Brendan Gleeson says he is ‘tired’ of watching fatherhood portrayed as ‘toxic’

By Lauren Del Fabbro, PA Entertainment Reporter

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson has said that not every father is “toxic” and that he is “tired” of watching fatherhood portrayed so poorly on screen.

The 70-year old, best known for The Banshees Of Inisherin, stars alongside The Crown actress Claire Foy in the biographical drama, H Is For Hawk.

The film follows Cambridge academic Helen MacDonald (Foy) who, while coping with the grief of her father’s death, builds an unlikely friendship with a stubborn hawk named Mabel.

Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Gleeson, who plays Helen’s beloved father, Alisdair MacDonald, emphasised the importance of celebrating fatherhood on screen.

The Hollywood star told the PA news agency: “I think dads have got an awful hard time lately. And I don’t believe that every dad is toxic, and I don’t think anybody else does either.

“I think I suddenly got very tired of watching fatherhood portrayed as something that was almost an abuse, or that was toxic in some way, or in some way truncated by where you had these emotionally stunted people walking around that couldn’t hug their kids, whatever it was.”

The film, which is based on the memoir of the same name by Helen MacDonald, is centred around her grief for her father which Gleeson said says “so much more about what is really important about paternity, and what is really important about fatherhood, and why the beauty that is within of that, needs to be celebrated”.

“I think young men need to see it. It needs to be reaffirmed,” he said.

“I really just want to celebrate paternity and how much and how deeply it affects things.

“I think this particular film is so beautiful in the way that that’s what it’s trying to do. The memory of this man is that he was a proper, good man who gave love to his daughter.”

Speaking about his own experience of fatherhood, Gleeson said: “When I had my kids, I realised I no longer have the option to be pessimistic. I bought in to the life. So optimism now is a duty, not a choice.”

The Oscar-nominated actor starred alongside Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan in The Banshees Of Inisherin as well as 2008’s In Bruges and appeared in the Harry Potter films as Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody.