Exhibiting unending concentration and the dark, hangdog looks of someone who has been trot over by vim a particular too many times, Stephen Rea is one of Ireland's most popular and well-respected actors. Although he has acted in films in diverse genres, Rea is most closely associated with his collaborations with director Neil Jordan, peculiarly The Crying Game, for the duration of which he earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1943, Rea was brough... t up in a working-category Protestant pedigree.

After training at the Abbey Theatre Tutor, he began acting on the stage, screen, and telly, making his film debut in the 1970 thriller Cry of the Banshee. He beginning collaborated with Jordan in 1982 on Angel, a lawlessness drama in which he played a saxophonist who witnesses a number of bestial murders. The two again collaborated in 1984 on The Company of Wolves, a modern retelling of the Teeny-weeny Red Riding Hood fairy story. That same year, Rea worked with Mike Leigh on Four Days in July; he would later whip into shape with him on Leigh's celebrated Exuberance is Sweet (1991).

In addition to his work on the screen, Rea formed the Fan Time Theatrics Company with playwrights Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney, bringing theatre to agricultural communities across Ireland. In 1992, Rea was introduced to worldwide audiences with his role as an IRA "volunteer" in The Crying Spirited. Thanks to the film's great ascendancy and the pay homage to circumambient his performance, Rea went on to look in a number of high profile films, including Jordan's customization of Interview with the Vampire and Robert Altman's Primed to Apparel, in which he gave a enchanting portrayal of an egotistical fashion photographer. In addition to favour collaborations with Jordan (1996's Michael Collins, 1997's The Foul up Boy), Rea continued to do solid make in films ranging from dramas (This is My Father, 1998) to comedy spoofs (Silence Crazy, also 1998).

In 1999 unsurpassed, Rea could be seen in no less than four disparate films. Following a revolve as a psychiatrist in the big-budget thriller In Dreams, he starred as a bohemian photographer with a predilection into young, acutely insecure women in Audrey Wells' prominent Guinevere. Later that year, he returned to Ireland respecting I Could Scan the Wild blue yonder and then starred alongside Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes in the adaptation of Graham Greene's The Conclusion of the Relationship.