Born on February 9, 1953, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ciarán Hinds is the son of amateur actress Moya Hinds and doctor and schoolteacher Gerry Hinds. He has four sisters: Caitriona, Bronagh, Gerardine, and Moya. The family was Catholic, residing in North Belfast.
Ciarán began his training in Irish dance with Patricia Mulholland while attending Holy Family Primary School, and performed in stage productions at St. Malachy's College, an all-boys' high school. He went to Queen's University Belfast to study law, but soon the acting bug bit and he left for London to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (graduated 1975/07/01).
Ciarán began his professional stage career in 1976 in the production of Cinderella at the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre, and performed in many more productions with the company for several years.
He added to his oeuvre of stage work in various theatres throughout Britain and Ireland, including the Field Day and Druid theatre companies. He was selected by Peter Brook to join the cast of The Mahabharata, a six-hour play that toured the world, and he also appeared in the 1989 film version before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1990. Among his many roles with the RSC was the lead in the 1993 production of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes. He also appeared in many productions with the National Theatre in London, where he originated the role of Larry in Patrick Marber's hit play, Closer. Ciarán reprised this role when the play went to Broadway in 1998-1999.Ciaran Hinds in Simpatico
In 1981, Ciarán made his film debut in Excalibur, which also starred Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, and fellow Irishmen Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne. Ciarán has gone on to many more film appearances, including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover with his Excalibur co-star Helen Mirren; The Sum of All Fears with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman; Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks and Paul Newman; and Steven Spielberg's Munich among many, many films. Ciarán has appeared with Nicole Kidman in Margot at the Wedding, with Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes inIn Bruges, with Frances McDormand and Amy Adams in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, with Ryan Philippe in Stop-Loss, and with Daniel Day-Lewis in the Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood.
Ciarán is well known for his portrayal of Julius Caesar in the HBO series Rome, but his television career started much earlier with his role as Ashwattaman in the television miniseries, The Mahabharata, in 1989. He has since starred in numerous television series such as Prime Suspect 3, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Tales from the Crypt. Along with his feature film roles, Ciarán has played classic characters in made-for-TV films including Captain Wentworth in Jane Austen's Persuasion, Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.Ciaran Hinds in Closer
Ciarán has lent his mellifluous voice to several audiobook and radio productions. He narrated the audiobooks Ivanhoe and the Caedmon Short Story Collection including James Joyce's A Painful Case among other works. He played the roles of Leontes in A Winter's Tale and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra in the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare collection. Among his radio performances, he played Valmont in the BBC Radio production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and narrated several productions including BBC Radio's Book at Bedtime reading of Damage and works from James Joyce's Dubliners.
Ciarán starred as Mr. Lockhart in The Seafarer (for which he earned critical acclaim) at the Booth Theatre on Broadway through March 2008. In France, Ca$h came to theatres in April 2008 while he was filming Race To Witch Mountain, a Disney "re-imagining" of the 1975 film Escape to Witch Mountain. Summer 2008 saw Ciarán on another TV project where he was cast as DCI Langton in Lynda La Plante's adaption of her book Above Suspicion, which was aired in January 2009 on ITV1 and turned out to be a great succes.
He finished filming Conor McPherson's The Eclipse in Ireland at the end of September 2008, a movie that is due to have its premiere at the TRIBECA movie festival in April/May 2009. Up until mid December 2008 he was part of the cast of Todd Solondz' project Life During Wartime. Soon afterwards we were looking forward to seeing him in a leading part in Peter Flannery's play Burnt By The Sun, which brought him back to the stage in London until the end of May 2009. During the play's run he was also fiming The Debt (directed by John Madden) with Helen Mirren.
In 2009, there has been a handfull of projects where he appeared again in a leading role or as a minor character: on stage at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Conor McPherson's The Birds (September-October 2009), for the big screen as Aberforth Dumbledore in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows and for ITV, he took on DCI Langton's role again in a sequel based on Lynda La PLante's second novel in Anna Travis' series, The Red Dahlia. The filming of John Carter where he plays a Martian ruler took him until mid 2010. May 2010 saw him in Detroit to star along with Pierce Brosnan in Salvation Boulevard directed by George Ratliff and the third season of Lynda La Plante's Above Suspicion, Deadly Intent kept him busy during the Summer.
Also, on his plate are The Rite, adapted from Matt Baglio's book, The Woman In Black, adapted from Susan Hill's book, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, adapted from John Le Carré's spy novel, and The Spirit Of Vengeance, a sequel of the 2007 movie based on a Marvel comic book, shot in 3D in Romania and Turkey.
2011 has proved to be a great year in many ways. Apart from his small parts in talked about movies like Harry Potter and a fourth season of Above Suspicion, he seems to be going back to his Irish roots, with Terry George's short movie The Shore and Terry Loane's Sisters (still not confirmed in 2012). Then he returned to the stage in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock for the Autumn season, first at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, then at the National Theatre, in a role he has already played in 1983.
In the third and fourth seasons of Game of Thrones, Ciarán was Mance Rayder, the "King Beyond The Wall". At Richard Rodger's NY Broadway theatre, he was Big Daddy in the revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, from 18 December 2012 to 30 March 2013.
In 2013, he landed the leading part in Conor McPherson's new play The Night Alive from 13 June 2013 to 27 July 2013 at the Donmar WareHouse. The Night Alive jumped to New York for a run from 30 November 2013 to 26 January 2014 at the Atlantic Theater Company. That same year, his screen credits include Closed Circuit, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, The Sea and Frozen.
In 2014, Ciarán trod the boards of the Abbey Theatre alongside his longtime stage partner Sinéad Cusack, in Mark O'Rowe's new play, Our Few and Evil Days (which ran from September 26 to October 25) while landing a steady stream of supporting roles in Last Days in the Desert, Hitman: Agent 47, The Driftless Area and Bleed For This. In recognition of his services to film and drama, Ciarán also received a well-deserved honorary degree from Queen's University (Belfast).
In 2015, he was in the Shakespearean play Hamlet alongside Benedict Cumberbatch. He played Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius. The play was held at the London Barbican. In 2016, he appeared as Deputy Governor Danforth in the Broadway production of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible alongside Saoirse Ronan and Ben Whishaw, and starred in two short films Love is a Sting and The Hope Rooms. In 2017, he was in the role of Steppenwolf in Zack Snyder's upcoming superhero film, Justice League, and was a voice in Aisha Tyler's Axis. On stage, he appeared in Conor McPherson's Girl From The North Country, a kind of musical written around songs by Bob Dylan, where he was the only non-singing character.
2018 was a good year on stage and screen, with some nice productions, especially Brian Friel's Translations at the NT London, The Terror, a series inspired by Jonh Franklin's ill-fated expedition to the Northwest Passage, and First Man, the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong, where he played a small but pivotal role.
Ciarán Hinds is a veteran character actor from Ireland. Over the course of his four-decade-long career, he has accumulated over a hundred film and TV credits. He has won numerous accolades, including the Career Achievement Award at the 2010 Dublin International Film Festival and two Behind the Voice Actors Awards in 2014 as part of the vocal ensemble in the 2013 animated film ‘Frozen’.
Quotes from others about the person
"Ciaran Hinds has accumulated an extraordinary record of achievement and a legacy of work that will live long in the memory. He has graced the stage, screen and cinema, and has established himself as a leading light in a generation of actors which is already astounding in the depth and breadth of its talent." - Professor Tony Gallagher, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Queen's University.
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