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Brendan Gleeson

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Brendan Gleeson (born 29 March 1955) is an Irish actor who has starred in many high profile Irish, American and British films. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Harry Potter films, Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, Gangs of New York, 28 Days Later, Braveheart, and The General. His most recent role is as Ken in the movie In Bruges, starring alongside Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.

Biography

Personal life

Gleeson was born in Dublin, Ireland. He has said that he was an avid reader as a child. After leaving school, he worked for two years in an office with a health board. He later graduated from University College Dublin. Gleeson then worked for several years as a secondary school teacher in Belcamp College, in North County Dublin, where he taught English, Mathematics, and Drama.

Gleeson lives in Malahide, Co. Dublin. He and his wife, Mary, have been married since 1982 and have four sons, Domhnall, Fergus, Brian and Rory.

Gleeson is also a very talented fiddle player, with an interest in folklore. He is good friends with fellow Irish actors Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Cillian Murphy. He has long been known for his love of football and recounts tales of attempting to get a clear radio reception so he could listen to how his team, Aston Villa was faring on a Saturday.

Career

Gleeson started acting at the age of 34. He first came to prominence in Ireland for his role as Michael Collins in The Treaty a television film broadcast on RTÉ One, and for which he won a Jacob's Award in 1992.

Gleeson has subsequently acted in more than 30 films including Braveheart, I Went Down, Michael Collins, Gangs of New York, Cold Mountain, 28 Days Later, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Artificial Intelligence: AI and The Village. He won critical acclaim for his performance as Irish gangster Martin Cahill in John Boorman's 1998 film The General.

While Gleeson played Michael Collins in The Treaty, he later portrayed Liam Tobin in the film Michael Collins with Liam Neeson taking the role of Collins.

The first day I went to the set Liam came over to me and said 'Here's the real Michael Collins now, I'll be picking your brains.
Ironically, Gleeson later went on to portray Collins' nemesis Winston Churchill in Churchill at War.
He was going to wipe us out. [Referring to the time of Michael Collins] I was in the TV film The Treaty so I knew what it was like to be on the other side of the table from Churchill. I had to think about it a lot before doing this.

Gleeson frequently appears in the role of mentor or authority figure; he played Hogwarts professor Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth and fifth Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Roger Ebert described him as having a "noble shambles of a face and the heft of a boxer gone to seed" in praising his performance in In Bruges.

He starred in the short film Six-Shooter in 2006, which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short.

Filmography

References

External links



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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 13:48:41 PDT (GMT -0700)
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