Frankly speaking: Brian Gleeson on working with his famous family and his next project in Cork

As Brian Gleeson comes to Cork for three performances at The Everyman he speaks to Jennifer Stevens about working with his famous family and having an empty diary for the rest of the year

Brian Gleeson. Photograph Moya Nolan

Brian Gleeson is speaking to me from his home in London. He’s just back from Cardiff where he has been filming a new show for Sky and is enjoying the reviews that have been coming in for Frank of Ireland which he both wrote and starred in with brother Domhnall.

His next job is at home in Ireland, in Cork in fact, where he will star in The Saviour — a new play by Deirdre Kinahan which will live stream from The Everyman as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.

Theatre and going to the cinema, which he did a couple of times a week, are two of the things Brian missed the most over the course of the pandemic. Performing alongside the award-winning Marie Mullen will be a little different without an audience but it’s a challenge Brian is relishing.

“It's very exciting. Louise Lowe is directing us, and I had chatted with her a couple of years ago about doing a Sean O’Casey play in the Gate and then, obviously, that didn't happen with the pandemic, so I'm really thrilled to be working with her and the great Marie Mullen. 

"I think Marie is amazing, I have ever since I was a young fella. She and [her husband] Sean McGinley know dad very well, and I just grew up thinking she was brilliant, so I just can’t wait to work with her."

“This is just amazing to be able to do. It's kind of a new art form with the whole live stream thing so you’ve all these theatre directors now having to think about camera angles and everything else. I watched the Frank McGuinness play, that Stephen Rae did as a live stream from the Gate and it was quite exciting just to know that you were watching it live with other people. I hope we’ll be able to get back to the way it was soon, but it's interesting experimenting with it as a new thing, you know? It’s a kind of exciting way to think about it. But yeah, it will be different, especially without a robust Cork audience,” he laughs.

Between rehearsals and the production, Brian will be at home in Ireland for just over a month, which is a real perk of the job when he hasn’t been back much at all over the last year. Luckily one of the most recent projects that he did was with his older brother Domhnall so he packed in some family time — albeit while working. Together with their friend Michael, they created and wrote Frank of Ireland which ran on Channel Four in April and May.

“I've been UK-based, and I haven't been home that much which is a real shame. I was working with my brother Domhnall last year, and we did most of that shoot, and then the pandemic happened so we were doing remote calls about the post-production. That show basically took up most of last year, and it's only this year that I've had the opportunity to do different things. I'm just pretty grateful that there is still work going on, you know?"

“Myself, Domhnall and Michael Moloney wrote Frank. There were a lot of cigarettes smoked at all hours of the day and night, so I’d say it wasn't without a certain stress level, but actually, you take that with the job and we were kind of living in each other’s pockets for the best part of two years. It was just brilliant to be able to have that level of involvement with the projects because you don’t really have that as an actor. We had a lot of fun doing it, and I think anytime it’s not fun you have to remember why you’re doing it in the first place, there’s no point in doing it if you don't enjoy it.”

Brian Gleeson. Photograph Moya Nolan

As well as showing on terrestrial TV in Britain, the Gleeson brothers’ production is available on Amazon Prime in the US — opening it up to 148 million potential viewers.

“We're very lucky, Sharon Horgan and her company Merman, who produced our show, have a first-look deal with Amazon. That's basically how we're introduced to the American audiences. Sharon was really the reason it got made, she obviously has a lot of involvement with Channel 4 and once we got her involved, we knew it kind of had a good chance of it going ahead, so yeah a lot of it is down to her.”

Though Brian enjoyed the process of writing with his brother and Michael, he probably won’t be giving up his acting career to write full time: “It was one of the first things I've written and I was a third of that writing process, so it's not something I'm liable to do again on my own, and I think I'm definitely an actor first and foremost."

“I think the three of us loved the fact that we kind of covered for each other, made it better just due to the fact there are three people there and not one person carrying all that weight. But I think I’ve been very lucky to work with so many great writers in Ireland like Conor McPherson and Stuart Carolan doing Love Hate and I love being in their shows more than trying to generate my own. I do enjoy developing stuff and I do like writing with other people, so I think in terms of that level of involvement, I’d be good but I'm probably at my happiest when I'm acting.”

One of the perks of writing their own show was the opportunity to cast their dad, Brendan, in it. It would be an awkward Christmas dinner if he turned them down. Brian laughs at the thought of him reading the script and turning around saying “not good enough”. 

The chance to work with family is something Brian would never turn down.

“Whenever we ever get a chance, we jump at it. I don't think we’d ever think we were working together too much because it just doesn’t happen that often. We've been very lucky that there have been in a few projects over with years and even with Frank when we realised that we could work with dad again, we were like 'absolutely', because given the chance, who wouldn't? Obviously, he had to say yes, but it's a real privilege to be able to do it. There's no deciding when you can do it really, once you're given the opportunity by other people. You just say yes."

“Of course, we put him through a very extensive audition process… Ha! No, we didn't do that. We just asked him and he very kindly said yes. I think it was important that we give him something fun to do which it was.”

After Brian’s run in The Everyman, he has nothing booked in for the rest of the year. It’s a daunting part of being an actor that he’s used to now but it’s not without its worry. He’s philosophical about it though and with a show he co-wrote streaming on Amazon Prime in the US and a new programme for Sky in the can, you have a feeling he’s going to be just fine.

“I don't know what the future holds for the rest of the year. I know there is a backlog of projects generally that have been waiting for the green light, so it feels exciting in the sense that things are going to start again in cinema and TV. I know there have been a lot of jobs lost generally in the arts, so it’s nothing to celebrate yet, but hopefully things are on their way to getting back to the way things were in as much as they can."

“I definitely get worried. I've been lucky in that I haven't gone too long without getting something, but there's no guarantee of that, so the longer it goes on and the weeks go on, the more you start ringing your poor agents hoping they can just fix the problem, and really, it's just one of those things that’s swings and roundabouts."

“Sometimes, you do a couple of projects in a row and your headshot is up on the wall more than it is at another point. It's just that there's a whole conveyor belt of actors that are going around and there's a lot of us. So when you do get the chance, I don't know, you just try and knock it out of the park as much as you can. It doesn't matter who you are or how well you do, sometimes you’re flavour of the week and sometimes you go off the boil and it’s just that kind of feast or famine thing really. 

"I think once I know I have something, like I know I've got this play coming up and now that will keep me going, but you can only think a few weeks ahead really. You wouldn't plan too many things in the calendar anyway,” he laughs. “Really, you just live week by week or month by month — basically, that's just the nature of the game.”

• The Saviour is presented by Landmark Productions as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, live-streaming June 19 & 20. 
• Tickets from corkmidsummer.com. 
• For those who can’t make the live broadcasts, an on-demand option is available to watch from June 21-27.