STEPHEN REA Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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STEPHEN REA

Name: Stephen Rea                                                                 
Birth name: Graham Rea                                                             
Born: 31 October 1946 Belfast, Northern Ireland                                   
                                                                                   
Stephen Rea (born Graham Rea on October 31, 1946) is an Irish actor who was       
nominated for an Academy Award for his lead performance in the 1992 film The       
Crying Game.                                                                       
                                                                                   
Rea was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. One of four children in a working-class 
Presbyterian but nationalist family, 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 Fein imposed by Margaret Thatcher's government, in       
order to cut the 'oxygen of publicity', it was interpreted that Sinn Fein         
members could not be heard making statements expressing the views of Sinn Fein,   
so Rea was one of many actors contacted to provide an actor's voice to get         
around that problem. 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 (1941-1988) 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 and the University of Ulster in             
2004.