Aidan Gillen's new film Treacle Jr. hits Irish screens this Friday August 26 for seven-night run at Temple Bar's IFI. When Hot Press scribe Stuart Clark caught up with the Dublin actor for a chat, he found that Gillen's latest project is a labour of love.

“The writer and director, Jamie Thraves, re-mortgaged his house to fund Treacle Jr. knowing that it’ll do well to break even,” he explains. "We’ve had great reviews and reactions, but this isn’t the new Once. We’re not going to have Steven Spielberg saying he loves it or the characters appearing in The Simpsons! None of us were in it to strike gold. The goal was to make the film we wanted to make and hope that enough people like it in order for Jamie to hang on to his house!”

And what of his memorable turn as smooth-talking politician Tommy Carcetti in HBO's crime epic The Wire?

“I get a lot of Wire chat in Dublin," he says. "I noticed that before anyone else was illegally downloading it they were downloading it illegally here! They weren’t of the Frank Butcher/EastEnders ‘You shagged your wife’s sister!’ variety – it was all the little plot subtleties, which half the time I hadn’t picked up on myself.”

Gillen was in town to promote Treacle Jr., which will also make its way to The Model, Sligo (October 7 to 9) and Triskel Arts Centre, Cork (9 to 12). See [link]www.facebook.com/pages/Treacle-Jr/194312277274[/link] for updates.

Catch the full interview with Aidan, and the verdict on Treacle Jr. in the brand new issue of Hot Press (Arcade Fire on the cover!), out now.