Conor McPherson (born August 6, 1971) is an Irish playwright and director.

Life and career[link]

McPherson was born in Dublin, .^[1] He was educated at University College Dublin, McPherson began writing his first plays there as a member of UCD Dramsoc, the college's dramatic society, and went on to found Fly By Night Theatre Company which produced several of his plays. He is considered one of the best contemporary Irish playwrights; his plays have attracted good reviews, and have been performed internationally (notably in the West End and on Broadway).

The Weir opened at the Royal Court before transferring to the West End and Broadway. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play for 1999.

His 2001 play, Port Authority tells of three interwoven lives. The play was first produced by the Gate Theatre of Dublin but premiered at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London in February 2001, before moving to the Gate Theatre in April of that year. The production was directed by McPherson himself. New York's Atlantic Theater Company staged a production of the play in spring of 2008, starring Brian d'Arcy James, and Tony Award winners John Gallagher Jr. and Jim Norton. Says New York Times critic Ben Brantley, “I found myself holding on to what these actors had to say as if I were a 5-year-old at bedtime being introduced to ‘The Arabian Nights.’”

McPherson also directed his play, Dublin Carol, at the Atlantic Theater Company, New York, in 2003.

His 2004 play Shining City opened at the Royal Court and prompted the Daily Telegraph to describe him as "the finest dramatist of his generation..." A meditation on regret, guilt and confusion, the play is set entirely within the Dublin offices of a psychiatrist who himself has psychological secrets. Whilst much of the play takes the form of monologues delivered by a patient, the everyday stories and subtle poignancy and humour make it a riveting experience. It subsequently opened on Broadway in 2006 and was nominated for two Tony Awards, including Best Play.

In September 2006, to great critical acclaim, McPherson made his National Theatre debut as both author and director with The Seafarer at the Cottesloe auditorium, starring Karl Johnson and Jim Norton, with Ron Cook as their poker-playing, Mephistophelean guest. Jim Norton won an Olivier Award for his performance while McPherson was nominated for both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play. In October 2007 The Seafarer came to Broadway keeping with it most of its creative team, including McPherson as director and both Jim Norton and Conleth Hill in their respective roles (with stage and film actor David Morse taking over as Sharky, and Ciarán Hinds portraying Mr. Lockhart.) The production on Broadway received some rave reviews including such statements as "McPherson is quite possibly the finest playwright of his generation" from Ben Brantley at the New York Times and "Succinct, startling and eerie, and the funniest McPherson play to date" from the Observer. Jim Norton's performance as Richard Harkin in The Seafarer at The National Theatre won the 2007 Best Supporting Actor Laurence Olivier Award, and he picked up a Tony Award in 2008 for Best Featured Actor in a play.

McPherson wrote and directed a stage adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's story The Birds, which opened in September 2009 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

The film of his first screenplay, I Went Down, was critically acclaimed and a great commercial success. His first feature film as a director, Saltwater, won the CICAE award for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival. His second feature film was The Actors, which he wrote and directed.

He is the director and co-writer of The Eclipse, a film which had its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. It was picked up for distribution by Magnolia Pictures and was released in US cinemas in Spring 2010.^[2] The film subsequently won the Melies D'Argent Award for Best European Film at Sitges in Spain - the world's premier horror and fantasy genre festival. At The 2010 Irish Film and television Awards The Eclipse won the awards for Best Film and Best Screenplay.^[3] Ciarán Hinds won the Best Actor Award at the Tribeca Film Festival for his portrayal of Michael Farr.

[edit] Theatre Awards^[4]

Stewart Parker Award The Good Thief

Meyer Whitworth Award This Lime Tree Bower

Guinness/Royal National Theatre Ingenuity Award This Lime Tree Bower

Pearson TV Writer in Residence Award This Lime Tree Bower

Evening Standard Award The Weir

George Devine Award The Weir

Critics Circle Award The Weir

Laurence Olivier Award The Weir

Tony Award nomination for Best Play Shining City

Tony Award nominations for Best Play and Best Director The Seafarer

Laurence Olivier and Evening Standard nominations for Best Play The Seafarer

Manchester Evening News Award Best Touring Production The Seafarer

Selected films[link]

• I Went Down (1997) (writer)
• Endgame (2000) (director)
• The Actors (2003) (writer & director)
• The Eclipse (2009) (co-writer & director)

Plays[link]

• Rum and Vodka (1992)
• The Good Thief (1994)
• This Lime Tree Bower (1995)
• St. Nicholas (1997)
• The Weir (1997)
• Dublin Carol (2000)
• Port Authority (2001)
• Come on Over (2001)
• Shining City (2004)
• The Seafarer (2006)
• The Birds (adaptation)(2009)

See also[link]

