Domhnall Gleeson just happened to be filming his new movie, Fountain of Youth, with John Krasinski when he was offered the leading role in The Office spinoff, The Paper.
Gleeson, 42, said he was able to turn to Krasinski as well as Steve Carell, with whom he costarred in FX’s The Patient (2022). “I had worked with Steve Carrell very closely before and loved that experience,” he exclusively told Us Weekly. “Even though we’re very different actors, I felt like our working methods were very similar. I felt very close to him on that, and I’d asked Steve, and then on this, I asked John as well because it was right at the time when I was making the decision. And it’s a big thing, you know?”
While the fun action-adventure Fountain of Youth — watch Us Weekly’s exclusive clip above — is wildly different from psychological thriller The Patient, Gleeson said his costars had almost identical answers when he asked for their advice.
“John was just the same as Steve. It was basically, like, ‘You have to do it. It’s a chance to work with Greg Daniels, who’s one of the comedic masterminds of the last few decades.’ And they just said, ‘If he’s the one doing it, you need to work with him and because you’ll enjoy it. It’ll be fun.’ Both said basically exactly the same thing and were incredibly helpful and supportive with it.”
Filming The Paper, which will debut on Peacock in the fall, was exactly as delightful as Carell and Krasinski said it would be. “And they were right,” Gleeson told Us. “I’m so, so happy to be a part of it. Working with Greg was a thrill, and Michael Cohen, our other showrunner, is just brilliant.”
The actor also had the time of his life filming Fountain of Youth, a Guy Ritchie-directed movie about estranged siblings (played by Krasinski and Natalie Portman) who engage in a heist to find the mythological key to immortality.
In Us’ exclusive clip from the Apple TV+ movie, Gleeson faces a series of questions from Thomas, a musical child prodigy played by Benjamin Chivers. Gleeson said the 12-year-old turned out to be a formidable scene partner, especially when it came to memorizing new dialogue.
“The script was fantastic, but on certain days they would get rid of the lines or throw out the lines and just add in a whole new batch of lines,” Gleeson revealed to Us, noting that’s exactly what happened on the day this particular scene was filmed. “It was me and Benji, and Guy was just throwing in lines, getting the rhythm right. His films are always incredibly rhythmic in dialogue, and [he was] encouraging us to try out things.”
“That’s what I remember was getting all these new lines and going, ‘This poor kid. He’s new to it, it’s gonna be tough for him.’ And he memorized ’em in about two minutes flat and I struggled,” Gleeson recalled with a laugh. “But that’s getting older, I guess.”
Gleeson’s character isn’t exactly good with kids. “I play Owen Carver, who is sort of funding the quest that the group are on at the moment, which is to try to find the fountain of youth,” he explained. “So he’s basically the money man, but he also enjoys the adventure. He’s just really enjoying being along for the ride with these people he wouldn’t normally be spending time with. Yeah, he’s sort of enjoying it in a few different ways.”
That ride takes Owen all the way to the pyramids in Egypt, where the cast got to actually film on location.
“We were filming right in the center of the three pyramids,” Gleeson recalled. “It was the first place that I was on the shoot as well. What a way to begin! It was fantastic. We walked on set the first day, and you’re just trying not to look up. You’re trying to remember your lines and, but you’re just surrounded by the most beautiful, magical things you’ve ever seen.”
It required serious acting from Gleeson, who realized his character couldn’t look awestruck. “My character wouldn’t really care about that sort of stuff. He’s more about the people he’s with than the fun of the chase,” he explained. “So I think everybody else was able to look around and wonder and pretend they were in character, and I wasn’t willing to do that. I had to pretend like I didn’t care.”
Fountain of Youth premieres on Apple TV+ Friday, May 23.
