{"id":2570,"date":"2026-06-20T10:37:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T10:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2570"},"modified":"2026-06-20T10:37:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T10:37:36","slug":"game-of-thrones-star-aidan-gillen-on-golden-age-of-f-ing-brilliant-british-drama-and-why-theres-too-much-stuff-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2570","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 Star Aidan Gillen on Golden Age of \u2018F\u2014ing Brilliant\u2019 British Drama and Why There\u2019s \u2018Too Much\u2019 Stuff on TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\t\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and \u201cPeaky Blinders\u201d alum Aidan Gillen waxed nostalgic about the golden age of British drama at the Transilvania Intl. Film Festival and argued that there\u2019s \u201ctoo much\u201d content clogging the airwaves for today\u2019s TV consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2568\">Tony Leung Reflects on \u2018Silent Friend,\u2019 Wong Kar-wai and Why His Films Must Be Seen in Cinemas at Shanghai Masterclass<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cI just think there\u2019s so much stuff. Even the TV stuff now is being designed to try and give you these little [dopamine] hits now and then,\u201d he said. \u201cEven the sophisticated, high-end TV stuff is also being dumbed down a little to try and keep people interested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHe added: \u201cThere\u2019s too much on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Irish screen star, who\u2019s serving on the international competition jury this week in Transilvania, is also on hand to promote his latest films: 2025 Tribeca premiere \u201cRe-Creation,\u201d\u00a0an Ireland-set drama\u00a0from directors David Merriman and Jim Sheridan based on the real-life murder case of French producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, and\u00a0\u201cGorky Resort,\u201d director \u0141ukasz Po\u0142kowski\u2019s historical drama about\u00a0a young Polish lieutenant in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSpeaking to a full house during an hour-long masterclass at the Transilvania festival, Gillen opened up about his career on screen, reminiscing about iconic roles in series including \u201cGame of Thrones,\u201d \u201cThe Wire\u201d and \u201cPeaky Blinders\u201d and describing how he broke into the British theater scene as a precocious teenager.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not a trained actor. I didn\u2019t go to drama school. I was very keen to get out of school as soon as I was able to,\u201d Gillen said. \u201cI found the classroom environment extremely stifling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Irish actor said he turned to on-the-job training instead, joining a theater group at the age of 14 and devouring VHS tapes from a local rental shop, \u201cwatching everything from the arthouse European stuff to horror movies to Westerns to Merchant Ivory stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAt the age of 18,\u00a0he moved to London, where he soon found work at the Bush Theatre, a celebrated yet intimate venue that he credits with teaching him the essentials of his craft. His first big break came with a role in \u201cSafe,\u201d a\u00a0gritty 1993 BBC drama from director Antonia Bird in which he starred opposite\u00a0Kate Hardie as a young homeless man scraping by on the streets of London.\u00a0Looking back, he described that period as a golden age for British TV.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cYou could make these quite out-there, daring dramas with no interference that would end up on television, and like 10 million people would see it. It was quite incredible,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t really do that anymore. They stopped making that stuff and started making \u2018Ballroom Dancing With the Stars.\u2019 People used to watch that stuff. It wasn\u2019t just, \u2018Oh, this is highbrow art stuff.\u2019 It was like, \u2018This is fucking brilliant drama.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2566\">Justin Cary, Sixpence None the Richer Bassist, Dies at 50<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tFollowing the success of \u201cSafe,\u201d which won a BAFTA for best single drama, Gillen had a starring role in \u201cQueer as Folk,\u201d\u00a0Russell T. Davies\u2019 groundbreaking\u00a0series about queer life in Britain in the 1990s, before crossing the pond to play the venal Baltimore politician Tommy Carcetti in HBO\u2019s \u201cThe Wire.\u201d Soon after came perhaps his most iconic roles, as power player Petyr \u201cLittlefinger\u201d Baelish in \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and the assassin and bounty hunter Aberama Gold in \u201cPeaky Blinders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThough Gillen rued a general decline since the peak of prestige TV\u2019s golden age, he said there\u2019s still \u201cloads of really daring stuff happening in television,\u201d crediting shows like \u201cPluribus\u201d for their \u201creally sophisticated\u201d storytelling.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWhile pining for the good ol\u2019 days before \u201cyou [had] to subscribe to all these streamers,\u201d the actor admitted that \u201cmaybe me going on about this is like the time that radio came in, and your great-grandparents were going, \u2018This thing is like the devil\u2019s work.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cTV was like that when I was a teenager. \u2018TV is going to kill our kids.\u2019 And I used to come home from school and go to bed\u2026and watch like 10 hours of TV,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIt is perhaps that childhood sense of awe and wonder, he said, that still drives him as an actor.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cOne of the reasons I wanted to become an actor is because\u2026I always saw the world as a really amazing playground \u2014 a work of art, a living dream. I wanted to be part of that and part of painting that picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cIt was the doing of the thing. Not the finished product, not the hotel room, not going to a film festival and walking on the red carpet or being famous or any of that stuff. I was never interested \u2014 and I\u2019m still not \u2014 in any of that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the actual working \u2014 going in and doing it on the day \u2014 that\u2019s what excites me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2564\">\u2018Pluribus\u2019 Star Rhea Seehorn on Why She Hasn\u2019t Grilled Vince Gilligan and the Writers About Season 2 Just Yet<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Transilvania Intl. Film Festival runs June 12 \u2013 21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Irish actor Aidan Gillen opened up about a career on screen at the Transilvania Intl. Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2187,983,2188,1679],"class_list":["post-2570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv","tag-aidan-gillen","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-peaky-blinders","tag-transilvania-film-festival"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 Star Aidan Gillen on Golden Age of \u2018F\u2014ing Brilliant\u2019 British Drama and Why There\u2019s \u2018Too Much\u2019 Stuff on TV - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2570\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 Star Aidan Gillen on Golden Age of \u2018F\u2014ing Brilliant\u2019 British Drama and Why There\u2019s \u2018Too Much\u2019 Stuff on TV - Relocation Observer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Irish actor Aidan Gillen opened up about a career on screen at the Transilvania Intl. 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