Domhnall Gleeson
Award-winning Irish actor of stage and screen Domhnall (pronounced Donal) Gleeson has followed in his famous father’s footsteps. Born in Dublin, he is the son of Brendan Gleeson but has begun to forge his own identity. He had roles in “About Time” (2013), “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (2011) and “Unbroken” (2014). The 31year-old stars alongside Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander in the sci-fi drama “Ex Machina,” directed by Alex Garland in theaters now. He has also been cast in “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens,” coming out later this year.
Did the movie have you questioning your own beliefs about what God is, what life is?
Well, I don’t believe in God. I’m an atheist. So that wasn’t brought into question.
Alicia [Vikander] talked — when we were doing press together — about how she’d read up on human emotions rather than read about machines. I mean, of course, the body is just an organic machine. Everything has its job to do, and if one of those things break down, you get sick and you either mend it or you can’t. Emotions are no different. They are still instincts and chemical reactions which are built in a brain.
In a lot of ways, if you get to the level of science and computing that you get to in “Ex Machina” and you build something that is sentient, in a way there will be no difference between that and the human. Except for that fact that perhaps they will be able to live forever and we will not. I did find it very interesting, and it did question how you feel about the notion of a soul. That is fascinating and something that I would like to believe, but I’m just not sure that I do.
What about criticism? As an actor you are more exposed than the average person. Did you develop a thick skin or did seeing how your father dealt with it prepare you?
Um, well, my dad hasn’t received much negative criticism in his career at all. Even when he sometimes wasn’t in the best movies, he came out of them well and then was always able to step up when the quality of the writing got better or it was a particularly brilliant job. So, yeah, you read the odd review which was sniffy and you would want to break the critic’s neck because it’s your father that they are talking about. But actually there were so few of those that you have to search pretty hard to find bad reviews of my father.
When you get really into character, do you find you think or dream in that new persona?
Yeah, inevitably I think it does happen. I imagine my heart rate was a little quicker when we were doing “Ex Machina.” I was probably a little more stressed out than generally. On that film I didn’t enjoy my time away from camera as much as I sometimes do when I’m free.
On [the movie] “About Time,” I came home beaming from work every day and was pretty happy with my life and enjoying every moment. So, yeah, your moods can fluctuate depending.
I played an IRA guy in a thing about three years ago, and I was sharing an apartment with a friend of mine. He came into my room one night to tell me somebody had broken into the apartment, and I woke up with a Northern Irish accent, so I guess I must have been dreaming in some sort of character. It does happen. It does bleed in. I think if anybody has a bad day at work it stays with them. Or if they have a very good day at work it affects the rest of the day. So in that way acting isn’t any different.
Except you are being someone else.
Everybody is a little bit someone else when they are at work, right? Your boss tells you to do something and you want to tell him to shove it. You don’t say it. You become the person who doesn’t say that. You mold into the situation, I guess.