My Bias for Petyr Baelish aka My Fascination with the Actor Aidan Gillen

Courtesy Other Voices RTE

Brothels make a much better investment than ships, I find – whores rarely sink

 ~Lord Petyr Baelish

You don't realize you've seen him before until someone points it out. Hello, I'm someone.

A while back I posted about my love affair with Stuart Alan Jones - Aidan's character on the 1999 show Queer as Folk UK http://paulasmusicjourney.blogspot.com/2014/01/my-love-affair-with-stuart-alan-jones.html

Aidan Gillen is one of the most superb actors that I have been enchanted with since I first saw him in 1995's  Circle of Friends. By the way this movie also stars Alan Cumming and Colin Firth. Cute actor I was smitten with. But then I saw how good of an actor he really was when I saw Some Mother's Son.

The film is the story of the 1981 Hunger Strike in Northern Ireland. Aidan, along with (swoon) David O'Hara, play IRA prisoners who embark on the hunger strike with their comrades, while their mother's are caught between honoring what their sons want and keeping their sons alive.

The Wire - yes, he played Tony Carcetti, the cheating, idealistic,  fast- tracking politician Mayor Carcetti in the critically acclaimed HBO drama.

Mr John is about a  very dark and sad journey that Aidan's character, Gerry, goes on in his deceased brother's home in Singapore.



You might have seen Mr. Gillen gracing the screen in The Dark Knight Rises,  his brilliantly quiet performance in Shadow Dancer, his outstanding portrayal of an eccentric man in Treacle Jr, Identity, and more recently, in Beneath the Harvest Sky. The most dramatic change from his Irish boy cuteness, has to be his portrayal of Irish politician Charles Haughey in the three part mini-series. With over 37 films 26 tv shows leads or appearances, and 19 theatre productions to his name, he's earned the reputation of being a tremendously great actor that is able to morph into any type of character from a medieval Lord to a drug smuggling divorced father from Maine.  His penchant seems to be characters with secrets, eccentric traits, and he plays evil, dark characters with frightening perfection.

So this brings us to Game of Thrones. Yes, Petyr Baelish is an evil, conniving, jealous, back stabbing medieval pimp who worships the daughter of the woman he could not have. What's so wrong about me having a little soft spot for the guy?

And how is any of Aidan Gillen relevant to my music blog? He has been hosting the weekly Irish music show, Other Voices. It's like a visual version of Fordham University's WFUV. They film live, local artists at Dingle's St. James Church. What I love about the show is that it not only introduces you to new artists that you probably would not see here in the states for a year or so, but it showcases how much the Irish love their music.

AND ... he also "stars" along with a snail and a hurt fox in Sigur Ros' Ekki Mukk video.

Hope you have enjoyed this! And of course, enjoy more of my weekly sympathy posts towards Petyr Baelish.

And thank you to Jen and Alison who inspired me to throw this post together.

Jen: Paula, I think you're the only person who feels sympathy for Peter ;)

Paula: I think you're right. It's like having sympathy for Judas, isn't it?

Jen: I dunno. At least Judas was fulfilling a predestined biblical role. This might be worse :)