Stephen Rea

Rea's record is that of a character actor who has been consistently employed and consistently respected for more than fifty years. His Academy Award nomination for The Crying Game made him the rare Irish stage actor to cross into international film on his own terms, and his BAFTA win for The Honourable Woman twenty-two years later proved the first success was not a fluke. In 2020, The Irish Times ranked him 13th on its list of the greatest Irish film actors, placing him alongside peers whose fame has been far louder. He has been a working actor in every decade since the 1960s, which is its own kind of achievement.