• In-yer-face theatre

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview with Conor McPherson for "The Eclipse," IFC.com
• Conor McPherson at the Internet Movie Database
• Comprehensive Playography
• Article on The Birds, by [Andréa Grunert in [http://www.objectif-cinema.com]November 2009 [French]
• [1] Interview with Conor McPherson, by [Andréa Grunert] in [http://www.objectif-cinema.com] March 2010 [French]
• [2] Review: THE ECLIPSE, by [Andrea Grunert] in [http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk] February 2011

Further reading[link]

• Allen Randolph, Jody. "Conor McPherson." Close to the Next Moment: Interviews from a Changing Ireland. Manchester: Carcanet 2010.
• Grunert, Andrea. "The Eclipse" in: Enzyklopädie des Phantastischen Films, Meitingen: Corian Verlag, 90 (June 2010):1-8, ISBN 978-3-89048-490-7.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2011)

Nyman in 2010

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE (born 23 March 1944 in Stratford, London) is a British composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. His operas include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Letters, Riddles and Writs, Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs, Facing Goya, Man and Boy: Dada, Love Counts, and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, and he has written six concerti, four string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band, with and without whom he tours as a performing pianist. Nyman stated that he prefers to write opera rather than other sorts of music.^[1]

Biography[link]

Nyman was born in Stratford, London. He was educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow. He studied at King's College, London under Alan Bush.,^[2] and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in September, 1961, and studied with Bush and Thurston Dart, focusing on piano and seventeenth-century baroque music. He won the Howard Carr Memorial Prize for composition in July 1964.^[3]

In 1969, he provided the libretto of Harrison Birtwistle's opera Down by the Greenwood Side and directed the short film Love Love Love (based on, and identical length to, the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love"^[4]) before settling into music criticism, where he is generally acknowledged to have been the first to apply the term "minimalism" to music (in a 1968 article in The Spectator magazine about the English composer Cornelius Cardew). He wrote introductions for George Frideric Handel's Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 and conducted the most important interview with George Brecht in 1976.

Nyman drew frequently on early music sources in his scores for Greenaway's films: Henry Purcell in The Draughtsman's Contract and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (which included Memorial and Miserere Paraphrase), Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber in A Zed and Two Noughts, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Drowning by Numbers, and John Dowland in Prospero's Books, largely at the request of the director.

Nyman says he discovered his aesthetic playing the aria, "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" from Mozart's Don Giovanni on his piano in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis, which "dictated the dynamic, articulation and texture of everything I've subsequently done."^[5]

Nyman at the 2009 Venice Film Festival

He has scored numerous films, the majority of them European art films, including several of those directed by Peter Greenaway. His few forays into Hollywood have been Gattaca, Ravenous (with musician Damon Albarn), and The End of the Affair. He wrote settings to various texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for "Letters, Riddles and Writs", part of Not Mozart. He has also produced a soundtrack for the silent film Man with the Movie Camera. Nyman's popularity increased after he wrote the score to Jane Campion's award-winning 1993 film The Piano. The album became a classical music best-seller. He was nominated for both a British Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Among Nyman's other works are the opera Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs (1987), for soprano, alto, tenor and instrumental ensemble (based on Nyman's score for the ballet La Princesse de Milan); Ariel Songs (1990) for soprano and band; MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse) (1993) for band and orchestra; concertos for saxophone, piano (based on The Piano score), violin, harpsichord, trombone, and saxophone & cello recorded by John Harle and Julian Lloyd Webber; the opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1986), based on a case-study by Oliver Sacks; and four string quartets. In 2000, he produced a new opera on the subject of cloning on a libretto by Victoria Hardie titled Facing Goya, an expansion of their one-act opera Vital Statistics. The lead, a widowed art banker, is written for contralto and the role was first created by Hilary Summers. His newest operas are Man and Boy: Dada (2003) and Love Counts (2005), both on libretti by Michael Hastings.

He has also composed the music for the children's television series Titch which is based on the books written and illustrated by Pat Hutchins.

Many of Nyman's works are written for his own ensemble, the Michael Nyman Band, a group formed for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's Il Campiello. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified line-up of string quartet, three saxophones, trumpet, horn, bass trombone, bass guitar and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works.

Nyman also published an influential book in 1974 on experimental music called Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Catalan, Spanish and French translations), which explored the influence of John Cage on classical composers.

In the 1970s, Nyman was a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia – the self-described World's Worst Orchestra – playing on their recordings and in their concerts. He was the featured pianist on the orchestra's recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water on the Martin Lewis-produced 20 Classic Rock Classics album on which the Sinfonia gave their unique interpretations of the pop and rock repertoire of the 1950s–1970s. Nyman created a similar group called Foster's Social Orchestra, which specialised in the work of Stephen Foster. One of their pieces appeared in the film Ravenous and an additional work, not used in the film, appeared on the soundtrack album.

