Ledger Pop Journal - Celebrity News & Sports

With his "Into the Storm" telefilm coming up at month's end, Irish actor Brendan Gleeson's portrayal of WWII British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is already drawing advance raves. The notice that stands out most for him came the other night at a screening in London -- from Churchill's daughter, 86-year-old Lady Mary Soames.

Brendan Gleeson Touched By Encounter With Churchill's Daughter (Image: WENN)

"I think she was genuinely pleased," he happily reports. "She said I didn't fall into the usual traps or something of that nature. Of course for her it was looking into the past. She said, 'This is very emotional for me.'"

The joint HBO-BBC production, executive produced by Tony and Ridley Scott, picks up where the 2002 "The Gathering Storm" left off -- with the war years seen via flashbacks as Winston and Clementine Churchill (Janet McTeer, in a rich performance) await his post-war election results. "The Gathering Storm" won shelves full of awards, including Emmys for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Outstanding Lead Actor for Albert Finney -- a fact of which Gleeson was quite aware when he took on the job. Finney's performance, he says, "had such force and humanity in it, you say, 'Where do you take it from there?'"

Portraying the iconic figure "was a huge acting challenge" -- that included playing 20 years older than himself. Gleeson admits, "I was a little wary of it being a bridge too far, of miscasting myself, but the people involved were very encouraging."

He notes, "It's really important to separate the human being from the history, in a sense. Then just allow the history to happen to him."

Since completing "Into the Storm," Gleeson has made Paul Greengrass's upcoming Iraq war movie, "Green Zone," with Matt Damon, Amy Ryan and Greg Kinnear. And he has "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I," his last installment of his role as professor "Mad-Eye" Moody, ahead.

"My part will be limited in that. I just get finished off, pretty much like the book," he tells us. "Those are such a good time."