and talks kindly of his early encounter with Hollywood scale in the film ‘Far and Away’ and the plastic cobble stones in Temple Bar before the real ones were installed.
Another work which he refers to in glowing terms is ‘The Secret of Kells’ the Cartoon Saloon (Kilkenny) animated feature which was released earlier in ’09.This too has Boyle connections with one of its producers Paul Young coming from the town. Brendan with Mick Lally provide the voiceovers for two of the main characters. He refers to it as; “Absolutely brilliant, a massive achievement and so rooted in what we can do well”.
In Bruges has been a great hit and apparently is now at the status of a cult movie. This has propelled Brendan more into the public limelight which he finds a little uncomfortable but is as he says; “The price for doing what I love to do”. In Boyle, however, his privacy is respected and he appreciates that and it is among the reasons why he continues to visit the area.
Brendan is firmly rooted in Dublin’s north side. He played Gaelic football for St. Finian’s and is a great supporter of ‘the Dubs’. He became a teacher and was heavily involved in semi-professional theatre for years. Indeed he has built up a really impressive catalogue of varied work. All this involvement meant that a serious career choice had to be made by Brendan who was then in his middle thirties and in a ‘secure’ teaching position. With the encouragement of his wife Mary he took the leap into full time acting and ensured that he “was going to make it happen and not wait for it to happen”. He has not looked back since.
Brendan Gleeson has that great presence, a fine sense of the ‘anarchic’ highlighted often by a fulsome laugh which demonstrates an obvious zest for life. He is an intelligent man with a great sense and love of his country, a country which frustrates him at times. He has articulated those frustrations very publically and effectively on occasion. Yet he reiterates the importance of the arts especially at this time and of returning or continuing to do what we do well and for which we as people are so regarded. However it is the work, the challenge, the quality of the work that drives him on to the next hurdle; “The more you do something the better you get” he says. While the body of work which Brendan has accumulated to date is impressive the future holds its possibilities. Perhaps ‘At Swim’ will see, with his Irish peers, the confluence of those generous talents
In talking to the actor Brendan Gleeson the terms ‘generosity of spirit’, ‘integrity’ and ‘making the right choices’ crop up pretty often. Brendan has, like us all probably, had to make a number of life-changing choices in his road ‘less travelled’. He has now arrived at an elevated level in his chosen acting career. His generosity of spirit was exemplified in his giving me an interview which he might have given to more luminous commentators. I have been friendly with Brendan for many years and this was a token of that friendship. Brendan has been coming to the Boyle area for over thirty years. When I asked him how this happened he explained thus; “ I was into music and had been down the country a number of times and wanted to explore new horizons. At that time I was working for the Health Board in Dublin and asked a Roscommon lady working with me if she knew of an area where there was music and she nominated Boyle. I went down and discovered Grehans and the Ceili House Bar and I have been coming since. I found an openness, a generosity of spirit and a welcome that might not be present everywhere, especially for a Dub! I tapped into that and have made very good friends in Boyle”. Here he pursues one of his passions playing music with his local musical friends. So Boyle has continued to be a place to recharge the batteries between high profile projects.
I first asked Brendan about his most recent project, for which he won an Emmy award in Los Angeles in September. That was playing Winston Churchill in the Home Box Office (H.B.O.) film ‘Into the Storm’. This depicted Churchill’s time as British Prime Minister during World War Two. It posed an interesting challenge since Brendan had given an outstanding performance in playing, an earlier nemesis of Churchill, Michael Collins. This was in the Irish T.V. Series ‘The Treaty’ in the early nineties.
