Domn­hall Glee­son talks Star Wars: Episode VII

To say that the next few months are shap­ing up nice­ly for Domh­nall Glee­son would be a huge under­state­ment. With Brook­lyn receiv­ing its Euro­pean pre­mière at the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val this month, Ale­jan­dro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant near­ing com­ple­tion and the small mat­ter of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awak­ens hit­ting cin­e­mas before Christ­mas, the 32-year-old Irish actor’s stock looks set to go stratos­pher­ic. LWLies met up with Glee­son this week and couldn’t resist ask­ing him about Star Wars. Here’s what he had to say about how direc­tor JJ Abrams approached the project:

“On every job it’s nev­er just, ​‘We’re mak­ing a movie…’ it’s, ​‘We’re mak­ing a movie!’ Obvi­ous­ly Star Wars is a mas­sive cul­tur­al event, there’s no get­ting away from that. I think the excite­ment of it being Star Wars is always going to be there, that’s not some­thing you need to look after and try to cul­ti­vate. But you have to make a good film, that’s the aim. The way JJ approached it was as a film, which has pos­si­bil­i­ties and prob­lems just like any film, and so it became about try­ing to solve the prob­lems and mak­ing the most of the pos­si­bil­i­ties. From the start it was about char­ac­ter and sto­ry and how we’re going to con­nect with the audience.

“The fact that JJ is also bril­liant at doing action and spec­ta­cle is obvi­ous­ly a mas­sive bonus, because you know all that stuff is being looked after. He can direct the hell out of a scene, too. I real­ly enjoyed work­ing with him. It’s a Star Wars film, but it’s a JJ Abrams film first and fore­most. So I’m excit­ed to see it not just because it’s a Star Wars film, but because I think, away from every­thing, it’s going to be a real­ly good stand-alone film.”

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awak­ens is released 17 Decem­ber. Read our full inter­view with Domh­nall Glee­son in LWLies 63, on sale mid December.