Ciaran Hinds – Profile of Irish Actor in MIami Vice Movie
For all that though, he regularly lends his acting skills to much lower budget films back home in Ireland, and whilst this unassuming Belfast man may be one of the most famous Irish actors working today, many might be hard pressed to recall his name – and that’s probably the way CiarÃ?¡n Hinds prefers it.
Born in Belfast on February 9, 1953, he was the youngest of five children and the only son. His father hoped that Ciar�¡n would follow him into the world of medicine, but his mother Moya, an amateur actress, noticed that Ciar�¡n was looking in another direction and encouraged him to follow his dreams of becoming an actor.
He did start studying Law at the prestigious Queens University in Belfast, but he soon left to start his education as an actor at RADA – the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art – in London, although his first big break on stage was at Glasgow Citizens Theater, where he played the rear end of a horse in Cinderella.
He quickly stepped out of the horse costume and took part in many productions over the following years, including the lead in Arsenic and Old Lace and Faust, and managed to win the ultimate prize by joining the ranks of the world famous Royal Shakespeare Company, where he soon played the infamous villain Richard III when they took Shakespeare’s play on a world tour.
Movies first came into the picture in 1981 when he was cast in director John Boorman’s Arthurian epic Excalibur alongside fellow Irishmen Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne, and since then it’s been a gradual rise to the top. It was his portrayal of the classic characters Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and Captain Frederick Wentworth in the movie of Jane Austen’s book Persuasion that propelled him right into the glare of the public eye.
Most recently he was seen in Steven Spielberg’s controversial and multi-Oscar nominated Munich, but has also appeared in other big budget movies including The Phantom of the Opera, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and The Sum Of All Fears.
True to his Irish roots though, he has regularly flown across the Irish sea to take on roles in smaller Irish films such as Some Mother’s Son, Titanic Town, Veronica Guerin and Mickybo and Me, but has still be able to rack up some impressive television credits throughout his career, including the BBC/HBO series Rome and Jason and The Argonauts.
Theatre has never been far away though, and in 1998 and 1999 saw his performances as Larry in both the London and Broadway productions of Patrick Marber’s Tony Award-nominated play, Closer receive wide critical success, and he 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.
Awards have come his way from the small screen too, and in 2004 he was awarded “Best Actor in a Dramatic Series” by the Irish Film and Television Awards for his portrayal of Michael Henchard in the television film of yet another classic novel, Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Perhaps his most unusual award was also in 2004 when he was given an Audie Award for “Best Audio Drama Performance” for his voice work in the fully dramatized recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays, although his voice had already featured in an audio book version of Ivanhoe, and he got behind the microphone to play the villainous Valmont in a BBC radio production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
It seems that the Belfast boy can almost pick and choose what he does next in television, movies or theatre, but several movie projects are on the horizon including playing the notorious King Herod in The Nativity Story, the next movie from Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach (The Squid and The Whale, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) and reuniting with Boorman in an Irish-set film called A Tiger’s Tale, where he stars alongside Brendan Gleeson.
For someone with over 50 credits to his name, Hinds is very much a private person. He lives in London with his long-term partner French-Vietnamese actress HÃ?©lÃ?¨ne Patarot and they have a daughter, Aoife, but that’s about all the public knows of the Hinds household, so it seems that his work on screen and stage will have to do all the talkingâÂ?¦
