Irish American actor Aidan Quinn has said that the prospect of a second presidential term for Donald Trump is "absolutely frightening" and called the Republican candidate "a despicable man".
Appearing on Friday's Late Late Show, the Michael Collins and Song for a Raggy Boy star spoke about the upcoming US election, saying, "Oh Jesus. What have we got in store for the next three weeks?
"It’s rough, it’s really rough. It’s unbelievable but we have to get past saying it’s unbelievable because it is believable because it is happening and there are that many people that are going to vote for him and possibly elect him.
To applause from the audience, he added, "It is absolutely frightening."
Quinn, who appeared on the Late Late to talk about his debut appearance at the Abbey Theatre this Sunday alongside his lifelong friend Steve Buscemi in Sam Shepard’s Ages of The Moon, also said, "I golf with a lot of Trump voters and supporters and I’ve had to stop golfing with some of them because of the aggression, because of the bullying.
"Before with Bush and that, you could have your arguments back and forth about Bush and Clinton but I see aggression mostly on the Republican side, much more so than I see on the other side.
"I think you do have to stand up because there is a closet misogyny and racism that is under that support for that despicable man that has to be called out because it is anti-woman and anti-inclusion of people."
Asked by Late Late host Patrick Kielty what it will be like to be in Dublin treading the boards at the country’s most prestigious theatre as part of their Love at First Sight series, 65-year-old he said, "As some of you know I’m a hybrid, I’m mostly a Yank but I did live in Dublin as a teenager, I lived in Birr as youngster. My sister still lives in Leitrim.
"But I moved back to Ireland after I finished high school and I started to see some plays that I loved at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.
"I thought `jeez, I could do that. That’d be better than working, I could be an actor’ and I literally called up the Abbey Theatre, this is how naïve I was, this is American naivety, and I said `listen, I want to be an actor, how do I do it?’ and the gentleman on the phone said, `is this a f***ing prank call?’ and slammed down the phone.
"So, appearing at the Abbey is a dream come through, I’m looking forward to it."
Quinn also stars as US president Teddy Roosevelt in new HBO Max series, The American Guest. "I put on about 10, 12 kilos for that role but they don’t come off that easy!" he said.
"It didn’t take long to put it on. I said, `where’s the fat suit? Can’t they CGI this?’ But they didn’t have the budget for that."
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