He has also recorded pop music with the Flying Lizards; a version of his Bird List from the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's The Falls (1980) appears on their album Fourth Wall as "Hands 2 Take."

On 7 July 2007 Nyman performed at Live Earth in Japan. On 2008 Nyman realised, in collaboration with the cultural association Volumina, Sublime, an artist's book that unified his music with his passion for photography.

In a collaboration with friends Max Pugh and Marc Silver, Nyman is now beginning to exhibit his films and photography. Nyman’s video works are filmed with a hand-held camera, often before and after concerts and as part of his international travels, featuring everyday moments. Some works are left relatively unedited whilst others undergo split screens and visual repetition.^{[original research?]} Soundtracks to some of the video works use location sounds, whilst others recycle existing scores from his archive or a combination of both.

In October 2009, Nyman released The Glare, a collaborative collection of songs with David McAlmont, which cast his work in a new light. The album – recorded with the Michael Nyman Band – finds McAlmont putting lyrics based on contemporary news stories to 11 pieces of Nyman music drawn from different phases of his career.

"David did the research and chose most of the musical pieces," Nyman explains. "I suggested a few pieces,too but I really didn't do very much, although I think it's a true collaboration. You can identify who was responsible for what, but both aspects create a perfect synergy in which neither element can exist without the other."^{[cite this quote]}

Although the album was recorded in just two days, there was a huge amount of preparation and rewriting before they entered the studio. "They're third generation songs and when you listen to them, you ask 'Is it Nyman?' 'Is it soul?' 'Is it rock'n'roll?' It's all and none of them," the composer says. "I think we've created a new musical language. I'm no good at writing pop cliché – when I try, it invariably comes out sounding quite different."^{[cite this quote]}

The project has a long gestation for the pair first met in 2004 at a exhibition opening and talked about working together. Nothing came of it for almost five years until they got together again via Facebook, met up for lunch – and the idea for The Glare was born.

"I was surprised and delighted by what we've came up with," Nyman says. "So much so, that when I now play these pieces solo, it sounds like something's missing and the music needs David's voice and approach. That's a remarkable thing, because I've been playing these pieces for years. Of all the many collaborations I've been involved in, none has ever given me more pleasure and I'm desperate to take it on the road and play these."^{[cite this quote]}

Personal life[link]

He was married to Aet Nyman and has two daughters, Molly and Martha. His first string quartet quotes "Unchained Melody" in homage to Aet, who appears in Greenaway's The Falls, for which he also composed music. Molly is a composer in her own right; in collaboration with Harry Escott she has written several film scores including for The Road to Guantanamo by her father's frequent collaborator, Michael Winterbottom. Martha is a development researcher for the BBC.

Career highlights[link]

• 1961–67 – Studies at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College London.
• 1968–78 – Works as music critic (becoming first person to apply the word "minimalist" to music).
• 1976 – Founds the Campiello Band (now the Michael Nyman Band) and embarks on eleven-film collaboration with Peter Greenaway.
• 1981 – Releases first Michael Nyman Band album.
• 1993 – Soundtrack for The Piano wins an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film Institute award and goes on to sell over three million copies.
• 2002–2005 – Composer-in-Residence at Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany, who performed three Nyman operas and more tunes for his daughters.
• 2007 – Performed on 7 July from Kyoto, Japan as part of the Live Earth global environmental awareness musical event.

Honours[link]

Nyman was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.^[6]

Nyman was awarded an honorary doctorate (DLitt) from The University of Warwick on 30 January 2007. At the ceremony The University of Warwick Brass Society and Chamber Choir, conducted by Paul McGrath, premiered a specially composed procession and recession fanfare composed by Nyman.^[7]

Works[link]

• 1963 – Introduction and Allegro Concertato for Wind Quartet (lost)
• 1963 – Divertimento for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet
• 1965 – Canzona for Flute
• 1974 – Bell Set No. 1 (multiple metal percussion)
• 1976 – 1–100 (4–6 pianos)
• 1976 – (First) Waltz in D (variable)
• 1976 – (Second) Waltz in F (variable)
• 1977 – In Re Don Giovanni (ensemble)
• 1978 – The Otherwise Very Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz (multiple pianos)
• 1979 – "The Masterwork" Award Winning Fish-Knife (ensemble)
• 1980 – A Neat Slice of Time (choir)
• 1981 – Think Slow, Act Fast (ensemble)
• 1981 – Five Orchestral Pieces for Opus Tree (band*) (based on Anton Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 10)
• 1981 – M-Work (band)
• 1981 – 2 Violins
• 1982 – Four Saxes (Real Slow Drag) (saxophone quartet)
• 1983 – A Handsome, Smooth, Sweet, Smart, Clear Stroke: Or Else Play Not At All

(orchestra)

