Stephen Rea

Occupation: Actor
Born: c.1943, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Education: Queen's University (English literature)

A low-key, rumpled Irish actor with a slightly hangdog expression, Rea manages to bring a certain sympathy to the characters he plays, whether it's as a musician avenging a young girl's murder (ANGEL) or a conscience-stricken IRA gunman who befriends the fiancee of his victim (THE CRYING GAME, 1992) or a wry suitor who may or may not stick around when things get tough (ANGIE, 1994). Rea began his career at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, followed by extensive work at some of England's most prominent stages, including the National Theatre and the Royal Court (The Playboy of the Western World, The Cherry Orchard, Endgame). In 1980, Rea founded his own acting company, the Field Day Theater, with Irish playwright Brian Friel, and spent five months of each year over the next decade appearing in many of the company's productions. In the early 1970s, Rea began appearing in British television specials which showed up on US TV, among them, COLOR HIM DEAD (1974), a mystery thriller which cast him as the male half of a husband-wife private detective team, and a supporting role in an adaptation of Tom Stoppard's PROFESSIONAL FOUL (1978), about the adventures of a Cambridge professor visiting Prague to deliver a paper. Later in his career, he appeared as Lovborg to Fiona Shaw's HEDDA GABLER (shown on PBS in 1993) and as a Russian detective tracking down a serial killer known as Citizen X. Rea had a bit part in the 1978 film ON A PAVING STONE MOUNTED, but his first leading role in films was as a vengeful musician who trades his saxophone for a machine gun in Neil Jordan's directorial debut, ANGEL (1982). Though Rea's work garnered him critical acclaim, it would be another decade before his film career would hit its stride. He followed up in several small British-made films, among them Richard Eyer's road movie LOOSE CONNECTIONS (1983), a witty take on Brits abroad, with Rea demonstrating the quirky charm that would serve him well in later roles, and Jordan's second film, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984), a murky tale within a tale based on the Gothic horror aspects of Little Red Riding Hood featuring Angela Lansbury as Granny. Rea's real breakthrough came in another Jordan film, THE CRYING GAME (1992). Cast as an IRA kidnapper who falls for the lover of a man whose death he indirectly caused, Rea subtly conveyed his character's mixed feelings and contradictions. The performance garnered him an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. He also enjoyed success on the West End and Broadway stages that same year as one of three political prisoners in Someone to Watch Over Me. With the success of his performance in THE CRYING GAME, Rea received numerous offers for roles in US-produced films. He was cast in Martha Coolidge's ANGIE, as a good-natured Irishman who befriends a very pregnant and unmarried Geena Davis, as a muckraking journalist in the period romance PRINCESS CARABOO, and, marking his fourth collaboration with Jordan, as the vengeful vampire Santiago in the highly anticipated INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE: THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES (all 1994). Rea finished off 1994 playing against type as an egocentric superstar photographer who has top fashion editors vying for his services, even as he captures them in compromising situations in Robert Altman's misfire READY TO WEAR (PRÊT-À-PORTER). Returning to Europe, Rea completed a slew of films released in 1996: the Irish romance TROJAN EDDIE, the multi-national fantasy ALL MEN ARE MORTAL (in which Rea plays a hobo who isn't), the Irish coming-of-age film LAST OF THE HIGH KINGS (with look-alike Irishman Gabriel Byrne), Neil Jordan's MICHAEL COLLINS and the Chinese adventure film BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA.