Irish actor Liam Cunningham was an electrician in the mid 80’s. He saw an ad for an acting school and he decided to give acting a try. His first film role was as a policeman in “Into the West.”” Since then, he has been involved in many films and theater productions on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Liam Cunningham
Movies
Roja
Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door.
Fun Facts
He did not start acting until he was in his mid-twenties.
A former electrician, he maintained electrical equipment at a Safari park in Zimbabwe before becoming an actor.
He left school at at the age of 15.
He was recommended by David Puttnam for the Eighth Doctor in Doctor Who (1996). Cunningham had acted in War of the Buttons (1994), which was produced by Puttnam. Executive producer Philip David Segal seriously considered him for it, but the Eighth Doctor was eventually cast with Paul McGann. If Cunningham had been cast, he would have been the first non-British actor to play the Doctor.
As of 2017, he has appeared in both the highest grossing Irish independent film ( The Guard (2011) ) and the second highest grossing Irish independent film ( The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) ).
Quotes
[on criticism of the violence in 'Game of Thrones'] I think about it in terms of doing a painting. You don't always need a painter to tell you what your interpretation of it is. It's a grown-up show for grown-ups, made by grown-ups. It doesn't necessarily expect you to take any sort of position... I think it would be arrogant of us to say this is what it is supposed to be. It's patronizing for anybody to do that. It's there for what you want to take from it. I think it's as close as you can get to a piece of art for what it is.