Lalor Roddy facts for kids

Lalor Roddy (born November 30, 1954) is a talented Irish actor. A theatre critic from The Irish Times once called him "surely the finest Irish actor of his generation," which means he's considered one of the very best actors of his time in Ireland.

Early Life and Education

Lalor Roddy was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His mother was involved with the Lyric Theatre when it was first starting out.

When he was younger, he went to the United States to play football. After returning to Northern Ireland, he studied psychology at the University of Ulster. He worked as a psychologist in England for a while before coming back to Ireland at age 33 to start his acting career.

Working in Theatre

In 1988, Lalor Roddy, along with Tim Loane and Stephen Wright, started a theatre company called Tinderbox in Belfast. They put on two plays by the famous writer Harold Pinter with a very small budget.

In 1989, the Tinderbox company received a special cheque from another famous playwright, Samuel Beckett. This was seen as a huge compliment in the world of Irish theatre. From 1989 to 2000, Tinderbox held a yearly Festival of New Irish Playwriting. Their goal was to show new plays that might be "artistically dangerous," meaning they challenged ideas.

The Tinderbox company wanted to help bring people together in Ulster during a difficult time known as 'the Troubles'. This was a period of conflict in Northern Ireland. The theatre aimed to put on new plays that could help bridge divides. Lalor Roddy was one of the leaders of this company. Tinderbox became one of the most important theatre groups in Belfast during the 1990s and 2000s.

Roddy's acting in Belfast caught the eye of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), a very famous theatre group in England. He performed in their plays, and in 1998, he spent a whole season acting with the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon.

He also starred in two plays at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which is Ireland's national theatre. These plays were Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and In a Little World of Our Own. For his role in In a Little World of Our Own, he won an award for best supporting actor.

Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme was a very important play in Dublin. It showed a sympathetic view of Protestant men from Ulster fighting in the British Army during the First World War. Roddy's performance in this play helped make him even more well-known. In a Little World of Our Own was also an important play, focusing on people from Ulster involved in a certain group. Roddy mentioned that the writers of these two plays came from different backgrounds, one Protestant and one Catholic. In 2004, he was nominated for another award for his acting in a play called The Weir.

In 2004 and again in 2014, he acted in a play called Defender of the Faith. This play was set in 1986 on a farm in County Armagh. It was about a family who supported the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and suspected one of their own might be a spy.

Television and Film Roles

Even though Lalor Roddy is mainly a theatre actor who works all over Ireland, many people around the world know him best from his work in movies and TV shows. He has appeared in over sixty films and television episodes!

One of his most famous screen roles, even though it was very short, was as the assassin who tried to kill Bran Stark in the The Kingsroad episode of Game of Thrones. In 2013, he told a journalist that being a professional actor means staying true to yourself while also becoming someone else for a role. In 2018, he starred in Séamus, a short film.

Film and TV Appearances