November 23, 1999
Gabriel Byrne last played a Jesuit priest in Stigmata, and in End of Days, opening Wednesday, he plays Satan himself opposite mortal hero Arnold Schwarzenegger. Are the Irish actor's recent choices in roles significant?
"There's no significance to my choices - it's just a part in a film," says Byrne, who actually studied for the priesthood. He tells the New York Post, "I like to just go from one thing to another. It's not like [these roles] are some kind of examination of who I am spiritually," he says. "I don't believe in acting as catharsis or therapy. I don't believe in bringing your work home with you, in 'becoming' a character. You do this job, you go home."
The good-looking actor claims, "There's not that much difference between playing a priest and playing the devil. One role is playing a good man who's lost his faith. The other is playing a man who believes he's good and who has lost his soul. So, therefore, the sense of torment is the same."
But the actor also reveals he's known his own religious hell. He bared his soul in an interview with the Post, saying that as a schoolboy in Dublin he was beaten by the Christian Brothers. Later, while at an English seminary preparing for the priesthood, his Latin teacher sexually abused him, the 49-year-old actor reveals.
But Byrne says he's no longer bitter and, although he flirted with atheism in his 20s, is now a man of faith. "Like most children who are abused, I did feel a sense of shame," admits the actor. "I had a tremendous battle with confidence and lack of self esteem. It definitely created in me a sense of, 'what did I do wrong and how can I make that right,' even though I didn't know what I did wrong."
He adds, "When you're hit and beaten and abused as a child you believe that you deserve it. You can't make sense of it and the resolution of your shame is, in some ways, about finding some kind of acceptance."
Byrne, who turned to acting after a stint as a Spanish teacher, says, "Acting isn't about confidence. It's about finding approval at a mass level. It's trying to make up, in many cases, for the love and approval that you didn't get as a child."
Byrne has two children himself, a boy and girl, from his marriage to Ellen Barkin. His ex-wife was reportedly set to tie the knot with billionaire Ronald Perelman Dec. 2, according to the New York Daily News, but Perelman's custody battle with his ex, and the fact that Byrne's divorce isn't yet final, temporarily halted the proceedings. But what's the great import of his millennial showdown with the Terminator? "It's just a movie at the end of the day. It's not an examination of the nature of good and evil. It's a shoot-'em-up," laughs the actor.
In a separate interview in men's magazine Maxim, the conversation was of a far more earthly (even carnal) nature. What actresses wouldn't the dark-haired actor have minded trying to impregnate in End of Days? "Jeez, several women I know could easily qualify to be the breeding ground of Satan," Byrne says. "Kim Basinger, Bridget Fonda, Julia Ormond, Elizabeth Hurley - they could all receive the devil's seed."
Remembering back to his Little Women co-star Winona Ryder, 21 years his junior, Byrne says, "Winona has beautiful lips and is a really good kisser. I've found age means nothing in relationships. It's meaningless."
The actor reveals that he's done fighting over women, however. In an incident from his past, Byrne tangled with some sailors over a girl, and one of them pulled a knife, leaving him with an 11-inch scar over his stomach.
Who knew that taking on Schwarzenegger was the safer career path?