Friday, December 26, 2014

Performer Profile: Domhnall Gleeson

My latest nominee for The League of Extraordinary Gentleman Actors is Domhnall Gleeson, whose career always seems to be just picking up. Perhaps his upcoming turn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens will finally make his a household name (in households other than mine, obviously). In my house, I wonder in Rodgers and Hammerstein parody:

"Do I love you because you're talented,
Or are you talented because I love you?"

I think it's the former. He is acting royalty, after all. No scenes together in Harry Potter (Domhnall plays the eldest Weasley sibling), but Gleeson's father is Brendan Gleeson (Mad Eye Moody), and their work together in Calvary and various shorts for Immatürity for Charity is as entertaining as it is engaging - and those who know me know, immaturity is not really my kind of comedy. But for the Gleesons, I'm a fan.

As of now, I've seen nine of Gleeson's screen credits, and I eagerly await the two films expected for this spring. I've posted commentaries for About Time twice (1, 2), and more recently updated my blog with thoughts on Frank, Anna KareninaCalvary, and Unbroken - by which point I was decidedly 'fangirling' at the cinema. I've yet to revisit Never Let Me Go, but True Grit was on television recently, and I was able to watch through Domhnall's big scene ("Oh yeah! I remember that!"). The only thing I couldn't get through was Dredd - I couldn't reconcile Domhnall's screen time with how much I was failing to enjoy the rest of the film. I'm also not sure what kind of American accent he was supposed to be using for that one - his accent in Unbroken was fantastic. He'll be bringing that back for Ex Machina, but I really enjoyed hearing his (actual) Irish accent in Calvary, "Be Right Back" (the first episode in the second series of Black Mirror), and also in the film Shadow Dancer. Something about Irish and English actors - so many of them do American accents better than Americans can do English accents.

I think I've gushed enough, if you count the other blog entries... just keep an eye on this guy. He's something else.

No comments:

Post a Comment