The Name Of The Game

Aidan Gillen is just putting it out there – if we want, he can pull off a proper Blue Steel look for the camera. Sadly, ace Hot Press snapper Kathrin Baumbach is looking for something a little less Zoolander so, while he keeps half an eye on any potential motors about to bomb down Digges Lane and make mince meat of him, he duly obliges with a straight face in the middle of the street.

As he does so, he regales us with the story of the time he was papped in this very spot. It’s likely he has similar stories for most spots in Dublin, London, New York and LA. You imagine he tires easily of the ‘famous actor’ role in which he has been unwittingly cast; that being in the spotlight, and away from the set, doesn’t sit easily with the 46-year-old. But then, you can imagine a lot of things about Aidan Gillen, a man renowned for his intense devotion to the craft of acting, and now known the world over for parts in some of the most adored TV shows of all time, including The Wire and Game Of Thrones, as well as big screen blockbusters like The Dark Knight Rises.
His personable, playful nature immediately dispels any notion of him as a dour character, an image he’s eager to rubbish. Halfway through our lengthy chat in Brooks Hotel, he will point out: “I am happy most of the time, despite what people might think.” He will also call himself up when he corrects how a question is phrased: “Aidan gets very defensive with his choice of words!”
In truth, he’s a considered and generous interviewee. Eager to get the word out on his hosting duties on the 13th season of RTÉ’s brilliant Dingle-based music show (“I’m really trying to hijack the interview on behalf of Other Voices!” he cackles at one point), he’s more than happy to open up about his role in the televisual phenomenon that is Game Of Thrones (spoilers may follow, so you have been warned) and his acting career to date. By interview’s end, he expresses the hope that he’s not portrayed as the clichéd moody actor. In truth, his words speak for themselves...
CRAIG FITZPATRICK: With Game Of Thrones arriving back on our screens for its fifth season, are you in the midst of a crazy promotional cycle?
AIDAN GILLEN: There’s not major pressure on any of the actors on that show to do that. Maybe Peter Dinklage... But really, not even him. There’s enough of us that we can divvy it up. There’s never an overload of press on any of that HBO stuff. If you look back, there’s not a lot of interviews with any of the actors on The Wire. There are not many interviews with James Gandolfini, y’know? They let the show speak for itself.
You've said in the past that you don’t like to stay too long on one project. When Queer As Folk’s run was extended, you initially recoiled. So Game Of Thrones is the longest you’ve been involved with a project.
It’s coming up to its sixth year, so it definitely is the longest but I did sign up knowing that it was for a six year period. It’s a good show and a good experience so I’m cool with that. And with the likes of Love/Hate, I don’t have any regrets about any run of four episodes or six episodes or eight episodes. I did three seasons on The Wire where I was in every episode. That was 36 episodes. My first experience with that stuff had been Queer As Folk and I thought I was signing up for four episodes, then it was eight, then it became ten, which for me was way too many. At that earlier stage, when I was younger, I didn’t want to be tied down to any one thing.
Your instinct was to do something and then completely change face for the next role.
Yeah, and forget about it. Watch it once and never watch it again. Maybe change medium as well. Do theatre, film, television in different countries. Try to play different kinds of roles. The BBC single dramas were great when they used to make them – they still do, but not to the same standard – with great directors and quite adventurous filmmakers like Antonia Bird and Alan Clarke. That tradition is gone. Pushed to one side by all the reality stuff.

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“Around pilot season in Los Angeles is a total clusterfuck. It’s horrible – but it’s democratic and you can show up totally unknown and score a lead part in a TV series.”

