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Brendan Gleeson hopes sons Domhnall and Brian will be ‘more successful’ than him

Brendan Gleeson has admitted that he hopes his actor sons Domhnall and Brian will be “more successful” than him – but hopes the negative side of the industry doesn’t ‘crush’ them.

The 61-year-old, who is father to Star Wars actor Domhnall (33), and Rebellion star Brian (28), revealed that he never encouraged his sons to pursue acting – and that it was a personal choice.

“I didn’t try to stop them but I didn’t try to push them into it either.

“It has to be a personal choice. It has to be something coming from within,” he told Pat Kenny on Newstalk.

The Walworth Farce Rehearsal

Family: Brendan hopes his sons will be more successful than him | VIPIRELAND.COM

The Guard star, who has starred in 80 movies in his lifetime, spoke about how he hopes his sons will find great success – but make sure to remain true to themselves.

“They are always going to be more successful than I am. That’s just the rule, that’s just the way it goes. I hope they are. What I hope for them is, number one, that their spirit is allowed to maintain itself. It can be quite a crushing occupation,” he said.

“And number two, that the beauty of what it is, the communicative, the artistic nature [of acting] isn’t lost in all the other stuff.

“What I love about what I do now is on set working with a really, really interesting director, and other actors and camera people and you are making art. That’s what I love. But it makes up such a tiny proportion of what I have to do.

Brendan Gleeson leaves Newstalk

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“There is so much nonsense that goes on [in the industry] it is becoming increasingly bureaucratic because every film has about 16 production companies trying to coalesce to make it happen,” he explained.

At 61-years-old, the actor admitted that he can’t remember most of the 80 films he’s starred in – but insisted that his acting career gave him a “second life”.

“It’s terrible that you can’t remember most of them. They were so important at the time. God, there were 80 of them but how many of them made an impact?

But is has been brilliant. It was a second life for me. I started late and never lost the feeling of ‘God, I’m getting to do this thing.’ I was a teacher for 10 years and loved it for most of it,” he added.

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