| Tom Hickey | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1944 (age 67–68) Kildare, Ireland |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1963–present |
Tom Hickey (born 1944) is an Irish actor who has appeared in stage plays, films, and TV series.
Born in Kildare,[1] Hickey began his career in 1963 at Deirdre O'Connell's Stanislavski Studio in Dublin where he trained in Stanislavski's 'system' of acting.[2] In 1965 he joined the cast of RTÉ television's new rural drama series, The Riordans. Hickey went on to play the part of Benjy Riordan in the successful soap opera for the next 16 years.[3]
On stage, Hickey has favoured parts in the work of modern Irish playwrights such as Tom Murphy, Frank McGuinness, Bernard Farrell, and Marina Carr. In the early 1980s, the playwright Tom Mac Intyre asked Hickey to play the lead role in his adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh's poem The Great Hunger. Following the success of that collaboration, Hickey has become an acclaimed interpreter of Mac Intyre's work, in such plays as Rise Up Lovely Sweeney, The Gallant John Joe and What Happened Bridgie Cleary.[4]
As a character actor, Hickey has appeared in numerous films, including My Left Foot, Inside I'm Dancing, and Breakfast on Pluto,
Hickey has said that he sees his choice of profession as a "vocation", having decided to become an actor when he was five or six.[5]
In 2001, Hickey made a rare venture into the world of television advertising with his appearances in a series of commercials for Club Orange, a soft drink.[6] The first of these was directed by Declan Lowney, the director of Father Ted.[7]