Jason Segel pays tribute to Glen Hansard

The pair have a long-standing friendship which originated a number of years ago when they worked together on The Muppets movie. They appeared together last night at an Irish-American charity event ahead of the 89th Academy Awards this Sunday.

Speaking at the event, the Knocked Up star said: "I'm here because I am a fan of Glen's, not just an artist but as a human being. He has been very inspiring to me artistically."

Hansard, who won an Oscar in 2008 for his song 'Falling Slowly' from the film Once, will be among those honoured at the US-Ireland Alliance's 2017 Oscar Wilde Awards, which takes place in California tonight.

"He is a good buddy of mine and we have performed together a few times. He actually wrote a song for The Muppets for us which we ended up not being able to use,” he told Ray D'Aarcy on his radio show back in 2012. “We have a really healthy respect for each other.”

Glen, who was instrumental in the Apollo House occupation back in December, also used the occasion to address the homeless crisis in Ireland and hit out at the failures of the Irish government.

"They are doing what they can, but they are not really fixing this. I'll be really honest, I thought super-naively, there are empty buildings and you've got people without homes and homes without people, so why don't we take one of those building because there are people who are homeless on the street right now. There are not enough beds in the homeless system to manage the numbers sleeping rough so why don't we bridge the gap."