• 1983 – Time's Up (chamber ensemble)
• 1983 – I'll Stake My Cremona to a Jew's Trump (electric violin and viola, both players also simultaneously singing)
• 1983 – Love is Certainly, at Least Alphabetically Speaking (soprano and band)
• 1984 – The Abbess of Andouillets (choir)
• 1985 – Nose-List Song (soprano and orchestra) [this and the above three works are from an unfinished opera setting of Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which Nyman has repeatedly cited as his all-time favourite book]
• 1985 – Childs Play (2 violins; harpsichord)
• 1985 – String Quartet No. 1
• 1986 – Taking a Line for a Second Walk (for orchestra (Basic Black) or piano duet)
• 1986 – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (opera; libretto by Christopher Rawlence; adapted from the Oliver Sacks case study by Nyman, Rawlence, and Michael Morris^{[disambiguation needed ]})
• 1986 – And Do They Do (modern dance, 1986)
• 1987 – Vital Statistics (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)
• 1988 – String Quartet No. 2
• 1989 – Out of the Ruins (choir)
• 1989 – La Traversée de Paris (soprano and band)
• 1989 – The Fall of Icarus (band)
• 1989 – L'Orgie Parisienne Arthur Rimbaud setting (soprano or mezzo soprano and orchestra)
• 1989 – La Sept (band)
• 1990 – Shaping the Curve (soprano saxophone, string quartet or piano)
• 1990 – Six Celan Songs (contralto and orchestra)
• 1990 – Polish Love Song (soprano and piano)
• 1990 – String Quartet No. 3
• 1990 – The Kiss and Other Movements
• 1991 – The Michael Nyman Songbook A collection of songs based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, and Arthur Rimbaud and recorded with vocalist Ute Lemper.
• 1991 – Where the Bee Dances (soprano saxophone and orchestra)
• 1991 – Fluegelhorn and Piano
• 1992 – Time Will Pronounce (violin, cello, and piano)
• 1992 – For John Cage (brass ensemble)
• 1992 – Self-Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence (alto and string orchestra or countertenor and viol consort)
• 1992 – The Convertibility of Lute Strings (solo harpsichord)
• 1992 – Anne de Lucy Songs (soprano and piano)
• 1992 – Le Mari de la Coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband)
• 1992 – The Upside-Down Violin (orchestra/ensemble)
• 1993 – MGV: Musique à grande vitesse (band and orchestra)
• 1993 – The Piano Concerto (piano and orchestra)
• 1993 – Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs (1993; opera-ballet setting William Shakespeare's The Tempest)
• 1993 – Yamamoto Perpetuo (violin solo)
• 1993 – Songs for Tony (saxophone quartet)
• 1994 – To Morrow (soprano or soprano saxophone, organ)
• 1994 – 3 Quartets (ensemble)
• 1994 – Concerto for Trombone (trombone, orchestra, and steel filing cabinets)
• 1995 – String Quartet No. 4
• 1995 – Tango for Tim (In memoriam Tim Suster) (harpsichord)
• 1995 – The Waltz Song (unison voices)
• 1995 – Viola and Piano
• 1995 – Grounded (mezzo-soprano, saxophones, violin, piano)
• 1995 – HRT [High Rise Terminal] (chamber ensemble)
• 1995 – Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings
• 1995 – Double Concerto for Saxophone and Cello (saxophone, cello, and orchestra)
• 1996 – After Extra Time (ensemble)
• 1996 – Enemy Zero (game music)
• 1997 – Enemy Zero – Original Soundtrack
• 1997 – Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks (orchestra)
• 1997 – The Promise (piano)
• 1997 – Gattaca
• 1998 – Titch (worked on the main opening/closing piano theme).
• 1998 – Cycle of Disquietude (Coisas, Vozes, Lettras) (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and band)
• 1998 – Orfeu (band)
• 1998 – De Granada A La Luna (band)
• 1999 – The Commissar Vanishes (band)
• 1999 – The End of the Affair
• 2000 – Facing Goya (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)
• 2001 – a dance he little thinks of (orchestra)
• 2003 – Violin Concerto (violin and orchestra)
• 2003 – Man and Boy: Dada (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
• 2005 – Love Counts (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
• 2006 – gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (concerto)
• 2006 – Acts of Beauty' (song cycle)
• 2007 – A Handshake in the Dark (choral piece with orchestra; text by Jamal Jumá [world premiere 8 March 2007, Barbican, London, performed by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, John Storgards conducting])
• 2007 – Interlude in C (expansion of a theme from The Libertine for Accent07 touring ensemble)
• 2007 – Eight Lust Songs song cycle
• 2008 – Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute (arranged by Andy Findon)
• 2009 – Sparkie: Cage and Beyond opera with Carsten Nicolai
• 2009 – The Musicologist Scores (band)
• 2010 – 2Graves
• 2010 – Vertov Sounds

*originally recorded by Nyman, Ned Sublette, Susan Krongold, Barbara Benary, Jon Gibson, Richard Cohen^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Virgil Blackwell, Peter Zummo, and Peter Gordon at The Kitchen, and intended for Peter Greenaway's short film, The Tree.

