Acclaimed Irish writer and director John Michael McDonagh will be reunited with Brendan Gleeson for his first feature film since his award winning “The Guard”.

Brendan Gleeson was the star of the surprise hit 'The Guard' by the writer and director John Michael McDonagh (brother of the writer and director Martin McDonough).

Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, and Chris O’Dowd are just some of the stars attending the 9th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards, happening in Dublin  tonight.

In 'Safe House,' the new edge of your seat thriller opening Friday, Oscar winner Denzel Washington plays Tobin Frost, the CIA’s most dangerous traitor who bewilders the U.S. intelligence community when he voluntarily hands himself into their embassy in South Africa.
But complications arise when mercenaries attack the safe house where rookie Ryan Reynolds is holding Frost. After a shoot out he’s forced to help him escape and stay on the run long enough to uncover who wants them both dead.
 
It’s a gripping plot that asks thorny moral questions about the methods the U.S. has adopted to track and question detainees since 9/11. Water boarding, holding suspects without charge or trial and every other blatant abuse of international human rights rules are all front and center of this incredibly gripping film.
 
It’s because Safe House asks tough questions while keeping the action galloping at breakneck speed that it succeeds on all fronts. The moral murkiness of the rogue traitor (Washington) versus the idealistic rookie agent (Reynolds) is further amped up by the appearance of a totally compromised CIA bigwig played by Brendan Gleeson. It’s just the kind of role he gravitates to, he says.
 
“It’s quite easy at the stage of life that I’m at now to look around you and see all sorts of unworthy people gaining by your efforts, and you being left behind in general ways and then to starting to become disillusioned,” Gleeson tells the Irish Voice, explaining his compromised characters motivation.

Irish actors Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson along with Dublin-based movie “Albert Nobbs” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” have been nominated for Golden Globe Awards.

In an interview with The Guardian, actor Brendan Gleeson reveals how seeing the 1972 film 'Deliverance' when he was in his late teens impacted him for life.

“The Guard” and “Harry Potter” star Brendan Gleeson is set to join the cast of Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep”.  The Irish actor will star alongside “Twilight” star, Irish American actress Anna Kendrick, Terrence Howard and Sam Elliot.

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson will play a Catholic priest who must confront his own community and public revulsion towards the Church after its handling of sex abuse scandals there.

Brendan Gleeson’s latest movie “The Guard” could be on its way to becoming the most successful Irish Film at the domestic box office since “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” according to the Irish Times.

“The Guard” has opened to rave reviews from critics and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson has taken center stage. The film is described as a “comedy thriller” on its website and features Don Cheadle as cynical Gleeson’s co-star.

Brendan Gleeson’s latest film The Guard is doing well in Ireland as the public packs theaters for the jet black comedy written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s older, wiser brother John Michael. CAHIR O’DOHERTY meets Gleeson, the outspoken Irish actor, fiddle player and former schoolteacher who many now regard as Ireland’s preeminent film actor.

It’s a Thursday morning in late June, and I am sitting at a table in the empty ballroom of the opulent Beverly Wilshire hotel, waiting for Brendan Gleeson. The press conference scheduled prior to our interview is running a bit long, and I feel as though I’m waiting for someone at a grand, abandoned café.

There's a new McDonagh in town and he's taking no prisoners. This week Irish film industry heads wear amazed by the strong performance at the box office of John Michael McDonagh's (brother of the famous playwright Martin McDonagh) new film The Guard.

“X-Men” star Michael Fassbender is the latest star to join the cast of “At Swim two birds”. Fassbender (34) is currently shooting Ridley Scott’s Prometheus alongside Noomi Rapace.

Brendan Gleeson has described President Barack Obama’s visit to Ireland as “inspirational”.

“Scabrous, profane, violent, verbally adroit and very often hilarious” according to Independent.ie; these were the words that The Hollywood Reporter chose to describe ‘The Guard’ after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

The recent Tribeca Film Festival in New York unveiled two brilliant new Irish films (both about Irish cops, as it happens). Writer and director John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard, starring Brendan Gleeson, will be released in July. And in a nice bit of symmetry, Gleeson also plays a guard in Noreen, an atmospheric short film written and directed by his Harry Potter starring son Domhnall. CAHIR O’DOHERTY talks to the two talented directors currently making waves in Irish film.

The Tribeca Film Festival in New York will have a strong lineup of Irish premieres, movies and talent this year including Brendan Gleeson's “The Guard” and Alexandra McGuinness' "Lotus Eaters.”

It’s still early in 2011, but so far the Irish newcomer of the year has to be Colin O’Donoghue. The Drogheda native starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the Exorcist-style thriller The Rite, which should be out on DVD soon. It was O’Donoghue’s film debut, and though some critics were a bit rough on the film, The Rite spent a week as the number one movie in America in January. O’Donoghue, 30, had previously starred (alongside fellow Irish thespian Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in the Showtime drama The Tudors. Prior to that, O’Donoghue had simply done theater work and television shows for Ireland’s TV network RTE. With his performance in The Rite (which also stars Irish screen veteran Ciaran Hinds), O’Donoghue certainly opened some eyes and set himself up for an interesting career. What’s next for O’Donoghue? He’s playing things coy. “I’ve got something else in the works,” he told About.com. “But I can’t talk about it.”