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I imagine a decade ago you wouldn’t have envisioned yourself interviewing people as you do on Other Voices.
Well I don’t want to be a television presenter and I don’t want to be an interviewer or a music journalist. I’m not any of those things.
What I like about it is that you seem like ‘I don’t really know about this, let’s just have a chat.’
I do know what I’m doing but I’m not claiming to be anything other than who I am. There’s no technique. When I was asked to do that I was living in Dingle and I would be one of a number of factors, having some visibility and recognition factor as an actor, that would make that programme happen. That’s why I’m doing it. Apart from the fact that I love music, I was asked to do it by Philip King just walking down the street one day. I thought of it as a local gig, which it was. I didn’t think of it as a television show or something that goes out and is seen around the world, which it is. Now occasionally they’ll make something like the Hozier special, or the Amy Winehouse special, which has been seen everywhere. I enjoy it. It’s not a career move but I’ll do it as long as it runs. The good news is that Huw Stephens from BBC has joined Other Voices so it’s the two of us co-presenting. It’s a lot more fun and it’s a lot easier. It’s three, four days you know, and you get six to eight hours out of that. There wasn’t enough space to shoot all the acts we needed for six hours of television in front of a live audience so acts like, for instance, Richie Egan came and shot three songs acoustically not in front of a live audience – they take great care with making those performances really work...
It sounds like a gruelling schedule.
It’s very enjoyable but it’s full on from 7am to about 1am. It’s no vacation.
Richie Egan told me he was blown away by Young Fathers [“a Nirvana level of watching it, going: 'I’m witnessing something'"].
There are three vocalists and live drums and some backing tracks but it’s minimal. Quite tribal stuff. It is visceral. They blew the subwoofers on Wild Beasts, who had to come on next!
Did you dabble in music yourself?
Not really. There might have been a dream but it was never really worked on. I’m more in the audience category. The record buyer and the t-shirt wearer. I messed around a bit but I don’t have the talent for that.
You’ve lent your vocal talents to the audiobook version of Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War.
The producers called me up and asked me if it was something that I’d be interested in doing. I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know the book – but I had a look at it and it’s quite an interesting manuscript. For the length of time ago it was written, it feels quite modern. You can see how anyone who’s
really successful in business and war has probably read it.
You’ve talked about reading things like Machiavelli’s The Prince as Littlefinger prep.
It’s obviously why they asked me to do The Art Of War, because of playing the character Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish in Game Of Thrones. I would probably be an appropriate reader.
Game Of Thrones is just returning. As an actor have you totally put it out of your mind by this stage?
It could be a year later when the thing appears and you’ve already done two or three other roles since and you’re on to other things. Sometimes it seems so long ago since it happened that it’s hard to even remember. We did the Haughey drama [Charlie] and it was actually over a year later that it aired and even though it was quite intense for me at the time, just trying to cast back [for interviews], I couldn’t remember things, so I had to make
stuff up!
You’ve drawn on real people before for your roles, but when you portray someone as well known as Charlie, does it add pressure?
When it’s someone who leads a country, we have a right to dramatise that. But you can’t mess around too much because you need to be as accurate as you can be, with a little bit of licence to explore. It’s going to be more interesting to get into what’s going on in their head – but we never really know that.
A lot of actors say they have to find something to like in their characters.
I don’t know whether you have to, but invariably I find lots of things to like about characters. I found plenty to like about Haughey. And dislike.
Do you call London home these days?
It’s ever-changing. The home situation, it moves. That’s the way it’s been since I left school. I moved to London to work when I was still in my teens and spent most of the time there since, with sojourns – did I use that word?! – here and America. I have found that the work is always somewhere else. Wherever you set up shop, it’s always somewhere else. The last number of months I’ve been in America quite a lot and I just started a job in England so I’m shooting there until the end of June. It’s a new Guy Ritchie film called Knights Of The Round Table so I’ve just started that. And then I'm returning to Game Of Thrones, which is Belfast-based.
Has your ability to pick and choose jobs improved over the years?
I’ve always done that though, since the beginning.
Is that essential to your reputation, only to do things you believe in?
Yeah, it’s probably the one thing you have control over. You can say no, which helps with issues such as typecasting or being in stuff that you don’t expect. I've thought of that stuff from the very beginning – and that coupled with not being great at auditions has led to an interesting career path.
I always imagined the audition process must be the worst part of the gig.
It’s not comfortable if you have a proven track record and you know obviously you can play a certain kind of part, but you have to go and really hustle for it. It’s not always ideal, but even in America you can get the bus to Los Angeles and work as a waitress or a waiter for a bit and do your acting classes and a year later get cast in something brilliant and become a huge actor. It does happen. Around pilot season in Los Angeles is a total clusterfuck. It’s horrible – but it’s democratic and you can show up totally unknown and score a lead part in a TV series. You’re made. It’s great that you can actually do that.
Robert Sheehan was talking to Hot Press recently. He’s moved to LA and was saying he’s found a lot of the people to be very fake.
