Gillen stars in Angelina Jolie’s new thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, arriving in Irish cinemas next week.
Aidan Gillen has had a long and successful career out of being the bad guy.
Sure, there are probably examples across his impressive CV where he wasn’t playing an antagonist of some description, but none are coming to mind right now.
That’s because what immediately springs to mind when you think of Aidan Gillen are his nefarious performances in the likes of Game of Thrones, The Wire, Love/Hate, Peaky Blinders, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Dark Knight Rises, Shanghai Knights… we could go on and on.
Some people are just good at being bad, and Aidan Gillen is one of those people.
And so it is with his new movie Those Who Wish Me Dead, in which he plays a ruthless assassin hot on the trail of a young boy who witnessed a horrific crime, and a local firefighter (Angelina Jolie) who is trying to keep the young boy alive.
Gillen is paired with another assassin (played by Nicholas Hoult), and the duo are basically Terminators-in-suits, never letting anything slow them down or get in between them and their target.
In the run-up to the movie’s release, JOE was lucky enough to chat to two of the movie’s stars, and you can check out our interview with Jolie and Medina Senghore right here:
In the interview, we wanted to know from the stars whether or not it was easier for them to stay distanced from Gillen and Hoult throughout the shoot, considering how their characters interact on screen? Or is it a case that once the director shouts “Cut!”, everyone just goes back to normal and hanging out?
Senghore told us: “Well what happened in this instance was that having time together at the start made the scene that much easier, because Aidan [Gillen] is so cool and laid-back and charming, and the same with Nicholas Hoult, but then when they showed up in the scene, all the warmth in those bodies was gone.”
“And they literally, energetically, felt cold. And when you’re working with actors like that, they do the work for you, because it’s like “Oh, I’m in the presence of evil!” And that’s just a testament to what they show up with, so… I enjoyed meeting them as people, but it was terrifying working with them as the villains.”
Those Who Wish Me Dead will arrive in Irish cinemas on Monday, 7 June.
Clip via WB UK & Ireland
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