Nyman's music re-used[link]

• Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) is the music on which Italian rock noir band Belladonna's song "Let There Be Light" is based. Released in December 2010, the track features Michael Nyman himself on piano.^[8]
• Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from The Piano) was used as backing music for one of the bank advertisements for Lloyds TSB broadcast on television. It has also been featured in episodes of 20/20.
• Music from Ravenous has been used at least once on WFYI's Across Indiana, in a segment titled "On the Trail of John Hunt Morgan", produced by Scott Andrew Hutchins.
• Nyman's soundtrack for Carrington is mostly based on his own String Quartet No. 3.
• A Cock and Bull Story contains music from The Draughtsman's Contract, as well as Nyman's arrangements of classical music used in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (it does not use any music from Nyman's Tristram Shandy opera).
• Nyman's music for Peter Greenaway's films has been used in the Japanese television program Iron Chef.
• Popular "Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds" (from The Draughtsman's Contract) constituted the main theme of Spanish TV program Queremos Saber, presented by Mercedes Milà in the nineties.
• Nyman features in '9 Songs' (Michael Winterbottom, 2004) playing at the Hackney Empire on his 60th birthday.
• Nyman's MGV: Musique à grande vitesse was used in November 2006 for a new one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet in London, DGV (danse à grande vitesse) by Christopher Wheeldon.
• Nyman's "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" was covered by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nyman had refused to release the song initially; the band was later granted permission and the song was released in February 29 2012 as part of the single The Crow, the Owl and the Dove from their album Imaginaerum.
• Time Lapse was used in Sky's 2008 'Heroes' advert
• Selections from Nyman's catalogue formed part of the soundtrack for James Marsh's 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, a film about Philippe Petit, a Frenchman, who in 1974 illegally strung a tightrope between the top of the WTC buildings and danced between them for 45 minutes, thus committing the "artistic crime of the 20th century".
• Nyman's piece "Car Crash" from A Zed & Two Noughts was used for once on the final episode of a Greek series called 'To Kafe Tis Xaras'

Recordings[link]

• Man and Boy: Dada – MN Records 102
• The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980-2001 – Virgin EMI CDVED957
• String Quartets 1–3 – Decca 4730912
• Decay Music EMI CVE964 2004

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Michael Nyman

• Michael Nyman official site
• Michael Nyman's homepage at Chester Music
• Michael Nyman at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Nyman at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• The Power of the Cadence: Michael Nyman in conversation with Robert Davidson
• 'The Case Against Nyman Revisited' Recent article on Michael Nyman's use of pre-existing music
• Michael Nyman à grande vitesse, review article in The Oxonian Review
• Michael Nyman judged The Film of the Month competition in June 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People
• An Evening with Michael Nyman, BAFTA event video

Listening[link]

• Michael Nyman audio at Internet Archive

Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds, 2008
Born	(1953-02-09) 9 February 1953 (age 59) Belfast, Northern Ireland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1976–present
Partner	Hélène Patarot (1987–present)

Ciarán Hinds (English pronunciation: /ˈkɪərɔːn ˈhaɪndz/ KEER-awn HYNDZ; born 9 February 1953) is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. His television roles include Gaius Julius Caesar in Rome and DCI James Langton in Above Suspicion. As a stage actor, Hinds has enjoyed spells with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre in London and six seasons with Glasgow Citizens' Theatre.^[1][2]

Early life[link]

Hinds was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Brought up as a Catholic^[3] in North Belfast, he was one of five children and the only son of his doctor father and schoolteacher mother. His mother, Moya, was also an amateur actress. He was an Irish dancer in his youth and was educated at Holy Family Primary School and St. Malachy's College. After leaving St. Malachy's, he enrolled as a law student at Queen's University, but was soon persuaded to pursue acting and abandoned his studies at Queen's to enroll at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Career[link]

Hinds began his professional acting career at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre in a 1976 production of Cinderella. He remained a frequent performer at the Citizens' Theatre during the late 1970s and through the mid-1980s. During this same period, Hinds also performed on stage in Ireland with the Abbey Theatre, the Field Day Theatre Company, the Druid Theatre, the Lyric Players' Theatre and at the Project Arts Centre. In 1987, he was cast by Peter Brook in The Mahabharata, a six hour theatre piece that toured the world, and he also featured in its 1989 film version. Hinds almost missed the casting call in Paris due to difficulties renewing his Irish passport.^[9] In the early 1990s, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He appeared in the title role of the RSC's 1993 production of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes; Mendes turned to Hinds as a last minute replacement for an injured Simon Russell Beale. Hinds gained his most popular recognition as a stage actor for his performance as Larry in the London and Broadway productions of Patrick Marber's Tony Award-nominated play Closer. In 1999, Hinds was awarded both the Theatre World Award for Best Debut in NYC and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Special Achievement (Best Ensemble Cast Performance) for his work in Closer. He was on stage in 2001 in The Yalta Game by Brian Friel at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. He appeared in the Broadway production of The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, which ran at the Booth Theatre from December 2007 through March 2008. In February 2009 Hinds took the leading role of General Sergei Kotov in Burnt by the Sun by Peter Flannery at London's National Theatre.^[10] Hinds returned to the stage later in 2009 with a role in Conor McPherson's play The Birds, which opened at Dublin's Gate Theatre in September 2009.

