Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his role in Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe, for which he won Best Actor Award at 1998 Cannes Film Festival. He is also winner of the World Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performances at 2011 Sundance Film Festival for his work on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur. Mullan appeared as supporting or guest actor in numerous cult movies, including Ken Loach's Riff-Raff, Mel Gibson's Braveheart, Danny Boyle's...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth2 November 1959
In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't just want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore.
When things are really painful, I turn it into comedy.
Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do.
Part of the reason why movie bosses are so obsessed with crime movies is because they know that world and the criminals. And that's what they are - they would not hesitate to act illegally to achieve profit and gain.
The films that I really enjoy now are films that are made by, for wont of a better word, mavericks.
I love acting. It's the one job I know of where you can go in, go through complete catharsis - emotionally, physically sometimes and mentally - and at the end of the day say, 'See you in the pub, guys.
If you are the kind of guy who draws in 100 million people to see his film, you've got every right to be paid accordingly, but I qualify as a character actor. I don't put a bum on a seat.
I guess I'm part of the art house, but we really have to shake up our ideas, because we're kind of self-parodying ourselves. We go places commercial cinema doesn't go, but sometimes it's to our own detriment.
What point is there to all the wealth and power that America may have if they can't look after its own?
Truth is I don't think God on a daily basis. I think politics, science.
Watching people just look out for themselves, I think, is extremely interesting. It goes right back to something like 'The Beggar's Opera' - the underbelly of society, how it operates, and how that reflects their so-called betters.
There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.
I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!
In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of.