Domhnall Gleeson Quotations

Life is difficult for everyone, everyone has bad days. Everyone has trouble in their life, because it doesn't matter how rich you are: Sickness and trouble and worry and love, these things will mess with you at every level of life.

Going home, spending time with the family, I feel they're my friends as well, all of them. I look forward to meeting any one of them for a coffee, and when we all get together, I just love it.

Angelina Jolie is just an extremely talented, generous, nice person to be around and to work with.

Conventionally handsome is not really where I'm at.

Doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong - if I'm hungry or hot, I'm probably arguing with someone about something. Especially if that someone is rude.

I think everybody's got their insecurities and hang-ups. Everybody! Unless you're an idiot.

I got very lucky with 'Harry Potter.' I got that role because I'm a ginger! Red hair was my only qualification!

I like Philip Larkin an awful lot; I really like his view on life, and I really connect to it.

'Pale Fire' by Vladimir Nabokov was bloody hard work but really thrilling.

It was when I was on stage that I realized that acting could be such a brilliant job.

As an actor, there's very little you can do if people don't want to see you. Just getting yourself into the room to audition is tough.

Has anybody seen 'The Notebook' and not cried? I don't know, I don't know if that's the case. It sort of hangs around for a while.

If there's one person in the world with whom a chemistry read is unnecessary, it's Rachel McAdams.

In 'Cavalry,' I had one scene where I was playing a pretty awful character.

Portraying as human the people you hear about on the news doing bad things is dangerous. But it's also necessary and important.

The Olympia was a really special place for me as a kid. I saw Dad perform there so many times, so it means a lot.

Though rom-coms aren't necessarily my cup of tea, I was a huge fan of 'Notting Hill.' I laughed a lot, and the romance got to me.

Two things are always happening in acting. On the one hand, it's a team sport. We're all pulling together. But on the other, you have to look after your own character. Guard their interests.

Most of the time, I do what I'm offered, but after I worked for it. I think I try much harder for the things that scare me and inspire me. The things that scare and inspire you are things that are different from what you did before.

I get asked to give stuff to my dad. I'm, like, 'I'm not gonna pass your script to him!' You know? My dad's my dad. I'm not his agent.

I'm a little bit drifty. I'm a little bit all over the place.

My father is just getting better and better, and that speaks so well of the way he approaches the work.

I did 'Never Let Me Go,' and there were amazing people on that. Brilliant writer, director, cast. That was quite special.

I've definitely enjoyed myself more on the projects where I've played a good person, rather than on the projects where I've played somebody who is morally compromised.

As an actor, I've just gotten insanely lucky. I quite like being surrounded by lots of different talented people lots of different times a year.

There is this old thing that a lot of people say - that the worst experiences make the best films. I don't subscribe to it. But I've seen it happen.

The only music I've ever written was for a film called Frank, and the idea was that it was the worst music in the world.

I've got three brothers; I think all of them are good human beings.

I think I'm happiest when there are really talented people around.

My dad was also a teacher until he was 34. I think there is a basis in reality. But I'd only done two jobs before I was an actor. I worked in a petrol station and I worked in a supermarket.

People always want to ask me about my dad. Which I get because he's a phenomenal actor, and that's for the world, that's out there. But my mother is every bit as impressive and as important for the world as my dad is. It's just that she's not an actor.

You're supposed to take a second if life is going well, to enjoy it and not just move on with the rest of your day worrying about the next thing. And it's a really trite point in some ways. But it's bizarre how little I had done it at various points in my life.

I think for my parents it was like "A Boy Named Sue," the Johnny Cash song. A guy named Sue tries to track down his father to take it out on his father for naming him Sue. And his father says, "Look, I knew I wasn't going to be around. So I gave you the name so that you would grow up strong enough to take the hits and fight back." So I like to believe that's why my parents gave me this stupid name.

All the time travelling in the world can’t make someone love you.

We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish in this remarkable ride.

I find looking forward scary because you might die.

People who don't listen make me annoyed. That's the normal stuff, isn't it?

I'm hugely proud of being Irish. And I don't even know what that means. I just know that it's true.

I'm that person in the bar who's like 'Can they turn the music down ? I would like to chat.' I don't like clothes. I'm terrible at all that stuff. I like sitting around and drinking a pint and gossiping or whatever.

There's this thing that you're not meant to have too many children - for global warming, it's bad. But I know lots of crappy people, and I would rather that good people have lots of kids and outnumber the baddies.

It's weird to be very good at something and not necessarily to want to do it.

No one can give me advice on 'Star Wars' because nobody knows what I'm doing in 'Star Wars.'

