Top 39 Quotes & Sayings by Brendan Gleeson

I don't plan in terms of career ambitions. The only career ambition I have is to work with people who are going to bring you up and elevate your performance. They'll let you know things that you didn't know already and bring you places that you might not have gotten to otherwise.

It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.

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.

When I started out at about 19, 20, it took me two years just to tell the difference between a jig and a reel. It does all sound the same, but what you can find once you go in - it's never-ending. So that's my love.

The horror of a death without dignity has so much implications for the people who are left behind.

Everyone's waiting for the seventh book, and looking at each other saying, 'Oh, I wonder will I be in the running?

I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance.

I don't want people poking around in my private stuff. They've no business in it. My work is what I give to people, that's my job, and that's where it stops.

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.

I think it was a possibility, I think we're all kind of delusional like that, we think that we can all carry on being who we are without bending ourselves to make ourselves acceptable and expect someone to come along and see to us and rescue to us.

Winston was a bit of a challenge, all right, from a lot of different perspectives. It wasn't just the culture or the class divide or the historical baggage - it was also the age difference. We had to see if I could be aged-up legitimately, without it becoming some sort of hokey acting challenge.

I think it's what art should do: make you feel less alone - either in the quest for truth or in dealing with any pain you have.

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.

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.

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 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.

My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.

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.

Actors will always tell you it's more fun playing bad guys. A lot of the time, it's criminals who are the people who don't care. There's something extraordinarily seductive about the guy who doesn't care, and to play that guy is terribly empowering, because you don't have to worry about the consequences of your actions.

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.

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.

For me, it's just about keeping the standards up. We're a small country, so we have to punch above our weight. I'm not a great man for doing something just because it's Irish, and you never know what's going to work. But as long as we keep the standards up, people will continue to invest in films. It's as simple as that.

What I voice, I voice though my art, if that's not too vainglorious a word. But I don't think it is.

I worked with Steven Spielberg on 'AI,' and his level of preparation was extraordinary. He told me there was a time at the beginning when he was a bit more spontaneous and went over budget, and it absolutely wrecked his head. When you look at the power and assuredness of his movies, it makes sense that he works out so much in advance.

When I first was able to fill in A-C-T-O-R for the occupation line on my passport, that was the first time I really felt, 'Wow, I'm home.'

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.

I think every character actor at some stage likes to carry a film. It can be extremely liberating to just come in for a scene or two and do your thing. But I find it frustrating if I'm just doing little bits here and there for too long.

I find myself really privileged to be able to go in and look at a set that the likes of Hollywood can provide, and say, 'My God, look at the craftsmanship in this; look at the ambition in it, the scale of it.'

I don't maybe follow the normal star profile, and it's not something that I particularly want to embrace in terms of the publicity thing and wanting to be famous and known.

Are there people to aspire to? Can people be strong enough to withstand all of this disillusionment? Maybe the time is right for people to emerge from the easy cynicism and try to get back to a place where we can actually believe in people and trust people to have proper motivations.

Once we start shooting, it's in there. You're trying to get into a place where you rise to the work, rather than make it manageable or make it work for you.

We lost faith in authority in the '50s, up to a point, and we spawned a lot of anti-heroes in movies, which were refreshing and open. But at this point, with the distrust that's there and the disillusionment with leadership that is so acute, we need some kind of a focus on taking the irony out and taking the anti-hero element away.

I think most people are decent people. I don't know if they could stand the pressure he's under, but most people aspire to be decent people.

He earned every precious beautiful moment life gave back to him.

I think it's doubly important, now that we see so many people failing. When the norm is an anti-hero, there's a serious loss when you cannot portray a decent person on screen without it becoming slightly sentimental or feeling like it's unrealistic.

You work for it. You don't have to massage it, so that it fits into the way it has to be. He's just too vigorous a writer and the dialogue is too sparking to do anything other than inhabit it and give it as much truth as you can. You just try to make it part of your DNA. That's what the challenge is, really.

So, to get to play somebody who was insisting on it, in spite of all the evidence was very liberating and exciting. It went quite deep. I suppose I reference a kindness and humility that I would have seen in my parents' generation, a little bit more than now.

As an actor, to get a gift of a part like that is unusual. And then, to have the prospect of another one is always going to be interesting and exciting.

We're getting the blues about having to walk away from this whole thing. We enjoyed it a lot and it all felt good. We had a good experience on it. We thought we could do good work together. And it is unusual to get the next one, straight off the bed. John is funny. When he gets moving, he moves pretty quickly.