Hinds made his feature film debut in John Boorman's Excalibur (1981). He played Captain Frederick Wentworth in Jane Austen's Persuasion (1995), Jonathan Reiss in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), John Traynor in Veronica Guerin (2003), and Firmin in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (2004). Hinds also played Carl, a cover-up professional assisting a group of assassins, in Steven Spielberg's political thriller, Munich (2005). In 2006, he appeared in Michael Mann's film adaptation of the 80's television show, Miami Vice, and as Herod the Great in The Nativity Story.^[11] In the 2006 film Amazing Grace, Hinds portrayed Sir Banastre Tarleton, one the chief opponents of abolition of the slave trade in parliament. He starred in Margot at the Wedding, alongside Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh, in a drama-comedy about family secrets and relationships. He also appeared in There Will Be Blood (2007) directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

On television, Hinds portrayed Gaius Julius Caesar in the first season of BBC/HBO's series, Rome (2006). He has also been featured in a number of made-for-television movies, including the role of Michael Henchard in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (2004), for which he received the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series. Additional television performances include Edward Parker-Jones in the crime drama series Prime Suspect 3 (1993), Abel Mason in Dame Catherine Cookson's The Man Who Cried (1993), Jim Browner in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes episode The Cardboard Box (1994), Fyodor Glazunov in the science fiction miniseries Cold Lazarus (1996), Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1997), the Knight Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1997) and a portrayal of the French existentialist Albert Camus in Broken Morning (2003). Hinds has also featured in two notable television docudramas: Granada Television's 1990 docudrama Who Bombed Birmingham? in which Hinds portrayed Richard McIlkenny, a Belfastman falsely imprisoned for an IRA bombing; and HBO's 1993 docudrama Hostages, where he portrayed Irish writer and former hostage Brian Keenan. Hinds starred opposite Kelly Reilly in Above Suspicion, a TV adaptation of Lynda La Plante's detective story, which aired in the United Kingdom in January 2009; he came back again as DCI Langton for Lynda La Plante's sequels The Red Dahlia in 2010, Deadly Intent in 2011 and Silent Scream in 2012.

Hinds has performed in audiobook and radio productions as well. He performed as Valmont in the BBC Radio production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Hinds also narrated the Penguin Audiobook Ivanhoe. He also performed in Antony and Cleopatra and The Winter's Tale as part of The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare, an audio production of Shakespeare's plays which won the 2004 Audie Award for Best Audio Drama. He read the short story "A Painful Case" for the Caedmon audio version of James Joyce's Dubliners.

Hinds played the role of Albus Dumbledore's brother Aberforth (replacing Jim McManus, who played him in a cameo in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the final film in the Harry Potter franchise. Also in 2011, he appeared as David Peretz in the 1997 sections of The Debt along side Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson. Hinds played Roy Bland in the 2011 adaptation of the John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

In September 2011, Hinds returned to the Abbey Theatre Dublin, to star as Captain Jack Boyle in an acclaimed revival of Sean O Casey's Juno and the Paycock alongside Sinead Cusack as Juno. The production transferred to the National Theatre of Great Britain in November 2011 for a three month run. He played the role of Joe in the film The Shore (2011) directed and written by Terry George. The Shore won the Best Short Film, Live Action category at the 84th Annual Acadamy Awards (The Oscars) in 2012.

Personal life[link]

Hinds lives in Paris with his long-time partner, Hélène Patarot; they met in 1987 while in the cast of Peter Brook's production of The Mahabharata. They have a daughter, Aoife, born in 1991.^[12]

Hinds is close friends with fellow Irish actor Liam Neeson and served as a pallbearer at the funeral of Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, in upstate New York, on 22 March 2009.^[13]

Other[link]

Hinds has become Patron of the charity YouthAction Northern Ireland.^[14] YouthAction's Rainbow Factory School of Performing Arts is a youth arts projects with 450 young people taking part in a range of workshops and classes. His mother Moya also one of the charity's Patrons, has been a supporter of the charity's work for many years.

