Oh, to be Anon Again
(Aidan Gillen)
The Gazette (Montreal) - [June 11th, 2001]
Actors crave attention, but Queer as Folk fame is too much for Aidan Gillen.
There is more to Aidan Gillen than Queer as Folk. The Irish actor has starred in a number of high-profile British TV, indie-film and stage productions, but, for better or for worse, he is still best known for his electrifying performance as the amoral sexual predator Stuart in the ground-breaking, ultra-explicit gay series made by Channel 4.
Queer as Folk turned the 32-year-old Gillen into a star in Britain and a cult figure around the glob. To Gillen’s dismay, there are numerous fan-created Internet Web sites devoted to showcasing pictures of him from the series. Even here in Montreal, where Gillen is currently shooting the miniseries Dice, he can’t walk the streets without people stopping him to talk about Queer as Folk.
In a chat over herbal tea in a chic café on the now-trendy Mount Royal Ave, E., Gillen made it clear that he remains immensely proud of the British-made series and the edgy script by Russell T. Davies. But he is a little embarrassed by the notoriety of Queer as Folk.
“It was big exposure and I wasn’t used to that,” Gillen said. “You get people looking at you all the time, which is not great. I like to have as much anonymity as I can. I’m not saying I’m a famous person now or something. It’s just when I go up for jobs, I prefer if people don't really know who I am.”
Still, he has no regrets about starring in the compelling drama set in Manchester’s gay community. As Stuart in Queer as Folk, Gillen played a seriously tormented guy who frequently makes life difficult for his best friend, Vince (played by Craig Kelly). And carries on a tortured, steamy affair with a much younger Nathan (played by Charlie Hunnam).
“I didn’t do it because I wanted to get something out of it. I did it because I wanted to play the part,” Gillen, who is so soft-spoken it’s sometimes hard to hear him over the café’s piped-in trip-hop music. “I am genuinely not looking for massive exposure. That’s how I felt at the time. I’d just had a kid. I was pushing a pram down the road and I thought the thing for me to do now is to play a man-slut. Anything that’s different (from my own personality) is a joy for me.”
Queer as Folk also stirred up all kinds of attention in Canada, garnering strong ratings last year on Showcase and, in French, on Series +. It has done so well on Showcase that the specialty network began broadcasting the series for a third time last week, with episodes running Thursdays at midnight over the next 10 weeks.
Hunnam, Gillen’s Queer as Folk, co-star, is also in Montreal. He’s starring in the Stephen Gaghan-directed feature Abandon, alongside Benjamin Bratt and Katie Holmes.
Gillen has been here for the past month shooting Dice, a Canadian-British co-production that also stars British actress Gina McKee (Wonderland), U.S thespian Fred Ward (Henry and June), and Canadian actors Martin Cummins (Love Come Down), Brendan Fletcher (The Five Senses), Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall), Dorothy Berryman and Gary Farmer. The six-hour miniseries is directed by Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) and co-produced by Lorraine Richard and Greg Dummett of the Montreal-based production house Cite-Amerique. It is set to air this fall on the Movie network and Super-Ecran.
Gillen and he is enjoying his time in Montreal, particularly since he moved from a downtown hotel to an apartment on the Plateau along with his girlfriend and two young children.
Dice is a twisted murder mystery, not unlike David Lynch’s television series Twin Peaks, according to Gillen. A woman’s dead body is found in a small Canadian university town and a number of people are trying to track down the killer, including Glen Taylor, played by Aidan Gillen. He is a psychology researcher who uses dice-throwing as a way to remove harmful internal blocks and conflicts.
Gillen says Dice is “not average TV fare,” which is why he agreed to do it. He is attracted to off-mainstream projects and, until now, hasn’t made much of an effort to appear in more obviously commercial films and TV series.
Since Queer as Folk, he has worked on three films, all indie British pictures. He starred in The Low Down as a 30-year-old trying to figure out what to do with his life, a role that won him the best newcomer award at last year’s Edinburgh Film Festival. In The Final Curtain, a film penned by John Hodge (Trainspotting), Gillen and Peter O’Toole play rival game-show hosts.
“I was well impressed with (O’Toole),” Gillen said. “He’s charming and gentle and smart.”
The third film is My Kingdom, a contemporary update of King Lear focusing on a Liverpudlian crime family, with Richard Harris as the patriarch crime boss. Gillen has also been returned to the theatre, most recently playing Ariel in The Tempest at the Almeida Theatre in London.
I’m not in a rush to go large,” said Gillen. “You can get to play more interesting parts in smaller-scale stuff. But I want to do all kinds of different things. I don’t want to be in rubbish though. I’d rather be in something small that’s good than something that pays a little money and its rubbish.”
