For those who first came to Glen Hansard via his music – perhaps after his Oscar win or his collaborations with luminaries such as Eddie Vedder – it may be a surprise to go all the way back to 1991, to Alan Parker’s smash-hit Dublin-set comedy The Commitments.
There he is, barely out of his twenties and with a shock of curly, red hair, as the working-class soul band’s laidback guitarist Outspan Foster.
The film’s director Alan Parker searched for real musicians to make up the fictional band, and the then 20-year-old accompanied a mate to the auditions with no intention of going in himself – but producers were looking for a red-haired guitarist and there was Hansard.
It was little wonder he was considered right for the role – like Foster, he was a Dubliner from the northside, who had already spent his early years busking on the streets of his home city.
The Commitments gig seemed like serendipity and that level of fortune would come again occasionally in Hansard’s career, which in its early years were characterised by the typical graft of touring and recording with a rock band.
He formed The Frames one year before The Commitments, going on to record six studio albums including Dance The Devil, For The Birds and Irish chart topper Burn The Maps.
The band had a cult following outside the island but were huge on it, buoyed by radio-friendly singles like Revelate, Pavement Tune and Lay Me Down.
In 2005, he released an album with Marketa Irglova as The Swell Season. Over the course of 16 years, they would record and release three albums, but it was their exploits on film that sent them stratospheric.
Once, the low-budget musical they co-starred in, directed by former Frames bassist John Carney, became a sleeper hit in 2007 with Falling Slowly, its breakout song, winning an Academy Award win for the pair.
A Broadway adaptation of the film, featuring Hansard and Irglová’s songs, later won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
After 19 years, Hansard’s career had reached a new level of fame, with he and Irglova even making a cameo appearance on The Simpsons.
But he maintained his steady stream of musical releases in the years since, most notably with five solo albums up to 2023’s All That Was East Is West Of Me.
Perhaps his biggest life change came three years ago when he became a father.
He told BBC Radio Ulster in 2023 that it had “in the greatest way possible, upturned everything I know”.
“It’s absolutely incredible, I can’t believe I stood on the other side of this chasm for so long.”
