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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Where issues used to be, say, parochial or local in Ireland or England and so forth, all politics is global now because all business is global.
O'Neill presents a very complex multi-layered kind of challenge. His characters are always deeply complex and, to a great extent, inaccessible.
I never went to drama school, but I did learn a couple of things along the way.
I think that when we look at something that's well acted and a story that's well told, it allows us to be a mirror of who we are as human beings and as a culture, and offers a glimpse of where we're headed.
Being listened to and being heard is an experience that doesn't happen terribly often. To listen compassionately or nonjudgmentally to another person - not to get too heavy about it - but I once heard somebody say that was a form of real prayer.
No actor who's any good can say truthfully to themselves, 'Yeah, I'm good; I've got this sorted.'
I'm a product of my Irish culture, and I could no more lose that than I could my sense of identity.