Stephen Rea

Stephen Rea
Born	(1946-10-31) 31 October 1946 Belfast, Ireland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1964–present
Spouse(s)	Dolours Price (1983–2000)

Stephen Rea (/ˈreɪ/ ray; born 31 October 1946) is an Irish^[1] film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto. Rea was nominated for an Academy Award for his lead performance as Fergus in the 1992 film The Crying Game.

Early life

Rea was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of a bus driver.^[2] He attended Belfast High School and the Queen's University of Belfast, taking a degree in English.

Rea trained at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin. In the late 1970s, he acted in the Focus Company in Dublin with Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. During the broadcasting ban on Sinn Féin imposed by Margaret Thatcher's government, in order to cut the "oxygen of publicity", it was interpreted that Sinn Féin members could not be heard making statements expressing the views of Sinn Féin, so Rea was one of many actors contacted to provide an actor's voice to get around that problem.

Career

After appearing on the stage and in television and film for many years in Ireland and Britain, Rea came to international attention when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film The Crying Game. He is a frequent collaborator with Irish film maker Neil Jordan. Rea has long been associated with some of the most important writers in Ireland. His association with playwright Stewart Parker, for example, began when they were students together at the Queen's University of Belfast.

Rea helped establish the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 with Tom Paulin, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane. In recognition for his contribution to theatre and performing arts, Rea was given honorary degrees from both the Queen's University of Belfast^[3] and the University of Ulster^[4] in 2004.

Rea's friendship with American playwright and actor Sam Shepard dates back to the early 1970s, and he starred in Shepard's directorial debut of his play Geography of a Horse Dreamer at the Royal Court Theatre in 1974. In 2007, Rea began a successful and acclaimed relationship with both the Abbey Theatre and Sam Shepard, appearing in Kicking a Dead Horse (2007) and Ages of the Moon (2009), both penned by Shepard and also both transferred to New York.^[5] Rea returned to the Abbey in 2009 to appear in the world premiere of Sebastian Barry's Tales of Ballycumber.^[6]

Rea was hired to speak the words of Gerry Adams when Sinn Féin was under a 1988–94 broadcasting ban.^[7]

In 2011, Rea featured in the BBC crime drama The Shadow Line, playing antagonist Gatehouse.

In April 2012, Rea read James Joyce's short story "The Dead" on RTÉ Radio 1.^[8]

He also narrated for the BBC Radio 4 production of Ulysses for Bloomsday, 16 June 2012.

Rea starred in Enda Walsh's 2014 play Ballyturk and potrayed Jordan in Out of the Dark,^[9] in which he co-stars Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman and Alejandro Furth.^[10][11]

Personal life

Rea was married for 17 years to Dolours Price, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army bomber and hunger striker who later became a critic of Sinn Féin. (Another news source suggests a marriage of 20 years, from 1983 to 2003.^[12]) They had been divorced when she died on Wednesday, January 23, 2013.^[13] They had two sons,^[14] Danny Rea (b. 1988) and Oscar Rea (b. 1990).

Rea is an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland.^[15]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stephen Rea.

• Stephen Rea at the Internet Movie Database
• Stephen Rea at the Internet Broadway Database
• Stephen Rea at the Internet Off-Broadway Database