{"id":121231,"date":"2025-10-14T10:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121231\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T10:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:46:07","slug":"i-got-very-tired-of-watching-fatherhood-portrayed-as-something-that-was-almost-an-abuse-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121231\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I got very tired of watching fatherhood portrayed as something that was almost an abuse\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actor Brendan Gleeson<\/a> has said that not every father is \u201ctoxic\u201d and that he is \u201ctired\u201d of watching fatherhood portrayed so poorly on screen.<\/p>\n

The 70-year old, known for his roles in Harry Potter, In Bruges<\/a> and The Banshees Of Inisherin<\/a>, stars alongside The Crown<\/a> actor Claire Foy<\/a> in the biographical drama, H Is For Hawk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film follows Cambridge academic Helen MacDonald (Foy) who, while coping with the grief of her father\u2019s death, builds an unlikely friendship with a stubborn hawk named Mabel.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, Gleeson, who plays Helen\u2019s beloved father, Alisdair MacDonald, emphasised the importance of celebrating fatherhood on screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think dads have got an awful hard time lately. And I don\u2019t believe that every dad is toxic, and I don\u2019t think anybody else does either,\u201d Gleeson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 where you had these emotionally stunted people walking around that couldn\u2019t hug their kids, whatever it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film, which is based on the memoir of the same name<\/a> by Helen MacDonald, is centred around her grief for her father which Gleeson said says \u201cso 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think young men need to see it. It needs to be reaffirmed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really just want to celebrate paternity and how much and how deeply it affects things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this particular film is so beautiful in the way that that\u2019s what it\u2019s trying to do. The memory of this man is that he was a proper, good man who gave love to his daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brendan Gleeson: \u2018I can\u2019t go into a pub any more. I really miss it\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking about his own experience of fatherhood, Gleeson added: \u201cWhen 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.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Actor Brendan Gleeson has said that not every father is \u201ctoxic\u201d and that he is \u201ctired\u201d of watching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[26674,26675,18,117,19,17,327,11997],"class_list":{"0":"post-121231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-brendan-gleeson","9":"tag-claire-foy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-parents"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}