Kin actor Aidan Gillen — ‘An Oscar is definitely not something I am striving after. Maybe a swimming plaque’

Aidan Gillen has a reputation for being laconic and standoffish. But over the course of two hours with Barry Egan, he holds forth on his childhood in 1970s Dublin, being broke in ’80s London, fatherhood, getting older, nearly choking to death at the ‘not amazing’ new Puss In Boots film and why acting was never on the cards

"My hit rate was pretty high, but there’s always something in there that was a wrong move." Aidan Gillen. Photo: Steve Humphreys.

Barry Egan

Aidan Gillen has a reputation for saying very little in his rare interactions with the media. The Guardian wrote in 2012 that the mercurial actor once said he hates small talk. “But then he doesn’t appear to be a great fan of big talk either. He speaks in haltingly pregnant sentences, filled with tormented pauses that make you feel as though each word has been given up only under sufferance,” the journalist wrote.

Today, each word comes with something approaching a liberating seal of approval. He was out until 6am after The Dublin International Film Festival and has only had a few hours’ sleep. Meeting Life magazine at 12.30pm in the Number 31 hotel off Leeson Street, he is nursing a vodka and Coke — “a cure” — in a suite.