Filmography[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Film[link]

Television[link]

• Our Boys (1981)
• The Long March (1984)
• Tales From The Crypt (Season 7, episode 11, Confession, 1989)
• The Mahabharata (1989)
• Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990)
• Yellobacks (1990)
• Perfect Scoundrels (TV series), (Season 3, episode 6, The Good-Bye Look, 1992)
• Between the Lines, (Season 1, episode 1, Private Enterprise, 1992)
• Hostages (1993)
• The Man Who Cried (1993)
• Prime Suspect 3 (1993)
• Soldier, Soldier (Season 3, episode 7, Trouble and Strife, 1993)
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, (Season 1, episode 6, The Cardboard Box, 1994)
• A Dark-Adapted Eye (1994)
• Seaforth (1994 TV series)
• Rules of Engagement (1995)
• The Affair (1995)
• Persuasion (1995)
• Testament: The Bible in Animation Episode: Creation and the Flood (1996)
• Cold Lazarus (1996)
• Jane Eyre (1997)
• Ivanhoe (1997)
• Getting Hurt (1998)
• Jason And The Argonauts (2000)
• The Sleeper (2000)
• Thursday the 12th (2000)
• Broken Morning (2003)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge (2004)
• Rome (2005–07)
• Above Suspicion (2009)
• The Red Dahlia – Above Suspicion II (2010)
• Deadly Intent – Above Suspicion III (2011)
• Political Animals (2012)

Theatre[link]

Glasgow Citizens Theatre Company[link]

1976–77

• Sid Colin/David Wood Cinderella Giles Havergal Albert the Horse, Courtier
• William Wycherley The Country Wife Philip Prowse Mrs. Dainty Fidget
• Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest Giles Havergal Lane
• William Shakespeare Macbeth Giles Havergal Malcolm/Third murderer
• Robert David MacDonald Chinchilla Philip Prowse Tancredi
• Pierre de Beaumarchais Figaro Robert David MacDonald An policeman/a lawyer

1977–78

• Noël Coward Semi-Monde Philip Prowse Freddy Palmer
• Honoré de Balzac Vautrin Robert David MacDonald Joseph
• Joe Orton Loot Giles Havergal McLeavy
• Myles Rudge Mother Goose Giles Havergal Villager
• Robert David McDonald/James Hadley Chase No Orchids for Miss Blandish Robert David MacDonald Johnny Frisk
• John Ford/John Webster Painter's Palace of Pleasure Philip Prowse Giovanni

1978–79

• Bertold Brecht/Kurt Weill The Threepenny Opera Philip Prowse J. J. Peachum
• Anton Chekhov The Seagull Philip Prowse Dr Dorn
• Miles Rudge Dick Whittington Giles Havergal The Emperor of Morocco
• Carlo Goldoni Country Life Robert David MacDonald Guglielmo

1980–81

• Carlo Goldoni The Battlefield Robert David MacDonald Faustino
• Bertold Brecht The Caucasian Chalk Circle Giles Havergal Shauva, the policeman/Prince Georgi
• Robert David MacDonald Don Juan Philip Prowse Father Juan
• Shawn Lawton Desperado Corner Di Trevis Frank
• Vernon Sylvaine Madame Louise Giles Havergal Bishop of Porchester

1982–83

• Philip Massinger The Roman Actor Philip Prowse Paris
• Sean O'Casey Red Roses for Me Giles Havergal Brennan O' the Moor
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Torquato Tasso Robert David MacDonald Antonio Montecatino
• Bertold Brecht The Mother Giles Havergal Savely
• Carlo Goldoni The Impresario from Smyrna Robert David MacDonald Maccario
• William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Philip Prowse Antonio
• George Bernard Shaw Arms and the Man Giles Havergal Nicola, man-servant
• Noël Coward Sirocco Philip Prowse Tonio
• Robert David MacDonald Webster Philip Prowse Webster

1983 (autumn)

• Karl Kraus The Last Days of Mankind Robert David McDonald A Man of Government
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal Rosenkavalier Philip Prowse Valzacchi
• Sean O'Casey Juno and the Paycock Giles Havergal Captain Jack Boyle
• Thomas Southerne Oroonoko Philip Prowse Lieutenant Governor

1985

• Friedrich von Schiller Mary Stuart Philip Prowse Paulet
• Noël Coward Blithe Spirit Giles Havergal Charles Condomine
• Sean O'Casey The Plough and the Stars Giles Havergal Jack Clitheroe
• Joseph Kesselring Arsenic and Old Lace Giles Havergal "Uncle" Teddy
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust MacDonald Minister of State

1986

• Rolf Hochhuth The Representative Robert David MacDonald Pope Pius XII
• Alfred de Musset Hidden Fires Robert David MacDonald Clavaroche

1988

• Henrik Ibsen The Lady from the Sea Tom Cairns The Stranger
• William Shakespeare Richard III Jon Pope Richard III

Other Theatre[link]

Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts[link]

