Stephen Dillane

Early life and education

Dillane was born in Kensington, London, to an English mother, Bridget (née Curwen), and an Irish-Australian surgeon father, John Dillane. The eldest of his siblings (his younger brother Richard is also an actor), he grew up in West Wickham, Kent.

At school, Dillane began performing in end-of-term plays and had "a certain facility" for funny accents. but also recalls a part in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as being particularly memorable, noting that shouting "Fire!" as Rosencrantz while pointing at the audience was "a very thrilling thing to be able to do."

He studied history and politics at the University of Exeter, concentrating on the Russian Revolution, and afterward became a journalist for the Croydon Advertiser. Unhappy in his career, he read one day how actor Trevor Eve gave up architecture for acting; this, along with reading Hamlet and Peter Brook's The Empty Space back-to-back, made him "light up inside somewhere" During his early acting career, he was known as Stephen Dillon but reverted to his birth name in the 1990s.

Career

Dillane is an experienced theatre actor; his notable roles include Archer in The Beaux' Stratagem (Royal National Theatre, 1989), Prior Walter in Angels in America (1993), Hamlet (1994), Clov in Samuel Beckett's Endgame (1996), Uncle Vanya (1998), Henry in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (for which he won a Tony Award in 2000), The Coast of Utopia (2002), and a one-man version of Macbeth (2005) directed by Travis Preston. He has also performed T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets in London and New York City, and was seen in the 2010 Bridge Project's productions of The Tempest and As You Like It.

Dillane also portrayed Horatio in the 1990 film adaptation of Hamlet. He played Michael Henderson in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), a character based on British journalist Michael Nicholson, and the impatient and easily agitated Harker in Spy Game (2001).

Dillane is also known for his portrayal of Leonard Woolf in The Hours (2002), English professional golfer Harry Vardon in The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) and Glen Foy in the Goal! trilogy. He also starred in John Adams as Thomas Jefferson.

He joined the cast of Game of Thrones in 2011 as Stannis Baratheon, a major contender for the throne of the fictional realm of Westeros. While admitting he had not read the books on which the series is based, he commented that the show's appeal was due to "the storytelling, the extraordinary world that’s created and the way it reflects our actual world – a naked, ruthless pursuit of power in all its forms."

In 2012, he also played Rupert Keel, head of the private security agency Byzantium, in the BBC drama series Hunted. The following year he went on to take the male lead, opposite Clémence Poésy, in the crime drama series The Tunnel, an Anglo-French remake of the Scandinavian The Bridge. Dillane, who had not seen the original series, plays Karl Roebuck, the laid-back, experienced British detective to Poésy's humourless French counterpart. In a second series in 2016, titled The Tunnel: Sabotage, he reprised his role alongside Poésy for a new case involving a deadly airliner crash in the English Channel.

Besides television, Dillane also starred in the 2012 British independent film Papadopoulos & Sons as successful entrepreneur Harry Papadopoulos, who rediscovers his life after being forced to start again from nothing in the wake of a banking crisis. His son, Frank Dillane, plays his son in the film. That same year he also had roles in the films Zero Dark Thirty and Twenty8k.

Offscreen, the actor in 2014 collaborated with visual artist Tacita Dean for the Sydney Biennale and Carriageworks in a project called Event for a Stage. The work, performed live and later adapted for radio broadcast and film, explored the process of filmmaking and the "concept of artifice on the stage" through a single actor, Dillane. The performance encompassed readings from texts as well as his personal reflections on acting, theatre, and family. 2015 saw Dillane making other brief returns to stage including a reprise of his reading of Four Quartets in London and a one-off appearance in Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree at the National Theatre.

In 2016, besides appearing in the second series of The Tunnel, Dillane returned to the Donmar Warehouse for a revival of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. His performance as Frank, an itinerant Irish healer, was described as "poetic and powerful." In addition, he appeared as artist Graham Sutherland in The Crown, Netflix's TV series about British monarch Elizabeth II. In 2017, Dillane appeared in two biopics, playing Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax in Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, as the antagonist of Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, and writer William Godwin, the father of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, in the film Mary Shelley.

In 2018, he appeared in the film The Thin Man, which has since been retitled The Man In The Hat, opposite Ciarán Hinds; it was directed by Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck.

Personal life

Dillane has two sons with actress-director Naomi Wirthner: Séamus and actor Frank Dillane, with whom he co-starred in Papadopoulos & Sons.

Politics

In October 2023, Dillane signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Selected credits

Awards and nominations

References

References

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2. (2003). "Theatre World Volume 57: 2000–2001". Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
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7. Matt Wolf. (16 April 2000). "Getting Out of the Way of 'The Real Thing'". The New York Times.
8. "Stephen DILLANE". Ancestry.com.
9. (12 June 2010}} {{subscription required). "Stephen Dillane, actor of rare introspection". [[The Times]].
10. (4 April 1998). "In retreat from vulgar stardom". The Telegraph.
11. (12 January 2000). "The unknown heart-throb". The Guardian.
12. (13 April 2008). "'Adams' alter-ego". New York Post.
13. (16 November 1997). "The unwilling war hero". The Independent.
14. (19 November 1997). "The conscientious objector". [[The Times]].
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20. Hibberd, James. (19 July 2011). "'Game of Thrones' casts sorceress Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon". [[EW.com]].
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23. (18 October 2012). "'Hunted' Review: An Entertaining Thriller For Fans Of 'Alias' And 'X-Files'". The Huffington Post.
24. Munn, Patrick. (23 January 2013). "Stephen Dillane & Clémence Poésy Cast As Co-Leads in Sky Atlantic/Canal+ Series 'The Tunnel'". TVWise.
25. (25 November 2014). "International Emmys: Dillane and Krijgsman pick up top prizes". The Guardian.
26. (11 February 2016). "First look at The Tunnel series two starring Stephen Dillane and Clémence Poésy". Radio Times.
27. (11 January 2013). "Papadopoulos & Sons: Palm Springs Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
28. (15 June 2014). "Tacita Dean's Event for a Stage – Soundproof – ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)".
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31. (4 May 2014). "EVENT FOR A STAGE".
32. "The Horse Hospital / T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets".
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34. (1 December 2015). "Tony Winner Stephen Dillane, Gina McKee, Nick Payne & More Tapped for Donmar Warehouse's 2016 Spring Season". [[Broadway.com]].
35. (28 June 2016). "Faith Healer review at the Donmar Warehouse, London – 'stunning'". The Stage.
36. (8 November 2016). "Stephen Dillane Joins Working Title's Churchill WWII Epic 'Darkest Hour' As Production Begins In UK". Deadline Hollywood.
37. (2 March 2016). "Tom Sturridge, Maisie Williams & More Join Haifaa Al-Mansour's 'A Storm In The Stars'". Deadline Hollywood.
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41. Kanter, Jake. (12 May 2021). "Stephen Dillane, Lydia Leonard & James D'Arcy Lead Viaplay/A+E Networks Spy Noir 'Red Election'".
42. (5 November 2019). "Evening Standard Theatre Awards 1980-2003". standard.co.uk.
43. "Past nominees and winners {{!}} Helpmann Awards".
44. (31 January 2017). "2016 Results {{!}} Critics' Circle Theatre Awards". Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.
45. "The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards: all this year's nominees". The Irish Times.
46. (12 February 2023). "The Offies 2023 Nominations, Finalists and Winners". The Offies.