Brendan Gleeson Profile

NAME: Brendan Gleeson

OCCUPATION: Film Actor

BIRTH DATE: March 29, 1956 (Age: 55)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Dublin, Ireland

Education : University College, Language

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London , England, Performing Arts

Actor. Born March 29,1956 in Dublin, Ireland. Though Brendan Gleeson yearned to be an actor from a young age, he spent a decade as a high school teacher before pursuing his dream. His big screen debut was a bit part in Jim Sheridan??s The Field in 1990. And while he appeared in several films after that, including the Oscar-winning epic Braveheart, it wasn??t until his scene-stealing performances in 1998??s I Went Down and The General that Hollywood stood up and took notice.

A latecomer to films, 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), to even more intimate projects like "Breakfast on Pluto" (2005) and "In Bruges" (2008), Gleeson's versatility elevated him to the pantheon of the character actor's character actor.