Actor Brendan Gleeson has revealed that he was molested by a Christian Brother as a child.

Promoting his latest flick Calvary - which is on a limited US release - Gleeson appeared on NPR's Bob Edwards Weekend alongside director John Michael McDonagh to chat about the film.

In the film Gleeson plays a good priest who is confronted by one of his parishioners about sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest when he was a child.

The radio presenter then asked the pair did either of them know anyone who had been abused by priests during their childhood.

Gleeson revealed: "Yeah, it’s odd. I remember a particular Christian Brother dropped the hand on me at one point.

"And it wasn’t very traumatic and it wasn’t at all sustained – it was just one of these things where something odd happened."

He emphasised the fact that he was not at all traumatised by the incident and that it was a one off.

But he did divulge that other incidents came to light in secondary school when classmates revealed they had experienced similar abuse at the hands of that Brother.

Gleeson said: "But nobody ever thought to tell anybody. Nobody thought to tell even my parents who have been enraged and would not have taken it lightly."

He went back to reiterate that "abuse is a lifelong sentence" and "not something that you toss aside" and said that he believes that one of the great triumphs of Calvary is that it reminds people of this.