Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his role in Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe, for which he won Best Actor Award at 1998 Cannes Film Festival. He is also winner of the World Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performances at 2011 Sundance Film Festival for his work on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur. Mullan appeared as supporting or guest actor in numerous cult movies, including Ken Loach's Riff-Raff, Mel Gibson's Braveheart, Danny Boyle's...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth2 November 1959
I was on the set of 'Braveheart' and my mate says to me, 'Do you think this film will be any good?' And I really meant this, too, I told him 'Let me put it this way - It won't win any awards.' Cut to: five Oscars.
You have to just go with your imagination, where your instinct takes you.
There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.
Truth is I don't think God on a daily basis. I think politics, science.
I don't like the way some actors, when playing a nasty character, will try to grab hold of something good about them.
I wanted to dismantle the bollocks that there's a military structure to a gang, with a leader, second leader, the good looking one, first babe, second babe. It's far more arbitrary than that and their values shouldn't be romanticised. They aren't something you want to sign up to.
I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!
In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of.
A lot of actors aren't particularly good directors. And they're not particularly good with other actors. That's kind of a fallacy.
I know virtually no one of my age who can remember a hug, or a smile from their father, or a 'Let's go play football.'
It takes a very strong brain to resist the absolutes, the myths that the media and the politicians peddle - the idea that if you are too kind, where does it all end? That not to help someone is somehow a good idea.
There's a part of bohemia I love. The lack of prejudice, the lack of aggression, I love the lack, for the most part, of competitiveness. It's more peaceful.
A script is utterly useless in and of itself; it's only of any worth the minute your actors, your designers, your directors come into being.
Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.