Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrneis an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the spin-off show Bracken. He has now appeared in over 35 feature films, including Excalibur, Miller's Crossing, The Usual Suspects, Stigmata, End of Days, Spider, Jindabyne, Vampire Academyand The 33, and co-wrote The Last of...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth12 May 1950
CityWalkinstown, Ireland
CountryIreland
We tend to think of extremes of emotions as registering, for example, you have to cry or laugh or get angry. But for the most part, we find it difficult to read each other most of the time. If you walk through the street, most people are pretty difficult to read. But they're thinking inside.
The difference that a drama group or a cinema club can make to a small village or a town. It opens people up to ideas, potential about themselves that really, in a way, education often fails to. It's a way of drawing a community together.
Generally speaking, I don't think people know a great deal about the Viking culture, apart from the label that is usually attached to them, either pillagers or deviants who came and brought back loot to Norway. It was an incredibly sophisticated, complex and layered culture. They had their own laws, many of which protected women.
From doing A Moon for the Misbegotten, I've learned that nobody's love can save anybody else. There are people who want to die, and nothing or nobody will stop them. The only one who can save you is yourself.
I thought to myself, there's a man who gave up his life to serve others - to touch people in that way is probably the greatest thing you can do as a human being.
The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.
Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.
Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.
Seeing this film will be an individual choice for people.
The person I was with was organizing my birthday party, and also happens to be a good friend of mine, who is a married woman. If you don't mind, drop the Post. What they indicated was a complete concoction.
Would I have been better off as a teacher in Ireland or Spain? It's a very difficult question to answer. You take the road and you travel along it. I probably would do the same thing again.
When you're still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant - Gene Hackman is another - at being and allowing the audience to just do the work.
I would love to go back to any time in European history, especially in Irish history, to the second or third century, prior to the arrival of Christianity when Paganism flourished. I can always go back there in my imagination, of course. It doesn't cost anything, and it's a form of time travel, I suppose.
I read a lot on the subject and had many conversations, and I have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is a force for evil.