Seldom out of work or out of the public eye, versatile, hard working, Tony Award winning, Oscar nominated Gabriel Byrne has appeared in more than fifty films and miniseries to date. Three films are being released back-to-back this Fall and Winter: Vanity Fair, with Reese Witherspoon; Shade, with Melanie Griffith and Sylvester Stallone; and The Bridge of San Louis Rey, with Robert DeNiro. Two more are in post-production for release in 2005. Byrne, born 54 years ago in Dublin, sat down recently to share with us his intimate thoughts on his life and his career.

Interview by ALVINA COLLARDEAU

You didn't set out to be an actor at first. What did you do before this?

GABRIEL BYRNE: I tried various things. I was a Spanish teacher for a while. I worked in factories. I actually worked for a brief period of time as a film critic in Dublin. I didn't even know what I was doing [Chuckles] but it got me free passes into the movies. It was all part of that process of finding out what it is that I wanted to do. But to me, the notion of becoming an actor was as incomprehensible as becoming an astronaut. I didn't think that anybody like me could ever make a living as an actor. And so I was quite late before I started. I was 27 years of age.

What do you like the most about being an actor?

The journey of making films and being in cinema is a wonderful, exciting journey because you really get to meet people and experience things that you would never, ever get the opportunity to do in any other walk of life.

And now you're not only an actor, but also a writer, a director, even an Oscar nominated producer [for the film, “In the Name of the Father”]. Having worked "in the system," how do you feel about Hollywood?

Hollywood is a factory. It produces a product called film — and that's its job. It never pretended to be anything else. Nobody in Hollywood ever sat down and said, "Hey guys, let's make a really good film." People sat down and said, "How can we make money out of this idea?" I think people in Hollywood think that the people out there are massive dummies that just have to be marketed and targeted properly, and they'll actually swallow anything… I think that people are much more clued in and much more intelligent than they're actually allowed to be.

What does being famous mean to you?

People pursue fame for all kinds of reasons. But fame, I know this much, does not make you happy. And
fame brings with it a lot of things that are buried beneath the surface. It's like walking across a field of land mines. You don't know when it's going to explode in your face. And it's a funny irony that people spend so much of their lives chasing things. And as soon as they get it, they go into seclusion. And hide behind big bars and gates and houses and publicists and all that kind of stuff. You know, I worked with an actress who one day said, "I've just got another death threat against my kids." Because some psycho had singled her out to be the object of his psychosis.

If fame doesn't bring you happiness… what does?

An approving word from my kids. Acknowledgement, like a compliment. A dinner with friends in the evening. Walking through the park in the morning. Small, little things. They're the things that make me happy.

Let's talk about women.

[laughs] You know, I've never lost that kind of adolescent excitement I've had around women. I really like the company of women. I love hanging out with women. In fact, I prefer hanging out with women more than I prefer hanging out with men.

In your eyes, what makes a woman sexy?

Well, first of all I think true sexiness is something that comes from within. I really don't think it's a thing that you can manufacture. Essentially, it's something that comes out of the person that they don't even know about. That's the sexiest thing… somebody who doesn't know. And that really has very little to do with age, or the way you look, or whether you're a man or a woman, it's just there.

You've been single for a while now. Do you have any “worst-date-scenario” stories?

Yeah. Everybody, I think, has stories about things that didn't kind of pan-out the way they hoped they would.

Tell us one of yours.

I remember… I met this girl in Los Angeles. This is a few years ago. And this girl believed that sex was about gadgets. So she would bring a briefcase full of gadgets that all had different names. [laughs]

And…?

Well, I got to know quite a few of her "friends." That was a bizarre experience because it had nothing to do with the normal kind of flow of intimacy that goes between two people who are in a relationship. The attaché case was always there! [laughs]

What, to you, is love?

For women, sex and love tend to be intertwined. But I think for men, love and sex are oftentimes two separate things.

But you must have experienced the feeling of having both the chemistry and the emotional bond of love?

Yes. I've been lucky enough to have had that a couple of times. And a couple of times, I regard as being a lot... If it happens once, it's fantastic!

You were married to, and now you're divorced from, actress Ellen Barkin with whom you've had two children. In retrospect, what do you think makes a marriage successful?

A marriage can last a particular length of time and dissolve, and it can still be successful. I think that if you commit and you're faithful and you try to grow and you do the best that you can, that's it. That, to me is a success. I still think stigma is attached to people who are divorced, that it's regarded as some kind of a failure. But I don't regard myself as being a failure at marriage. I believe in it as an institution, and I hope one day, I may get married again.

It seems you're now on friendly terms with your ex-wife. How did you achieve that?

To make a peaceful, amicable relationship between two people who are no longer in love with each other, the way they were, requires a great deal of effort, sacrifice and bravery. One of the things I'm most proud of, is that my ex-wife and I have worked out a relationship whereby respect is always at the center of it. And most of all, you've got to think of your children first — because for the children, you are still the mother and the father. We are both co-parents, and our children know that.

You studied to become a priest when you were a teenager in Ireland. Why did you leave the seminary?

I left the Catholic Church because I suffered what you might call a crisis of faith. I just woke up one day and said, "I don't believe this anymore."   And so, how could I go on to be a priest — and you know, I spent four and a half years in the seminary — if I didn't believe? The Catholicism that I grew up with was a Catholicism of fear. It was literally Hellfire. To tell a five-year-old child that if he does this he would burn in hell for eternity is to me, not a way that I want to raise my children. I'm not saying that my childhood was any more difficult than others, but Catholicism in Ireland was a very repressive and an extremely cruel, oftentimes way of living life. Also, The Catholic Church insists that their priests still be celibate.

Do you disagree with that?

Celibacy in terms of the Catholic Church is something that people think was handed down by Christ to the apostles. But it was actually invented in the sixth century by the church in Rome because they were tired of paying for the illegitimate offspring of priests. So they invented celibacy. Now, in my opinion, sex and family are two great gifts, and if there is a God and he has given the gift of sex to people, to pervert that in some way by taking it away from them — is an outrage against humanity. And it's led to all kinds of abuses. Unfortunately, that kind of perverted thinking was part of the way I grew up. So when I did grow up and started to think for myself, I wanted to leave that behind.

Is there a difference for you between Religion and Spirituality?

Spirituality, for me, is about being in connection with your soul. It's about trying to find out who you are. What your role and path in life is. It's about freedom to explore the nature of the spirit. It's not confined by rules. Whereas religion is about order and ritual and regulation and dogma. And I don't believe that the human spirit should be channeled in that way.

What is your life's biggest lesson?

Nobody is promised tomorrow. Live every day as if it is your last, and one day you'll be right. I think that every day is a gift and we waste it at our own peril. You don't get that time back again. People are extremely precious. Friendship is precious. Family is precious. Life itself is precious beyond measure. And it's all so fragile.

©2004 EXCLUSIVE PRESS