Domhnall Gleeson

Domhnall Gleeson is an Irish actor and screenwriter born on 12 May 1983 in Dublin, Ireland. Raised in Malahide, County Dublin, he is the eldest son of actor Brendan Gleeson and Mary Gleeson, née Weldon, and has three brothers: Fergus, Brian, and Rory. He attended Malahide Community School, where he took part in productions of Grease and King Lear, before earning a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts from the Dublin Institute of Technology. Early in his career he worked as a director and writer for both film and stage.

Gleeson's screen career began with an appearance in the British television miniseries Rebel Heart in 2001. His film debut came in Martin McDonagh's short Six Shooter in 2004, which featured his father and won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He appeared in the 2005 horror comedy Boy Eats Girl and was among the main cast of the RTÉ comedy series The Last Furlong that same year. In 2006 he starred in the feature film Studs alongside his father.

His Broadway debut came in 2006 with The Lieutenant of Inishmore, in which he played the dim-witted Davey. The role earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He was twenty-three at the time of the production. The following year, at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, he played Bobby in David Mamet's American Buffalo and Herbert Pocket in a Hugh Leonard adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.

In 2008 Gleeson starred in the RTÉ comedy sketch show Your Bad Self, which later developed into a series in 2010. The 2009 HBO television film A Dog Year, starring Jeff Bridges, featured him as handyman Anthony Armstrong, and that same year he appeared in the film Sensation as a young farmer whose relationship with a call-girl develops into a love story. In March 2009 it was confirmed he had been cast as Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a role that placed him in the same film series as his father, who plays Alastor Moody. Gleeson had initially been reluctant to act alongside his father but later changed his mind.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released in November 2010, with Part 2 following in July 2011. His portrayal of Bill Weasley, Ron Weasley's older brother, brought him to a wider audience. Also in 2010, he appeared as Moon, a young outlaw, in the Coen Brothers' True Grit, and portrayed musician Bob Geldof organising the 1985 Live Aid concert in the BBC Four television film When Harvey Met Bob, a performance for which he won the 2011 IFTA Award for Best Actor. His short comedy film Noreen, featuring his father and brother, screened at the Tribeca Film Festival that year.

In 2012, Gleeson played an IRA member in the drama Shadow Dancer and took on the role of landowner Kostya Levin in the historical romance Anna Karenina, based on the Leo Tolstoy novel. He also appeared in the science fiction action film Dredd as an unnamed computer expert. The following year he starred in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy About Time as a young man who uses time travel to pursue a relationship with a character played by Rachel McAdams, and made a guest appearance in the Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back" as a man who returns to his partner as a synthetic android clone after being killed in a car crash.

In 2014, Gleeson appeared in Lenny Abrahamson's Frank as Jon, a wannabe musician who joins an eccentric band, and played a small role as a prisoner in the Irish drama Calvary alongside his father. His final release that year was Angelina Jolie's war film Unbroken, in which he portrayed a soldier lost at sea following a plane crash in the Pacific during the Second World War, losing a significant amount of weight for the role. That year he also directed a music video for the Squarehead charity single "2025," with proceeds benefiting Immatürity For Charity, a comedy sketch project he created with his father and brother Brian to raise funds for the St. Francis Hospice in Raheny, Dublin.

The year 2015 saw Gleeson appear in four films, each of which received Oscar nominations. He starred in Alex Garland's science fiction thriller Ex Machina as a programmer who tests the human qualities of an artificially intelligent robot, appeared in a supporting role in the period drama Brooklyn opposite Saoirse Ronan, and had roles in The Revenant and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the latter beginning his portrayal of General Armitage Hux across the Star Wars sequel trilogy, which ran through 2019. He also appeared in Peter Rabbit in 2018.

In 2020, Gleeson had a main role in the HBO black comedy series Run. In 2023 he received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the limited series The Patient and starred in the satirical political miniseries White House Plumbers. In 2025, he took on the lead role in The Paper, a spinoff of The Office.