That’s interesting because he texted me saying “I’ve taken to this place like a duck to water”!
There’s a certain artifice to Los Angeles that is well documented and an undercurrent of desperation. Have you seen Maps To The Stars? Cronenberg’s latest film? That scared me. The
thing about Los Angeles is everyone’s an actor – well not everyone’s an actor but everyone’s an industry type.
Everyone’s got a screenplay.
That and porn are the main industries there. Everyone does have a screenplay, but you show up to read for a part, there will be 50 other guys there all looking kind of like you, but better looking, slightly younger and way more confident! So you have to have a thick skin over there, for sure. But there’s lots of rewards to be had.
What have you been enjoying outside of your own work?
I saw Birdman last night. Some actor friends that I talked to about it hated it. I loved it. I’ve done a play in New York on Broadway and I have to say, that is what it feels like! An insane build-up of intensity and tunnel vision. The thing that’s happening onstage is more real than everything else outside of it, which is this wavering and wobbling kind of unreal. What struck me about working in a theatre just off Times Square, is that there’s an insane clamour outside the door. It’s not just New York, it’s 42nd Street, the levels of light are not like anything you’ve experienced. It’s like being inside of a fucking film lamp or television screen or something, just twenty thousand billion pixels flashing at you, people everywhere and fucking car horns. You walk down the stairs, the paint is peeling and it’s slightly decrepit, and you walk onto this stage and you’re in a different world. Russia in 1906, or the west of Ireland, or London in 1958. I used to go in two hours early just to decompress from the street.
When something like Game Of Thrones is so massive, do you feel like you’re almost another person in the public eye? You’re doing an acting job... but it becomes this different entity?
It’s an interesting question. People don’t call you Aidan, they call you Petyr or Lord Baelish or Littlefinger. It’s something that I used to have an issue with, I’m thinking “why are they calling me that?” But it’s actually quite a good buffer that people are calling out a name and it’s a character name. When it goes from people calling you Stuart to calling you Carcetti to calling you John Boy from Love/Hate, which is huge here, it’s always great when the last one gets pushed out of the way. So I actually quite like being called a character name on the street. It means you’ve made a bond! Game Of Thrones is huge, Love/Hate was huge here, The Wire had a huge audience, so when people are calling you those names it’s fine. It’s never been a problem.
Are you a Game Of Thrones fan?
I think it’s a really good show. I hadn’t read the books before I was cast in it. I had actually, but just before. I would watch it if I wasn’t in it, if that’s what you’re asking me. It is great, but can be strangely disheartening.
Last season, it almost felt like Oberyn, The Red Viper, was too good and idealistic a character. He inspired too much hope to ever survive for long. There are some, but not many, characters that last without becoming either morally bankrupt or compromised. Littlefinger is now one of the more likeable characters!
The Red Viper was a great character.
But in that world he couldn’t survive!
He could have! His family are going to show up pretty soon. I did love his character arc. Even though people know to expect that characters aren’t going to make it, it was pretty horrific what happened to him and the way it happened. And it was so close!
You knew what was coming but you’re hoping against hope.
Yeah, well... I think people can come back from the dead, in that world. They have already, actually. Beric Dondarrion’s been brought back by? Thoros. I’ll have to consult my Game of Thrones companion, which is a very useful app by the way. It filters how many books you’ve read, how many seasons you’ve seen, so it won’t spoil anything.
Are you often approached by people who know far more about it than you ever will and asked ridiculous questions?
Yeah. I’m sure I’ve met many people who know far more about it than I do, but they don’t put me on the spot too much. It’s odd being addressed as Lord Baelish but it happens occasionally.
You could be called worse things, I suppose.
It’s OK with Game Of Thrones, they’re character roles. I’m not playing myself so I don’t feel like that’s what I’m like.
Is there a master plan or is it literally making decisions from role to role?
There’s not a plan but there is a plan. The plan is to keep working. I do try to do different things, to be surprising occasionally. Change the record every now and then. Get better.
What’s your relationship with Ireland at the moment?
I’ve spent more than half of my life away and I’m glad I was able to have that horizon-broadening at an early age and to work in London and America and all these places where you had to fight for your place, as I would’ve had to here. So I do love being back here but I’ve had lots of experience and I imagine even if I settled fully here that I would be always expecting to get on a plane or a boat sooner or later. It’s in my personality as well and always has been. It’s funny, when you’re starting out and people are the older actors. The older actors were probably younger then than I am now, saying “you live your life out of a suitcase.” And you’re like “fucking brilliant, I want to live my life out of a suitcase and I want to be on the car ferry or on a plane, not knowing what happens. I don’t want to know what I’m doing next week or next month or next year!” Then there comes a time when you realise that you aren't even unpacking the suitcase. The suitcase was getting filled but I wasn’t even taking stuff out of it, because I was going to have to move.
I like sleeping on trains. I like bicycles but not if you’ve got heavy bags. I can get pretty much everything I need into a very small backpack. Earplugs are important; they don’t take up much space. Toothbrush, earplugs, passport, some kind of a card – access to credit is always good. I’m getting pretty good at packing light...

Other Voices airs on RTÉ Two every Sunday at 11.50pm. Game Of Thrones airs on Sky Atlantic every Monday
at 9pm.