1975

• Anton Chekhov The Seagull Peter Watson Konstantin (Kostya)
• Anonymous Arden of Faversham Geoff Bullen Black Will
• John Wilson Hamp Euan Smith Prosecutive Officer
• Caryl Churchill Objections to Sex and Violence Arrogant pseudo-intellectual

1976

• John Barton When Thou Art King unknown
• Tennessee Williams The Night of the Iguana Nonno

Lyric Theatre, Belfast[link]

1977–78

• Peter Shaffer Equus

1978–79

• Brian Clark Whose Life is it Anyway? Tony Dinner Philip Hill (the solicitor)
• Mary O'Malley Once a Catholic Michael Poynor Derek (a Teddy Boy)

1983

• Jennifer Johnston Indian Summer Robert Cooper Cathal Dillon

Project Arts Centre, Dublin[link]

1979–80

• Jim Sheridan The Ha'penny Place Peter Sheridan Hare Krishna/Yehudi
• Peter Sheridan The Liberty Suit Jim Sheridan

1981

• Martin Sherman Bent Michael Scott Greta/George
• Liam Lynch Krieg Patrick Mason Jet

1982

• Sam Shepard Curse of the Starving Class

Greenwich Theatre, London[link]

1984

• John Webster The White Devil Philip Prowse Lodovico
• William Congreve Way of the World Giles Havergal Fainall
• Anton Chekhov The Seagull Philip Prowse Trigorin

1986

• Thomas Otway The Orphan Philip Prowse Castalio

Royal Shakespeare Company[link]

1990–91

• Tirso de Molina/Nick Dear The Last Days of Don Juan Danny Boyle Don Pedro Tenorio
• Christopher Marlowe Edward II Gerard Murphy Roger Mortimer
• Richard Nelson Two Shakespearean Actors Roger Michell Dion Boucicault
• William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida Sam Mendes Achilles

1993

• William Shakespeare Richard III Sam Mendes Richard III

Abbey/Peacock Theatres, Dublin[link]

1979

• J. Graham Reid The Death of Humpty Dumpty Patrick Mason Doctor

1987

• Peter Sheridan Dialann Ocrais/Diary Of A Hunger Strike Peter Sheridan O'Connor

1989

• William Butler Yeats Cuchulain Cycle James W. Flannery Cuchulain

2011

• Sean O'Casey Juno and the Paycock Howard Davis Captain Jack Boyle

Royal National Theatre, London[link]

1993

• Sophie Treadwell Machinal Stephen Daldry The Young Man

1997

• Patrick Marber Closer (London production) Patrick Marber Larry

2009

• Peter Flannery Burnt by the Sun Howard Davies Serguei Petrovitch Kotov

2011

• Sean O'Casey Juno and the Paycock Howard Davis Captain Jack Boyle

Others[link]

1981

• Anton Chekhov/Thomas Kilroy The Seagull Patrick Mason Konstantin Grand Opera House, Belfast

1982

• James Ellis/W.B. Yeats On Baile's Strand Christopher Fitz-Simon Cuchulain Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick
• Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot Ben Barnes Estragon Belltable Arts Centre
• Liz Lochhead Blood and Ice Kenny Ireland Byron/the Monster Traverse Theatre Company, Edinburgh

1984

• Tom Paulin The Riot Act (Antigone) Stephen Rea Chorus Leader Field Day Touring Company, Derry
• Derek Mahon High Time (School for Husbands) Wolk and Long High Tech Field Day Touring Company

1985

• John Ford Tis Pity She's a Whore Garry Hynes Giovanni' Druid Theatre Company, Galway
• Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest Garry Hynes John Worthing Druid Theatre Company

1986

• Shane Connaughton I Do Like To Be Jeff Teare David The Irish Company
• Frank McGuinness Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme Michael Attenborough George Anderson Hampstead Theatre, London

1987

• Adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière Mahabharata Peter Brook Ashwattaman/Nakula World Tour

1992

• Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman Assassins Sam Mendes Samuel Byck Donmar Warehouse, London

1995

• Sam Sheppard Simpatico James MacDonald Vinnie Royal Court Theatre, London

1999

• Patrick Marber Closer (Broadway production) Patrick Marber Larry Music Box Theatre, New York

2001

• Chekhov/Brian Friel The Yalta Game Karel Reisz Gurov Gate Theatre, Dublin

2007

• Conor McPherson The Seafarer Conor McPherson Mr Lockhart Booth Theatre, New York

2009

• Conor McPherson The Birds Conor McPherson Nat Gate Theatre, Dublin

Further reading[link]

Ciarán Hinds, entretien réalisé par Andréa Grunert,le 16 décembre 2008 http://www.objectif-cinema.com (March 2009) p. 1–10. [Interview/French]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ciarán Hinds at the Internet Movie Database
• Website dedicated to his works on stage and screen
• Youthaction.org Northern Ireland Organization Supported by Hinds