My dad said, 'If no one was giving me acting work, I'd have to be prepared to create it myself.'

I worked with the Coen brothers, which had been a dream of mine.

I got to work with Cillian Murphy and my dad, Jim Broadbent and Jodie Whittaker on 'Perrier's Bounty.' It was a small part, but it was really special.

I don't go to premieres I'm not involved in.

I'd been very certain about not wanting to do the acting thing because of my father. I thought I'd always have the father-son thing of 'He got you the part.'

I did like 'Star Wars' when I was a kid. I saw the prequels first; I didn't see the full original films first all the way through.

I watched a couple of films I was in and thought, 'Those are pretty close to what we wanted them to be. I feel actually weirdly OK with it all. I can still see flaws in what I'm doing, but I think I delivered. I think I improved the film with my presence.'

I think the whole thing is: If it makes sense in your head, the audience will go along with it.

'Star Wars' is different to anything I've done before.

My mum and my dad have really good taste in movies. My gran would tape them off the TV and write notes about them, rating them.

Look at Cillian Murphy: 'Batman,' 'Tron'... those are some heavy-hitting franchises. But he works his way around it. He manages to have a great career and a great life.

I was in 'Harry Potter,' and nobody on the street recognizes me from that. Nobody on the street has ever stopped me from 'Harry Potter!'

I tend to play 'tortured' a lot, whether it's physically or emotionally.

Just because I'm doing 'Star Wars' doesn't mean that'll be the thing that makes people stop me in the street.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, time travel's a nightmare. Don't go down that path.

When you work with actors, what you're hoping to absorb is good ways to be an actor as opposed to how to handle being famous.

When I was younger, my father told me not to pigeonhole the way that I perceive myself.

There is something wonderful about turning up every day and knowing that not just the character but the whole movie kind of rests on your shoulders. And there's great satisfaction when you think it's going well and then real terror when you think it's not.

'Black Mirror,' I read that, and I had another offer for a movie at the same time that was a bigger movie, an actual film as opposed to TV, but I said, 'No, it has to be Black Mirror.' And it hadn't been sold to Netflix, hadn't gone abroad at that point - but it's just good work - that's all there is to it.

Everyone talks about how we're on our phones all the time, but the fact remains that when I'm away on a film set for two months, I can Skype my family. I remember the phone calls my parents had to make when my dad was away for a while when I was younger - that once-a-week expensive phone call! The time pressure on talking to your father!

There's so many good comic actors that you just take the best of and try and run with it yourself. Try and bring a little bit of yourself to it, too.

I stand to learn more working as an actor with really talented people than I do by directing a feature.

I've been interested in the writing/directing thing and really fell into acting by complete accident.

The worst thing as an actor is when you're not getting opportunities to try and show what you can do; the best thing is when you get material that really lets you express something and that you're excited about.

The whole idea with acting is that you take some risks. And if you take some risks, you're really going to mess up sometimes. But it's not OK to mess up a movie; it's not OK to do that just so you can improve as an actor. But film-making takes a little bit of risk in every department.

The rom-com genre is not something that necessarily lights my jets.

Really, all I worry about is the work in hand.

Often times, I just do a job and tell my agents, 'I'm in lockdown now.' I won't talk to anybody about anything else in the meantime, and I think that's generally the way to go because I also like to have a gap in between jobs.

Normally, in a film with lots of twists and turns, half of them don't make sense; they're just there for their own sakes.

It's hard to get people up and out to shows, but 'The Walworth Farce' has masses of energy and will attract a crowd who don't always come to the theatre, which is great.

I've gotten work based on how I look, and I've not gotten work based on how I look. It's all good.

It's nice to sit down when you're not working. I try to do it as often as possible.

I'm not going to get better as an actor working on bad stuff.

I like films that are gritty and hard-hitting and suspenseful. Thrillers, too.

I'm pleased to say I grew up in a happy family in Dublin. I feel we're very close.

I'm certainly a young actor. I'm certainly those two things. Actually, I'm not even young anymore; I'm 29. So, I'm an actor.

I'm a pessimist by nature, so it's always the worst things that come to mind first whenever you make a decision or have a decision to make.

I'd rather do one day on a really cool movie than six months on something crap.

I'd seen my dad on stage, and that was fine, but the real excitement was - that was my dad. Even now, when I see his films, he's always my favourite person in the movie.

I do feel a wave come over me when I hear those two words, 'Star' and 'Wars,' said together. I feel tense, shut up, and stare into the middle distance.

The idea of having dreams that don't come true is really terrifying.