Biography
A latecomer to the screen, Irish actor Brendan Gleeson spent much of his formative years training for and performing in theater before breaking into films and television at the relatively older age of 34. Supporting turns in homegrown productions like "The Field" (1990) and "Into the West" (1992) led to small parts in American features like "Far and Away" (1992) and his big break as right hand man to Mel Gibson's William Wallace in the blockbuster "Braveheart" (1995). Three years later, his turn as Irish criminal Martin Cahill in John Boorman's "The General" (1998) boosted his profile on the international scene, so he was soon dividing his time between major Hollywood projects like "Mission: Impossible II" (1999) and independent efforts like "28 Days Later" (2001). Dependable in just about every field, from children's fantasy - he was Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody in three of the Harry Potter films - to epics like "Gangs of New York" (2002) and Ben Affleck's Prohibition thriller "Live By Night" (2016), to more intimate projects like the philosophical gangster film "In Bruges" (2008) and the religious drama "Calvary" (2014), Gleeson's versatility elevated him to the pantheon of the character actor's character actor.
