Domhnall Gleeson Says He Wore a Perm for Five Months for His Latest Comedy Role

Character actors often go to strange lengths to fully inhabit a role, but few transformations linger quite as long after the cameras stop rolling as a bad perm. Domhnall Gleeson has built a career on disappearing into wildly different parts, from Star Wars villains to real-life historical figures, without ever settling into one obvious type.

That versatility is on full display this fall, with the Irish actor juggling three separate projects hitting screens within weeks of each other: an eccentric Scottish comedy, the second season of a beloved workplace sitcom, and a Werner Herzog film premiering at Venice. Fans and critics alike have jokingly dubbed it the “summer of Domhnall,” a nickname Gleeson finds more embarrassing than flattering.

Buried within that packed release schedule is a small but memorable sacrifice Gleeson made for one particular role. In a new interview, the actor revealed that preparing for his character in ‘The Incomer’ required getting a perm, one so stubborn it stuck around for months after filming wrapped.

‘The Incomer‘ casts Gleeson as Daniel, an awkward mainland bureaucrat sent to evict a pair of reclusive siblings, played by Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke, from their remote Scottish island home. To match his character’s geeky, unassertive energy, Gleeson wanted a distinct visual quality to go along with the performance, describing the effect he was chasing as looking, “like a big lollipop sort of thing,” according to The Guardian.

Getting into character clearly came at a cost. Gleeson explained that he ended up living with the perm for four or five months after production wrapped, joking that nobody ever talks about that particular kind of actor dedication.

Written and directed by Louis Paxton in his feature debut, ‘The Incomer’ was filmed at the northern tip of Scotland and blends surreal comedy with local folklore and rugged island scenery. Gleeson described mastering a Scottish accent for the role as especially challenging given he was performing in front of an entirely Scottish crew, a level of scrutiny he said felt very different from previous accent work.

Beyond the physical transformation, Gleeson also spoke about the emotional core of the film, describing his character as every bit as lonely as the isolated siblings he’s sent to relocate. That theme of isolation and acceptance runs throughout the story, giving the film’s oddball comedy a more grounded emotional undercurrent beneath its folklore-heavy setting.

‘The Incomer’ is just one piece of Gleeson’s current workload. He also returns for the second season of ‘The Paper,’ the mockumentary sitcom from Greg Daniels set at a struggling Ohio newspaper, where Gleeson plays an idealistic editor trying to hold a dying local news operation together.

Rounding out his fall lineup is Werner Herzog’s ‘Bucking Fastard,’ a film based on the true story of twin sisters who did everything together, premiering at the Venice Film Festival. Gleeson described the shoot as brief but memorable, revealing he came to suspect his character was loosely inspired by Herzog himself after hearing the director recount personal stories that closely mirrored scenes in the script.

Gleeson has also found himself unexpectedly in the pop culture spotlight this year for an entirely different reason: starring in Taylor Swift’s music video for “Opalite.” The opportunity came about after a joking exchange on “The Graham Norton Show,” where Gleeson jokingly said he hoped to land a spot in one of Swift’s videos, only for an official invitation to arrive two weeks later.

Between the perm, the accent work and an unexpected pop star cameo, Gleeson’s current stretch of projects paints a picture of an actor still willing to fully commit to whatever a role demands, however uncomfortable the aftermath might be. ‘The Incomer’ is now playing in UK cinemas, while Season 2 of ‘The Paper’ launches on Sky and NOW on September 10.

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