Domhnall Gleeson has spent two decades performing with the kind of understated mastery that rarely demands attention but always earns it. Now, in a move that feels both overdue and perfectly timed, he’ll be honoured with an Oscar Wilde Award at the US-Ireland Alliance’s 20th anniversary ceremony on 12 March 2026, a fixture of Oscars week that has grown into a showcase for Irish talent operating at the highest level of film and television.
This year’s celebrations will unfold at The Ebell of Los Angeles, where Gleeson will be recognised alongside actress Maura Tierney, with Irish singer Dave Lofts performing on the night. It’s the kind of deliberately intimate, industry-facing evening designed to honour craft rather than spectacle, a perfect fit for an actor whose career has been defined by depth rather than volume.
Right now, Gleeson is front and centre in The Paper, a mockumentary from The Office creator Greg Daniels and Michael Koman. The premise alone is delicious: the documentary crew that once haunted Dunder Mifflin turn their cameras on a dying local newspaper. Gleeson’s Ned Samson is its earnest, increasingly frayed editor-in-chief, an idealist clinging to journalistic integrity while everything collapses around him. The praise, naturally, has been effusive. Critics have zeroed in on his tonal dexterity: a performance pitched somewhere between dry chaos, heart, and the slow agony of someone trying to do a noble job in ignoble times.
But Gleeson’s range has never been in doubt. His roots run through Irish theatre, including a Tony-nominated turn in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore, before he began quietly stacking up a filmography most actors would kill for. Brooklyn. Ex Machina. The Revenant. About Time. And, of course, the Star Wars sequels, where his General Hux swung wildly, and entertainingly, between fascistic menace and operatic meltdown. Many first encountered him as Bill Weasley in Harry Potter, but his career since has been a study in constant reinvention.
Television has seen the same momentum. A Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice nominee for The Patient opposite Steve Carell, he’s recently appeared in Guy Ritchie’s The Fountain of Youth, Apple TV+'s thriller Echo Valley alongside Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, and earlier projects like Alice & Jack, White House Plumbers, Run, and Frank of Ireland, where his comedic instincts shone with anarchic charm.
US-Ireland Alliance president Trina Vargo remembers first seeing him as Davey in The Lieutenant of Inishmore back in 2006: “His talent was obvious twenty years ago,” she says. It’s a sentiment shared across the industry, a recognition that Gleeson hasn’t suddenly become great; he’s simply been great for a very long time, and the world is finally blinking awake to it.
The Oscar Wilde Awards have previously honoured Jessie Buckley, Eve Hewson, Kerry Condon, Pierce Brosnan and Richard Baneham. Gleeson now joins that lineage, a cohort of Irish artists who have shaped global storytelling without ever losing their sense of place.
It’s a celebration not just of a career, but of consistency, integrity, and a performer who always values substance over noise. A rare thing, and one very worthy of honour.
