Aidan Gillen (born
Aidan Murphy;
24 April 1968) is an Irish stage and screen
actor, best known in the UK for his role as Stuart Jones in the ground-breaking
Channel 4 television series
Queer as Folk. He is perhaps best known to US audiences for his role in
HBO's hit television series
The Wire in which he plays
Tommy Carcetti, a city councilman of
Baltimore.
Life and career
Gillen was born in the
Drumcondra suburb of
Dublin,
Ireland, and educated at
St. Vincent's C.B.S.,
Glasnevin. He began his acting career as a teenager with
Dublin Youth Theatre, at the age of 16 playing Bottom in
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the
Project Arts Centre,
[Guardian interview by Mark Lawson, 3 October 2007] before moving to
London.
He is perhaps best known in the UK for his role as Stuart Alan Jones in the ground-breaking British television series,
Queer as Folk, and its sequel,
Queer as Folk 2, for which he was nominated for the
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 2000. American audiences know him best for his role as
Tommy Carcetti in
HBO's television series
The Wire.
Gillen was nominated for a
Tony Award for his highly acclaimed
Broadway role in
Harold Pinter's
The Caretaker in 2003. He has also been nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award for his portrayal of Teach in the Dublin
Gate Theatre's 2007 production of
David Mamet's
American Buffalo'.
Gillen appeared alongside the professional wrestler
John Cena in the 2009 film
12 Rounds.
In July 2009, he appeared in a one-off
BBC2 drama
Freefall along with
Dominic Cooper and
Sarah Harding.
In 2001, Gillen married his girlfriend Olivia O'Flanagan and they have two children, Berry (born in 1997) and Joe (born in 2000). They have separated but remain close friends and are often seen together. In 2009, Gillen won an
Irish Film and Television Awards award for his role in
The Wire which he dedicated to Olivia and their two children.
Stage and screen credits
Filmography
- The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987, credited as Aidan Murphy)
- The Courier (1988)
- An Ungentlemanly Act (1992, TV) as Marine Wilcox
- Safe (1993, TV) as Gypo
- A Handful of Stars (1993, TV) as Tony
- Belfry (1993, TV) as Dominic
- Circle of Friends (1995) as Aidan
- Some Mother's Son (1996) as Gerard Quigley
- Gold in the Streets (1996) as Paddy
- Mojo (1997) as Baby
- Amazing Grace (1998) as Young Man
- Buddy Boy (1999) as Francis
- Lorna Doone (2000, TV) as Carver Doone
- The Darkling (2000, TV) as Jeff Obold
- The Low Down (2000) as Frank (Best Newcomer, Edinburgh Film Festival
[Gillen's programme CV, 2007])
- The Second Death (2000) as Pool Player 1
- My Kingdom (2001) as Puttnam
- The Final Curtain (2002) as Dave Turner
- Poirot: Five Little Pigs (2003, TV) as Amyas Crale
- Burning The Bed (2003) as Stephen
- Shanghai Knights (2003) as Lord Nelson Rathbone
- Photo Finish (2003)
- Guns, Money and Homecooking (2005) as Tony
- Trouble with Sex (2005) as Conor
- Blackout (2007) as Karl
- 12 Rounds (2009) as Miles Jackson
- Blitz (2009)
[Full Casting for Recently Completed 'Blitz']
Television
Television includes:
Theatre
- Juno and the Paycock, Soldier (National Theatre, Lyttelton 1989)
- The Long Way Round, Albin (National Theatre: Cottesloe 1989)
- The Water Engine, Bernie (Hampstead Theatre 1989)
- The Wexford Trilogy: Tony in A Handful of Stars and Dominic in Belfry (Bush Theatre 1992)
- Marvin's Room, Hank (Hampstead Theatre and Comedy Theatre 1993)
- The Playboy of the Western World, Christopher Mahon (Almeida Theatre 1994)
- Mojo, Skinny (Royal Court Theatre 1995)
- The Tempest, Ariel (Almeida Theatre 2000)
- Platonov, Platonov (Almeida Theatre 2001)
- The Caretaker, Mick (Roundabout Theatre, New York 2003)
- Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Edward (New Ambassadors Theatre 2005)
- American Buffalo, Teach (Gate Theatre, Dublin 2007)
- Glengarry Glen Ross, Richard Roma (Apollo Theatre 2007)
[Gillen's own CV in the Apollo Theatre programme, 2007; checked against and with additional material from]
Theatre Record and its annual Indexes
