Brendan Gleeson

I hope I'm worthy in my dying. I hope I can maintain myself - that I wouldn't become pathetic and needy, and the worst part of myself come out in adversity. But I'm not afraid of it. It'd be such a silly thing to do! To ruin the life you have by fearing its ending. ”

You can channel a lot within a comic framework, and I think 'The Guard' had a lot going on outside of the comedy, which is satisfying. ”

I'm very proud of 'Calvary.' It's been doing well; it has legs. It's no easy ride. It packs a punch, this one. ”

Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail. ”

I'm aware now over the last 5 or 10 years that when you do an accent, you really have to kind of get down to the nitty gritty and go into the phonetics of it, if necessary. Find out not just the sounds but the rhythms and the music - or lack thereof - in a particular accent. ”

I'd never had any problem finding inspiration; Ireland was always just there, you know? All this richness of culture was there to tap into. ”

The whole point of film for me is that it's such a joy. It's such a wonder. The possibilities are literally endless in terms of what you can creatively do. ”

The good thing about my part in 'Harry Potter' was that I was pretty well disguised. When I was walking down the street, there was no real recognition factor. Parents would sometimes call their children to come say hello to Mad-Eye, and the kids wouldn't know what they were looking at. ”

I loved teaching. And I always used to say that acting was just something I did purely on my own terms, and that if I had to make a living from it there would be too much pressure. ”

I tend to look for the good in bad people and the bad in good people, to make them human. 'Cause I don't think that people generally are that black and white. Maybe in movie-land they can be... but that isn't necessarily all there is. ”