INTERVIEW:With parts in several soon-to-be-released movies, and a title role in a new RTÉ production, 'ridiculously modest' Domhnall Gleeson, son of Brendan and brother of Brian, is one to watch, writes SINEAD GLEESON(alas no relation)
ACROSS THE SOFAS and piano music of the hotel lobby where we meet, Domhnall Gleeson is about to tuck into some tea and toast. Before we start our interview, he pulls out his iPhone. “I have to show you this.”
The image on screen is a piece of sculpture in a gallery, of a large tree hollowed out to reveal another, older tree. “It’s this guy called Giuseppe Penone, it’s unbelievable isn’t it?” Gleeson discovered the artist in Toronto, where he has just been for the city’s prestigious film festival.
Despite having had very little sleep and being jet-lagged, his enthusiasm is endearing. Wearing a woollen teddy bear hat, he looks more himself than the last time I saw him in Dublin. Then, he sported dyed hair and brown contact lenses, for the part of Bob Geldof in a new RTÉ production, When Harvey Met Bob.
It’s the 25th anniversary of Live Aid and the programme follows the hectic lead-up and intense working relationship between Geldof and music promoter Harvey Goldsmith (played by Ian Hart). It’s Gleeson’s first time playing someone famous, especially someone with the kind of mythology that Geldof has. “I had played ‘real’ people before, but never anyone so photographed and so distinctive in terms of their physicality and their voice. I’d tell people what I was working on and immediately they’d launch into an awful Bob Geldof impression.”
The singer and humanitarian is famously outspoken, so was the actor fearful about playing him, and does Geldof know about it? “He’s a different person now to who he was then, so I don’t know how much benefit it would have been for me to have met him. I read his autobiography, which he wrote after Live Aid, and watched the footage. He knows about the project, but I’m not sure if he knows I’m playing him, in that he doesn’t know who I am. I don’t know if he’ll watch it, but it’s nerve-racking because if he thinks it’s shit, that would be really disappointing. Or particularly if he thinks I’m shit in it.”
Gleeson pensively munches on his toast and it’s clear that it’s important how his portrayal is received.
Domhnall Gleeson was two when Live Aid happened and has spent the intervening years growing up in Dublin with his three brothers, and parents Mary and Brendan, who happens to be one of Ireland’s finest actors. Gleeson knows that people want to ask him about his father and he mentions him before I do.
“I had been in school plays and loved that feeling of going out and being someone else. It’s brilliant; it’s like playtime. When I was 16 I accepted an award on behalf of my dad at the Iftas and gave a speech. It was apparently quite funny, because I didn’t know any better, and I ended up getting an agent out of it. But what made me really want to act was when I read Martin McDonagh’s script for The Lieutenant of Inishmore. It was my first real job, my first real audition and I thought, I really want to do this.
“It was just such a great script,” he continues, “so funny, even though it’s about the Troubles. I was 19 when I went to London to do the play, and it remains one of the best experiences of my life. The problem is that you start with something that special and then you spend the rest of your time trying to find something that will equal it. Once I did that play, it was never a question of, will I be an actor or not? I knew that I could be good at it and that when it was going well, I loved it.”
The play later transferred to Broadway, and at 23, Gleeson was nominated for a Tony award. He also starred in McDonagh's Oscar-winning short film Six Shooter, alongside his father and the pair appeared together in the 2006 film Studs.There are obvious merits to working with someone you know so well, and Brendan Gleeson is as accomplished as they come. "It's great working with him – he's one of my favourite actors. The father/son thing is always there, but once you start acting it's not an issue because you become someone else."
More recently, Domhnall wrote and directed his father and brother Brian in Noreen, a story about two Offaly gardaí trying to work out their own problems as they solve a mysterious death. It picked up Best Short Drama at this year's Galway Film Fleadh. "I'm really proud of that film. My dad was brilliant in it, as was Brian. I had written the script and my dad read it, thought it was really funny and said: 'Are you not going to offer me a job then?' "
The years of theatre, film and the experiences of writing and directing have seen Gleeson build up a solid repertoire of experience. This has translated into roles in some big upcoming films, including one that sees him working with his cinematic heroes. “When I did Lieutenant of Inishmore, it ended up transferring to Broadway, and I got really good agents in the US. When I first met them, they all sat around a table and asked ‘What’s your dream job? Tell us, what do you wanna do?’ and I told them that if they got me a scene in a Coen brothers film, I would do horrible things to do it . I forgot about it until True Grit came up and I met their casting director and told her that I really, really wanted to work with them.”
The Noel and Ethan Coen version of the classic western is more a re-imagining of the original novel than the John Wayne film and Gleeson wanted the part badly. At the time, he was filming Your Bad Self,an RTÉ comedy sketch show, and he asked actor colleague Hugh O'Conor to direct his audition tape. On the strength of it, he was offered the part of Moon, played in the 1969 film by Dennis Hopper.
“It’s not the biggest role in the world, but it was the happiest day of my life when I heard I got it. I made the decision before not to gush or be the fan on set – and I got to work with Jeff Bridges again was in it and I had seen him in Boy A, which was superb. In the bigger films, I tend to have smaller parts, but it’s a very big role in terms of what it does for the story.”
All three of those actors benefit from UK or US bases and there comes a time in any actor’s life when they must decide whether Hollywood calls or not. Gleeson admits he has been toying with the idea of making that move, but points out that many actors don’t have to (his father for one). “I can fly over quickly for auditions and send tapes, but I suppose it’s more a question of here or London, whatever about LA.”
In the interim, he’s still very connected to theatre and wants to do more. “If you’re an Irish actor, you have to be able to do both because there just isn’t enough work to go around. Surviving on theatre work alone would be very difficult, and you’re not going to get film work all the time, unless you get to a level, well, I suppose like my dad. He works in film all the time, he hasn’t done a play since 2000. You have to get good at both, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
While in Toronto, for a screening of Sensation, a short film in which he starred, he got down to some writing, something that being away gives him time to do. "I'm writing a lot at the moment, and doing more than just acting was something I discussed early on with my dad."
The pair will reunite next year when father directs son in a film version of At Swim-Two-Birds, starring Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy and Michael Fassbender.
Although Gleeson plays down his rising status as an actor, he admits that he has been recognised from the RTÉ television series, Your Bad Self. He wrote some of the sketches with a friend, and garnered a certain amount of notoriety.
Less than 10 years after his acting debut, Gleeson says he's finally okay with referring to himself as an actor. "I wasn't comfortable with it for a long time, but the fact that I've been able to get by in the last couple of years has made it easier. I'm glad I went to college, glad I have the friends I made before embarking on this full-time. Working on The Lieutenant of Inishmoreat 19 . . . there was something about that play that really drove me forward, because I know what the work can be like when it's really good."
When Harvey Met Bobis on RTÉ1 at 9.35pm next Wednesday
