{"id":717558,"date":"2026-07-29T16:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/717558\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T16:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:31:10","slug":"glen-hansard-singer-songwriter-and-once-star-dies-aged-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/717558\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Hansard, Singer-Songwriter And Once Star, Dies Aged 56"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is with great sadness we bring you the news that Glen Hansard, Oscar-winning star of Once<\/a> and The Commitments<\/a> and singer-songwriter, has died at the age of just 56. The Irish balladeer, who was also the frontman of rock group The Frames, was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle crash on Wednesday in Dublin, the BBC<\/a> has confirmed.<\/p>\n

Born in 1970 in Ballymun, Dublin, Hansard quit school aged 13 to busk on the streets of his hometown, and formed his own band, The Frames, by the time he was 20. By the age of 21, his impassioned guitar playing and soaring vocals had caught the eye of Alan Parker, who cast the young Irishman as brilliantly named guitarist Outspan Foster in 1991’s The Commitments.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

It would be 16 years before Hansard made his big-screen return, alongside Czech singer and pianist Mark\u00e9ta Irglov\u00e1, in Once \u2013 a film his former bandmate John Carney spent many years trying to get off the ground to no avail. After Cillian Murphy left the film in its early stage, Carney came to Hansard on a wing and a prayer, and Hansard said yes.<\/p>\n

Once was a hugely consequential inflection point in Glen Hansard\u2019s life. It landed him an Oscar for Best Song (for \u2018Falling Slowly\u2019). It prompted Steven Spielberg to declare it the film that \u201cgave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year\u201d. And it birthed Hansard and Irglov\u00e1\u2019s musical project The Swell Season, as well as a romance between the duo that is chronicled \u2014 warts and all \u2014 in 2011 music documentary The Swell Season. It also spawned a Tony award-winning musical that still tours to this day.<\/p>\n

\"Once\"<\/p>\n

In the years since Once, Hansard \u2014 alongside his music career \u2014 continued to make sporadic but welcome appearances on our screens. There was a memorable Simpsons guest spot in 2009, an appearance in The Last Man On Earth episode \u2018Falling Slowly\u2019, and a turn as a balladeering guard in Joe Wright\u2019s musical movie Cyrano<\/a>. There, too, were soundtrack spots on Todd Haynes\u2019 Bob Dylan pic I\u2019m Not There<\/a> and The Hunger Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Glen Hansard will be remembered as one of Ireland\u2019s most acclaimed and influential musicians, a gifted songwriter and staunch humanist. We will, inevitably, remember him best for the two classic movies that he starred \u2014 and indeed shone \u2014 in. All of our thoughts are with his friends, family, and loved ones at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is with great sadness we bring you the news that Glen Hansard, Oscar-winning star of Once and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-717558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}