This Harry Potter Star is Unrecognizable in The Good Daughter
Alastor "Mad-Eye” Moody is miles away, literally and figuratively, from Pikeville, Georgia in The Good Daughter.
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Key Takeaways
- Brendan Gleeson stars in Peacock’s limited series The Good Daughter as Rusty Quinn, a rural Georgia defense attorney and devoted father who reunites his lawyer daughters after a violent attack tied to a murder case.
- Gleeson is widely recognized for playing Mad-Eye Moody in multiple Harry Potter films, a role he accepted largely because of his children’s enthusiasm for the franchise.
- Acting runs in the Gleeson family, with Brendan’s son Domhnall Gleeson also appearing in the Harry Potter universe as Bill Weasley and collaborating with his father on several later projects.
Despite his thick Irish brogue and ginger hair, Dublin-born actor Brendan Gleeson has always been a chameleon actor. A master of accents and body control, Gleeson has convincingly played everything from a burly Scottish clansman in Braveheart to soft-hearted prison chef Knuckles McGinty in Paddington 2.
The thespian continues his mastery of many characters in the Peacock Original limited series, The Good Daughter which debuts November 12 exclusively on Peacock. Gleeson plays the charming and laser-sharp rural Georgia defense attorney, Rusty Quinn. Often an enemy of the insular and corrupt local authorities, Rusty has spent his life defending the town pariahs and screw-ups because he believes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty; and that the good guys often manipulate the downtrodden for their own agendas.
Gleeson’s Rusty is also a dedicated girl dad who raised two daughters — Samantha (Rose Byrne) and Charlotte (Meghann Fahy) — to overcome a terrible incident in their childhoods and become brilliant lawyers in their own right. When he’s stabbed by a mysterious assailant, he asks both of his girls to reunite in their hometown and take over his current case involving a developmentally challenged high school student accused of murder.
Fully immersed as Rusty Quinn with his southern accent and rumpled attire, Brendan Gleeson is almost unrecognizable from many of his prior beloved characters, especially his recurring role in the Harry Potter franchise films. Find out more about his Wizarding World character, and his actings sons.
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Who did Brendan Gleeson play in the Harry Potter films?
Gleeson has played some very tough characters in his career on stage and screen, many which he couldn’t show his four sons — including Fergus, Roy and now adult actors Domhnall and Brían — when they were young. In 2011, the actor told The Guardian that when he was offered the role of legendary Auror Mad-Eye Moody in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, he said yes because of his kids.
"They were the reason I did it,” Gleeson said. "They all roared when they heard. 'Dad's going to be Mad-Eye Moody. Wa-hey!' After that, it was never not going to happen."
The actor played Moody from 2005 to 2010, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. (All eight films are streaming on Peacock.)
Though he never hosted Saturday Night Live during his Potter run, Gleeson did have the opportunity to show off his comedic chops in the October 8, 2022 episode because of his award-winning role in The Banshees of Inisherin.
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How is Brendan Gleeson connected to The Paper’s Domhnall Gleeson?
With wife Mary Weldon, Brendan Gleeson raised four boys including The Paper’s Domhnall Gleeson who followed his father into acting. The eldest of the sons, Domhnall joined the Potter-verse in 2010 playing Bill Weasley, the older brother of main character Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
The pair didn’t share significant screen time together in the film, but they have worked together several times. In 2017, Domhnall and Brian appeared in Psychic, the short film his father directed, written by his brother Rory, with music by Fergus. And Domhnall did get cast with Brendon to appear together in The Simpsons Season 37 episode, “Sashes to Sashes,” which broadcast in 2025.
Watch all six episodes of The Good Daughter on November 12, 2026, exclusively on Peacock.
