film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

general-hux_078a3f89.jpeg

5 Times You Saw 'The Force Awakens' Domnhall Gleeson And Didn't Know It

By Dustin Rowles | Star Wars | December 24, 2015 |

By Dustin Rowles | Star Wars | December 24, 2015 |


Here’s how dumb I am: For some reason, I thought Domnhall Gleeson had basically appeared fully formed in About Time and never gave a thought to the idea that he had any sort of career prior to the Richard Curtis film (which I loved). When he showed up in Frank a year later at SXSW, I thought, “Holy Shit! It’s the guy from About Time. He’s great!”

And he is great, so great in fact that he’s been three of the 2015 films to make our Best of the Year list: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Brooklyn and Ex Machina. He’s also in The Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio. (Plus, I’ve already forgotten he was in last December’s Angelina Jolie film, The Unbroken, mostly because I have forgotten Unbroken).

Gleeson is one of those guys, however, that you don’t notice for a long time, and then suddenly when you do, you start to realize he was in movies you saw prior to About Time, and you’re like, “Oh wait!? That was Domnhall Gleeson? No way!”

Here’s 5 times you may have seen Gleeson before you knew it was Gleeson.

Black Mirror — I actually saw this after I saw About Time, but it still took me a few minutes to put together that it was the same guy (great episode of a great series, which is available on Netflix).

Blakcmirror3.png

Dredd — Remember how Dredd kind of bombed at the box-office, but you saw it on Netflix and loved it and then spent two years hoping that it’d get a sequel, which was a lost cause because it lost a ton of money at the box office? Yeah, well, he was in that, too.

Dredd-Domhnall-Gleeson-Lena-Headey.jpg

True Grit — I saw True Grit. I loved True Grit. I still have no recollection of Domnhall Gleeson’s character.

tumblr_li84qvXe4M1qd5d2lo1_500.gif

Anna Karenina — I didn’t see Anna Karenina because I read the book, and I felt no need to extend my suffering, but I’m sure some of you did. Do you remember Gleeson?

Domhnall-Gleeson-in-Anna-Karenina-8.jpg

Harry Potter — OK, I have no idea why I never put this together, but to my credit, Chris Hardwick — who has Gleeson on the Nerdist podcast this week — hadn’t put it together, either. The man who played General Hux in Star Wars: The Force Awakens also played the elder Weasley brother, Bill, in Harry Potter.

HPATDHP146_555pxBLOG.jpg

But my favorite thing that I didn’t know about Gleeson is that he’s the real-life son of Mad Eye Moody:

More importantly, he’s the son of the the guy from In Bruges and The Guard. Yes, Brendan Gleeson is Domnhall Gleeson’s Dad!

(I realize that everyone in the UK reading this is, like, Duh!)