Aidan Gillen
Aidan Gillen
Aidan Gillenis an Irish actor. He is best known for portraying Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish in the HBO series Game of Thrones, Tommy Carcetti in the HBO series The Wire, CIA operative Bill Wilson in The Dark Knight Rises, Stuart Alan Jones in the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, and John Boy in the RTÉ Television series Love/Hate...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth24 April 1968
CityDublin, Ireland
CountryIreland
To start, I wasn't really interested in acting at all, and I didn't make much impact. The first play I was in was on for five nights and I didn't show up for two of them and nobody noticed. But I stayed because that's where my friends were, and after a while I found myself wanting to inhabit other people's worlds and lives.
I have Googled myself, yeah, I think everybody has. I try not to make a habit of it - in fact I made a rule once never to Google myself, which made me happy.
My own rapping skills are quite good, actually. You get this thing, I think it's called Songify or AutoRap, and you talk into them, and they auto-tune it and make it into a quite interesting musical number. And I got one where it builds it into a rap.
'Heroes', 'Desperate Housewives', 'The Sopranos' - they're all very stylised. 'The Wire' is much more rooted in realism and honesty. In American television, I can't think of anything I'd rather have been in because it has got something to say and that is the kind of thing I want to do.
I have been in control of what Ive been doing, of the career Ive put together.
It is exciting to be off to a new land with a new friend.
What is the key to life on Earth?
For me, now, working and children is it. Theres nothing more to life.
I find still photographs make me quite self-conscious,
I can read people, and if the other person doesn't want to say anything, I'm fine with that. People say things when it's time to say them.
Listen, I have to spend every single day living with me, so I know for a fact; I'm lovely, I'm completely lovely.
I've probably had my best time acting - or not acting, or trying to not act - on things like 'The Low Down' or 'Treacle Jr.' I'm happiest doing things like that. Not just because they're lead roles, but because there's more freedom in them.
I don't really differentiate between different genres: if there's a good part going, I'll go after it, and it's preferable to me if it's something I haven't done before.
I'd quite like to do a musical. I'd probably have to develop that myself.