His reaction to the Emmy award was that; “It was a bit of a surprise but because of the number of nominations it got I felt we were in with a shout. You also have to consider the quality of the other actors who were nominated and who I admire greatly, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Kline, Sir Ian McKellan, Kenneth Brannagh and Kiefer Sutherland. To take one, Kevin Bacon is a great actor and one I admire greatly. He makes brilliant choices”. ‘Choice’ is a word that crops up from time to time in our conversation. In his Emmy acceptance speech he expressed his particular appreciation to the film’s producer Frank Doelger for allowing him to show an early print to his mother who was ill and has since passed away. She was a great influence in Brendan’s ‘choices’
I asked Brendan about the lesser known traits in the Churchill character that he became aware of. “Taking on the character of Churchill was challenging perhaps because of our history and his role in it. People have their own images of him. He was a bully of sorts, a completely different class, age and mindset. He was almost everything I wasn’t. He drank a lot, worked through the night….he was an extraordinary mixture. His wife Clementine was his confidante. He was an actor, journalist author. He had made big mistakes and hadn’t distinguished himself, in relation to Ireland for example, earlier in his career. But he had been warning about Hitler and this was his time. He gave the people a trust that defeat wasn’t in his equation of prospects. It is noteworthy also how he accepted the defeat in ’45 in saying that ‘This (democracy) is what we fought for’. He was such a contradictory man. He lived by his lights. Yet for me there was the challenge and that is what is involved in acting. It presented a new arena”. The film is due to be shown on BBC in the near future.
Of course the project close to Brendan’s heart is transferring the quality of the Flann O’Brien book ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ to film. This is a project which Brendan is passionate about. This becomes evident in his demeanour as describes its initial influence on him when he first read it at seventeen and ‘rolled out of bed at its anarchic humour’. In talking to Brendan there are moments when his own great sense of humour is accompanied by his infectious laughter. He has enlisted the interest of the Irish actors guild in terms of Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne and Cillian Murphy. They’ve had a preliminary reading and gelled so next year holds out the hope of advancing the idea to completion.
Brendan likes to do at least one piece of artistic merit what might be referred to as challenging piece of work each year whereas he refers to his role as Mad Eyed Moody in the Harry Potter series in lighter fun terms. He is no snob in terms of work however and talks kindly of his early encounter with Hollywood scale in the film ‘Far and Away’ and the plastic cobble stones in Temple Bar before the real ones were installed.
Another work which he refers to in glowing terms is ‘The Secret of Kells’ the Cartoon Saloon (Kilkenny) animated feature which was released earlier in ’09.This too has Boyle connections with one of its producers Paul Young coming from the town. Brendan with Mick Lally provide the voiceovers for two of the main characters. He refers to it as; “Absolutely brilliant, a massive achievement and so rooted in what we can do well”.
In Bruges has been a great hit and apparently is now at the status of a cult movie. This has propelled Brendan more into the public limelight which he finds a little uncomfortable but is as he says; “The price for doing what I love to do”. In Boyle, however, his privacy is respected and he appreciates that and it is among the reasons why he continues to visit the area.
Brendan is firmly rooted in Dublin’s north side. He played Gaelic football for St. Finian’s and is a great supporter of ‘the Dubs’. He became a teacher and was heavily involved in semi-professional theatre for years. Indeed he has built up a really impressive catalogue of varied work. All this involvement meant that a serious career choice had to be made by Brendan who was then in his middle thirties and in a ‘secure’ teaching position. With the encouragement of his wife Mary he took the leap into full time acting and ensured that he “was going to make it happen and not wait for it to happen”. He has not looked back since.
Brendan Gleeson has that great presence, a fine sense of the ‘anarchic’ highlighted often by a fulsome laugh which demonstrates an obvious zest for life. He is an intelligent man with a great sense and love of his country, a country which frustrates him at times. He has articulated those frustrations very publically and effectively on occasion. Yet he reiterates the importance of the arts especially at this time and of returning or continuing to do what we do well and for which we as people are so regarded. However it is the work, the challenge, the quality of the work that drives him on to the next hurdle; “The more you do something the better you get” he says. While the body of work which Brendan has accumulated to date is impressive the future holds its possibilities. Perhaps ‘At Swim’ will see, with his Irish peers, the confluence of those generous talents
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