Stephen Rea

Rea worked across stage actor, film actor, television actor and actor. This article rests on 8 published texts and 18 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

• Name — Stephen Rea • Born — 31 October 1946 • Birthplace — Belfast, Northern Ireland • Education — * Queen's University Belfast • Abbey Theatre School • Occupation — Actor • Years Active — 1962–present • Children — 2

Stephen Rea was born on 31 October 1946 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father was a bus driver and his mother a housewife. His family was Protestant but sympathetic to Irish nationalism. Rea has described his upbringing as nonreligious. He studied English at the Queen's University Belfast and drama at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin.

Rea's association with playwright Stewart Parker began when they were students together at the Queen's University Belfast. In the late 1970s, he acted in the Focus Company in Dublin with Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. Rea helped establish the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 with Tom Paulin, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, and Seamus Deane. Rea's friendship with American playwright and actor Sam Shepard dates back to the early 1970s, and he starred in Shepard's directorial début 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. Rea returned to the Abbey in 2009 to appear in the world première of Sebastian Barry's Tales of Ballycumber. Rea starred in Enda Walsh's 2014 play Ballyturk and portrayed Jordan in Out of the Dark, in which he co-stars alongside Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman and Alejandro Furth.

• Illustration — Stephen Rea in 2010 Rea came to international attention when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Irish film-maker Neil Jordan's film The Crying Game in 1992. He is a frequent collaborator with Jordan, starring in his other films Interview with the Vampire (1994), Michael Collins (1996), The End of the Affair (1999), Breakfast on Pluto (2005), and Greta (2018). In 2011, Rea featured in the BBC crime drama The Shadow Line, playing antagonist Gatehouse. In 2023, Rea appeared as Frank, husband to Eileen (played by Kathy Bates), in the film The Miracle Club.

Rea was hired to speak the words of Gerry Adams when Sinn Féin was under a broadcasting ban from 1988 to 1994. In April 2012, Rea read James Joyce's short story "The Dead" on RTÉ Radio 1. He also narrated for the BBC Radio 4 production of Ulysses for Bloomsday, 16 June 2012.

From 1983 until their divorce in 2003, Rea was married to Dolours Price, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army bomber and hunger striker who later became a critic of Sinn Féin. They had two sons. Rea had already met Price in the 1960s but ten years before their marriage, Price attended a performance by Rea in The Freedom of the City at the Court Theatre in London in 1973, the night before she took part in a car bombing that injured 200 people. As of 2012, Rea was an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland. As of 2020, Rea lives in County Donegal.

