Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The ...
Actor, Film Producer, Film director, Writer, Teacher, Cook, Author, Screenwriter, Archaeologist
Nationality
Republic of Ireland
Spouse
Hannah Beth King (m. 2014), Ellen Barkin (m. 1988–1999)
Children
Jack Daniel Byrne, Romy Marion Byrne
Parents
Eileen Gannon, Dan Byrne
Nicknames
Gabriel James Byrne , Gebriel Birn , Gabriel Bryne
Star Sign
Taurus
#
Quote
1
I like the level of anonymity I have now. When I was doing In Treatment (2008), it became a nightmare - much more than it had been before that. You have to be very careful with television. I love working but I don't want that kind of attention again.
2
Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse. It was a known and admitted fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man, and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him. There were certain boundaries, sexual boundaries, that were crossed.
3
[on being beaten in school, specifically in math class] - I feared being beaten, and I was beaten very regularly. It did affect my sense of myself. ... I didn't feel that I suffered at the time. I just felt it was the way of the world. It took many years to come to terms with and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me.
4
[on dealing with depression] - A single negative thought begins in your head. That single negative thought interacts with another negative thought and becomes a reality. And the world seems like the darkest, bleakest, blackest place that you can possibly be. And it has nothing to do with logic, it has nothing to do with reality. It's a chemical, and I suppose ultimately becomes a spiritual, imbalance in the body and in the mind. But it feels like the truth. That's what's so insidious about it.
5
A lot of people who live in America, and it's not their fault, have a stereotypical view of Ireland. You get a movie like The Quiet Man (1952) and people arrive at Shannon airport and expect to be met by Barry Fitzgerald.
6
It's the job of the director to be like a great orchestra leader, and bring out the music that the writer wrote, through the instruments, which are the actors.
7
I did a play by Eugene O'Neill called "A Touch of the Poet" on Broadway a few years ago. I remember looking out into the audience at one point, and the theater was packed with wealthy, white-haired people. After the curtain call I turned to one of the other actors and said 'Theater is dead.' He laughed and said "That's a good one." I said 'No, seriously, theater as we're doing it now is dead. There's no audience. There's no one under 60 out there. They're all white. And they can all afford $300 for a night.
8
[on working with Natasha Richardson on Gothic (1986)] It was a privilege for me to work with her in her first film. Her magnetism was incontestable, both as a person and as an actress. When you're working with somebody you see them in a very different light. I just knew she was special.
9
I think the reason certain societies thrive while others don't is the society that is open to new ideas is going to thrive, while the ones that don't, that oppose any outside or opposing cultural influences, those are in trouble, and I think America has done the latter over the past 20 or more years. The worse it is for America, the worse it is for the rest of us.
10
American movies to me - and, I mean, I've said this before a million times - are becoming more and more homogeneous because the marketing objective - and marketing now plays such a major role in movies that it almost obliterates everything else - the marketing objective is the lowest common denominator. "You can't put that in; let's put the car chase, let's put the sex scene, let's put the fight in, let's get them back together, they end up happily, they walk off into the sun..." So that there's a formulaic predictability to American movies. That, allied with the cynicism of the way movies are put together - product placement and spin-offs and toys and all kinds of crap that, you know, have nothing to do with the telling of stories - they've turned American movies into McMovies. So that when the movie-goer gets his movie, it's like a hamburger: he doesn't want a piece of aubergine in there; he wants his onion, his tomato, his hamburger and his bun. And he doesn't want the bun hard, he wants it soft. And he wants it in two minutes.
11
Sometimes, the vanity of actors is that we imagine we're so completely different on screen from who we are in real life. When really, all actors play themselves.
12
I've always felt that acting is about exposure. You expose yourself in the choices you make. It's when you present yourself as truthfully as you can, in a given situation, that you are being that character. Even though you're being yourself.
13
The truth is that actors don't really have any control over the end product. To think that you have control is a delusion and it's also incredibly frustrating to be investing that much hope into something that essentially boils down to marketing. So you try to do movies that you feel connected with and you work with directors and actors you admire.
14
I would like to break out of this "dark, brooding" image, cause I'm actually not like that at all. In Ireland, brooding is a term we use for hens. A brooding hen is supposed to lay eggs. Everytime somebody says "He's dark and brooding" I think: "He's about to lay an egg".
#
Fact
1
Not a relation of Rose Byrne.
2
Didn't start acting until he was twenty-nine years old.
3
In Live from Lincoln Center: Camelot (2008) Gabriel Byrne plays King Arthur. In Excalibur (1981) he plays Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon.
4
Cites Federico Fellini's Amarcord (1973) as one of his all-time favorite movies.
5
Learned to speak Gaelic in college and still speaks it fluently.
6
Speaks English and Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic).
7
He was a football played with the Stella Maris Football Club in Drumcondra, Dublin.
8
He's a patron of The West of Ireland Cardiology Foundation, Croi, since 1997.
9
He has Irish citizenship and resident alien status in the United States.
10
Son of Dan Byrne and Eileen Gannon.
11
Older brother of Donal, Thomas, Breda, Margaret and Marian (deceased).
12
Has appeared in 3 roles romantically opposite Laura Linney, "A Simple Twist of Fate," "P.S." and "Jindabyne.".
13
Although he separated from Ellen Barkin in 1993, he did not file for divorce until May 1999.
14
Was nominated for Broadway's 2000 Tony Award as Best Actor (Play) for a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten."
15
Autobiography titled "Pictures in My Head"
16
Educated by the Christian Brothers in Dublin.
17
He went from a priest in Stigmata (1999) to Satan in End of Days (1999).
18
In a November 1999 interview with the New York Post, he claimed to have been molested by his Latin teacher while at an English seminary preparing for priesthood.
19
Before becoming an actor, he was an archaelogist, a schoolteacher, a short-order cook, and a bullfighter.
20
Started acting at the age of 29 and he went to America for the first time when he was 37.
21
Has a son, Jack Daniel, born 1989; and a daughter, Romy Marion, born 1992.
$10 Million
