interview
time to shine
Domhnall Gleeson has been a presence on stage and screen for the past decade but it has taken a Richard Curtis film to cast him as a romantic lead. Gleeson talks to Tony Clayton-Lea about following his father into acting and dodging fame. Photographs by Richard Gilligan. he first thing you notice about 30-yearold, six-feet-plus Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson is the shock of unruly red hair that announces itself without so much as a beg-yourpardon. The second thing you notice is a certain casualness of demeanour that comes with not really noticing that members of the public are looking at you; and the third is just how much of a nice guy he is. He may be wearing Alexander McQueen
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30 |
July 2013
threads (the price of which you really don’t want to know) for the photo shoot that accompanies this article, but back in a high-ceilinged room at Dublin’s five-star Merrion Hotel for our interview, it’s off with the fancy tops and back on with his red striped T-shirt. For someone so grounded, it will be a measure of his mettle as to how he engages with the response to his forthcoming movie, About Time. Gleeson has been a steady screen presence (as well as a director/
writer of two well-received short films) for the best part of ten years, yet his film roles to date have been character parts, blink-and-you-missit parts or I-know-the-face-but-justcan’t-place-the-name parts. About Time will change all that. In a career first, Gleeson plays a leading role. Not only that, but it’s a leading role in a rom-com directed and written by Richard Curtis (he of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love, Actually fame), and co-starring American actress