Galway man’s journey from life as a Tesco manager to featuring in a Hollywood movie

A few years ago Aaran Donoghue was working in a local Tesco store in Galway, and now, after several hours on film sets and an amazing experience working at the Banshees Of Inisherin, he is about to feature in a Hollywood movie.

29-year-old Aaran explained his passion for cinema started as young kid in Loughrea, his hometown, while dreaming of becoming James Bond.

Aaran said: “From a young age I’ve dreamt of being James Bond someday. I loved James Bond.

“I’ve done youth theatre in Loughrea. I was quite young and I was actually bullied and teased in school about it. So I stopped.”

Years passed, and at 21 Aaran became a manager at a local Tesco Express store in Galway. There, he quickly realised he wanted to give the actor career a change and decided to register for college.

He said: “It just came to a stage where I kind of saw all the other managers, they were stressed and they weren’t happy with their lives. Now I’m not trying to downgrade Tesco because for years Tesco was so supportive of me and it really helped my career starting off, whether it was going back to college and let me work on weekends, if I needed time off at short notice they were flexible, they really helped my career.”

From that moment, Aaran started taking part in a number of short films, and unpaid work, while remaining positive about the future as he repeats: “There’s no such a thing as small roles, only small minds”.

And just a few years later, he was chosen to work at the award-winning movie ‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’.

Aaran was chosen as stand-in for Brendan Gleeson and, when not needed as a stand-in, he was a trainee assistant director.

The Galway man remembers those months as a great opportunity and an unforgettable experience: “Without doubt it was an amazing experience because we got to spend five weeks out in Inishmore, enjoying the summer, and six weeks in Achill, we all became so tight, we worked hard during the day, we ate food at night, we had a couple of drinks, and we would work hard again.

“It was an amazing experience. I got to watch some of Ireland’s best actors right in front of me, not more than a foot away from me.

He added: “I’ll never forget Martin McDonagh comes to me like ‘you’re a good actor’. I was so happy. Martin McDonagh is after saying that I’m a good actor!”

While working behind the scenes, Aaran realised he wanted to be an actor.

“I realised acting is what I really want to do. I want to be in front of that camera, I want that button to be pressed for me,” he said.

Despite having a long way to go, Aaran is now proud to announce that he recently had a role in a short film called ‘I Found A Place’ – Zoe Gibney’s debut film – and a new movie called ‘Bonhoeffer’, which was written, directed and produced by Todd Komarnicki – who is famous for being the producer of Elf – and which will be in cinemas in November 2024.

Aaran said: “I’ll be in world war movie which is definitely going to premiere in Hollywood and further on, and I’m a boy from Loughrea! It’s coming a bit slowly but it’s coming together”.

As he finally made it to the big screen, Aaran cannot but think at that child that wanted to be James Bond.

Asked what he would say to his younger self, he said: “I would say keep going, keep believing in yourself, keep dreaming. All those days you were daydreaming in the back of the class and not doing school because you felt like the black sheep, it was all worth it buddy.”

Get ahead of the day with the morning headlines at 7.30am and Fionnán Sheahan’s exclusive take on the day’s news every afternoon, with our free daily newsletter.