Brendan Gleeson: Acting is a great excuse to put on a few pounds (Metro)

Your character in The Guard is an unusual cop, cynical but honourable – what did you make of him?
I think he’s very profound, wounded but unbowed – in terms of his integrity. He obviously has a tenderness that has been bruised so much it’s unrecognisable. The compromises, pettiness, incompetence, corruption, they wear him down to such an extent that he becomes stuck and increasingly lonely. He had only one soulmate, really, which was his mother.

The writer/director, John Michael McDonagh, is brother of Martin McDonagh, who wrote In Bruges. They have a similar melancholic Irish sense of humour...
Well, they have, but they’re very different voices. There are touchstones that are central to both of them, and there is a gallows humour that is shared, but the sensibility is different.

You tend to mix smaller films with Hollywood thrillers like your next one, Safe House with Denzel Washington. Is that deliberate?

I have to keep practising the muscles. Denzel Washington is always interesting and my character was interesting. Also, I’ve played an American a couple of times but people do constantly need reassurance that I can do it. It’s important, at some point, to stop being ‘the Irish guy’, because it limits what you’ll be offered.

You shared scenes with your son Domhnall in Harry Potter. What was that like?

That was an absolute joy. The last couple of years have been great for him. He spent a time not working, which is tough, but now he’s battle-seasoned. He’s found out the mechanics of what it takes; how to deal with being on a set for a long time without anything to do, how to be in a scene but not driving it. His work is becoming fascinating to me. He’s pretty cool in True Grit.
The Guard is out now.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/film/887754-brendan-gleeson-acting-is-a-great-excuse-to-put-on-a-few-pounds#ixzz1jv4wv0c0