Domhnall Gleeson Talks Working with Father Brendan in New Interview
Domhnall Gleeson (Bill Weasley) comes from a prolific family of Irish actors, but he’s only ever used his native accent on-screen twice before. Both he and his father, actor Brendan Gleeson (Mad-Eye Moody), modify their accents in the Harry Potter movies. In an interview following his latest film, The Little Stranger, Gleeson revealed how his father’s profession affected his own acting career:
My father is an incredible actor and in a way it made me realise it was possible. But in another way, it made me think, ‘Well, I can‘t do it as well as he does it so what‘s the point?‘ My brother Brian is a phenomenal actor as well. So there was already an actor in the family, even when I began.
Though the two have scenes together in Harry Potter, Gleeson says he and his father have completely different acting styles:
I‘m very different [from] my dad in lots of ways. The way we work is very different. I wish I [were] more like him in lots of ways but I‘m not. My dad has just been great in everything that he‘s done and I don‘t quite have that facility.
Domhnall is equally great as Dr. Faraday in The Little Stranger, a gothic ghost story that follows a post-war British upper-class family living in a haunted house. You’ll see him next in The Kitchen, an American crime drama film, and the currently untitled Star Wars: Episode IX, both of which premiere later this year and neither of which features Gleeson’s Irish accent.