Brendan Gleeson: Hospices a beacon of goodness amid negativity in the world

Hospices are a “beacon” showcasing the best of humanity at a time when there is a lot of negativity and anxiety in the world, actor Brendan Gleeson has said.

The Irish star, who has featured in films including The Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges, is asking the public to support a nationwide fundraising campaign for hospices.

The Oscar-nominated actor, who has fronted several campaigns championing hospices, said Irish people are generally good at confronting death.

“If you don’t take on board how final death is, you don’t really get a proper perspective on how delicious life can be,” he told the PA news agency in Bewley’s Cafe in Dublin city.

“The hospice movement generally has been a kind of a little bit of a beacon, in the sense that it’s given a degree of positivity to the way life is framed, which I find really refreshing.”

Both of Gleeson’s parents, Pat and Francis, spent their final days in St Francis Hospice in Dublin.

“The hospice found a way for me to be able to say goodbye to my parents in a way that seemed actually beautiful,” he said.

“I found that a remarkable triumph over circumstance, and it gave me kind of a faith in the humanity it takes to make that happen, because it doesn’t happen by mistake.”

He added: “At the moment, I can have a chat at any point with the memory of when my folks were well and not fighting the last throes of life – when they were in their fullness. So, I can have the conversation with those entities and so I feel they’re never really gone.

“With the hospice, you feel this is something that’s perpetuating a feeling that goodness is paramount within this particular world and it’s very hard to keep that front and centre the way things are happening.

“There’s an awful lot of negativity, anxiety – and a lot of it well-founded – but it’s always been this way. We’ve always been careering towards our own destruction and, at the same time, elevating ourselves beyond any other life form, and it’s just the human condition.

“So, I find tipping the scales on the good side is the hospice movement and I feel honoured to be a part of it.”

People who wish to register to host a coffee morning on September 26, or on a different date, can visit hospicecoffeemorning.ie or make a donation on the same website.

Gleeson said it was exciting that an in-patient unit with 24 single rooms was planned for St Francis Hospice, which would offer more privacy to families and their loved ones.

He said his father Francis spent time in a four-bed room: “The conversation was a little inhibited; you are in hearing distance of others, trying not to earwig, and at the same time attempting an intimate conversation with your loved one in quite a loud voice.

“Because patients are at that stage, you have to speak fairly loudly. Single rooms make it so much easier.”

The Dubliner was speaking before travelling to Los Angeles ahead of the worldwide release of his latest work in Joker: Folie a Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga.

He said he agreed to take part in the movie because he thought Phoenix’s performance in Joker was “one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen”.

He said the actor “inhabited this extraordinary place that’s so conflicting, that’s so sympathetic in some ways, and utterly repulsive in others”.

“It took the idea of mental instability into a place where we have to accept some culpability when it gets out of control, and at the same time there’s an element of wildness in that, where you’re sort of saying, I don’t know if anybody can contain what’s been released now.”

He said it is “increasingly difficult” to get a storyline like that offered by the Banshees of Inisherin, as there is a trend of cinema emphasising visuals and action sequences.

But he said that when done right, superheroes are just a different way of “exploring the nature of humanity”, and cited Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight as “proper character study”.

Turning to the Phoenix Joker movies, he said: “I was mesmerised by the first film and thrilled to be a part of the second.

“I haven’t seen it yet, but I just love the bravery of taking it on and bringing Lady Gaga into the mix, and… having music as a part of it. I can’t wait to see it, to be honest.”

Gleeson, who turns 70 next March, said that he is aware of his age, but said he was once told “good health is a golden crown which only those who are ill can see”.

“I try to keep an eye on the crown and as long as I’m motoring around alright, I appreciate life.”

He told PA: “I do think that curiosity, the maintenance of curiosity in the freshness of the world, and seeing the world again in the framework of how precious it is and how transient, if you can maintain it, then life keeps coming up with things that are wonderful. We all know it can be the simplest thing in the world.

“The mortality thing, I understand – you do the math, as I say. But I feel in bonus country, in a way. I’ve been allowed to see my kids grow up. I’ve been allowed to see things through a little bit.

“It’s all bonus country anyway. So we continue with the bonus country.”