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1964 — Crossroads — Pepe Costa • 1967 — Angel Pavement — Second Mate — Episode: "They Arrive" • 1967 — Sanctuary — Stephen Moriarty — Episode: "The Voice of His Calling" • 1969 — Z-Cars — Kenny — Episode: "Snout: Part 2" • 1970 — Softly, Softly: Task Force — Philip Conner — Episode: "Trust a Woman" • 1971 — Omnibus — Hubert Page — Episode: "Hail and Farewell-George Moore" • 1972 — The Moonstone — Major Frayne — Episode: "1.1" • 1974 — Thriller — Arden Buckley — Episode: "K is for Killing" (US Title: "Color Him Dead") • 1974–1979 — Play for Today — Peter / Chas / Shay — 3 episodes • 1975–1976 — I Didn't Know You Cared — Carter Brandon — 13 episodes - (series 1 & 2 only; not in series 3 & 4) • 1977 — BBC2 Play of the Week — Hollar — Episode: "Professional Foul" • 1978 — Play of the Month — Constantin — Episode: "The Seagull" • 1978 — The — Pellin — Episode: "In the Public Interest" • 1978 — Thank You, Comrades — Mayakovsky — TV film • 1980 — Caleb Williams (miniseries) — Tyrell — Episode: "1.1" • 1982 — Joyce in June — Stanislaus Joyce / McIntosh — TV film • 1984 — Minder — Roddy Allan — Episode: "Windows" • 1984 — Four Days in July — Dixie — TV film • 1986 — Boon — Frank Warren — Episode: "Fools Rush In" • 1986 — Screen Two — Frankie — Episode: "Shergar" • 1987 — Lost Belongings — Lenny — 2 episodes • 1987 — Scout — Marshall — TV film • 1989 — 4 Play — Paul — Segment: "Not As Bad as They Seem" • 1989 — Endgame — Clov — TV film • 1990 — Not with a Bang — Colin Garrity — 7 episodes • 1993 — Saturday Night Live — Fergus — (Uncredited) Episode: "Miranda Richardson/Soul Asylum" • 1993–1995 — Performance — Ejlert Lovborg / Seamus Shields — 2 episodes • 1995 — Citizen X — Lieutenant Viktor Burakov — TV film • 1996 — Crime of the Century — Bruno Hauptmann — TV film • 2001 — A — Dr. Roger St. Roctor — Episode: "Not What the Doctor Ordered" • 2001 — Snow in August — Rabbi Judah Hirsch — TV film • 2001 — Armadillo — Hogg — 3 episodes • 2001–2002 — Horrible Histories — Narrator (voice, UK dub) — 26 episodes • 2002 — Copenhagen — Niels Bohr — TV film • 2007 — Imeacht Na N'Iarlaí — Aodh Ó Néill, Tiarna Thir Eoghain — Episode: "1" • 2008 — 10 Days to War — Tim Cross — Episode: "These Things Are Always Chaos" • 2009 — Father & Son — Augustine Flynn — 4 episodes • 2009 — Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — Callum "Cal" Donovan — Episode: "Solitary" • 2009 — Heidi 4 Paws — The Doctor (voice) — TV film • 2010 — Single-Handed — Sean Doyle — Episodes: "The Lost Boys: Parts 1 & 2" • 2011 — Roadkill — Seamus — TV film • 2011 — The — Gatehouse — 6 episodes • 2013 — Utopia — Conran Letts — 5 episodes • 2014 — The — Sir Hugh Hayden-Hoyle — 8 episodes • 2015–2016 — Dickensian — Inspector Bucket — 16 episodes • 2016 — War & Peace — Prince Vassily Kuragin — 5 episodes • 2016 — Fir Bolg — Spencer — Episode: "Nochtadh" • 2018 — Counterpart — Alexander Pope — 7 episodes • 2018 — Thanksgiving — Melchior — 3 episodes • 2020 — The Stranger — Martin Killane — 8 episodes • 2020 — Flesh and Blood — Mark — 4 episodes • 2022 — The English — Sheriff Robert Marshall — 6 episodes • 2025 — Prime Target — Professor James Alderman — 5 episodes

• Year — Title — Playwright — Venue • 1967 — Shadow of a Gunman — Sean O'Casey — The Mermaid Theatre, London • 1969 — Captain Oates' Left Sock — John Antrobus — Royal Court Theatre, London • 1971 — Crete and Sargent Pepper — John Antrobus • 1973 — The Freedom of the City — Brian Friel • 1973 — The Duchess of Malfi — John Webster — 7:84 Theatre Company, London • 1973 — Sargent Musgraves — John Arden — The Gate, Dublin • 1973 — The White Devil — John Webster — Nottingham Playhouse • 1973 — Drums in the Night — Bertold Brecht — Hampstead Theatre, London • 1974 — Geography of a Horse Dreamer — Sam Shepard — Royal Court Theatre, London • 1974 — Comedians — Trevor Griffiths — Nottingham Playhouse • 1980 — Translations — Brian Friel — Field Day Theatre Company • 1981 — Three Sisters — Anton Chekhov adapt. Brian Friel • 1982 — The Communication Cord — Brian Friel • 1984 — High Time — Derek Mahon • 1984 — The Riot Act — Tom Paulin • 1986 — Double Cross — Thomas Kilroy • 1987 — Pentecost — Stewart Parker • 1989 — Saint Oscar — Terry Eagleton • 2014 — Ballyturk — Enda Walsh — Galway International Arts Festival • 2014 — A Particle of Dread — Sam Shepard — Field Day Theatre Company • 2016 — Cyprus Avenue — David Ireland — Royal Court Theatre, London • 2020 — The Visiting Hour — Frank McGuinness — The Gate Theatre, Dublin