Owen O'Neill is a Northern Irish writer, actor, director, and comedian.

Early life

O'Neill was born, the third eldest of 16 children, in

Cookstown Cookstown (, ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the fourth-largest town in the county and had a population of 12,546 in the 2021 census. It, along with Magherafelt and Dungannon, is one of the main towns in the Mid-Ulster ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. He has drawn on his upbringing in Cookstown for some of his more colourful characters in his standup and theatre work. Early comic influences included W. C. Fields,

Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy were a British-American double act, comedy duo during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957) ...

, and particularly

Richard Pryor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Known for reaching a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, he is widely regarded ...

: "It was also poignant and heartfelt and I realised then that stand-up could be an art-form". He briefly attended Queen’s University in Belfast studying English, but dropped out and worked various menial jobs in Italy, Amsterdam, and finally London at age 21.

Career

O'Neill cites his career as beginning in poetry. In 1981 he entered and won a poetry competition for BBC Radio 4 and his stand-up evolved out of his poetry readings. He debuted on television in 1985 on Saturday Live. As an actor, he has appeared in the films '' Michael Collins'' and '' The General''. O'Neill is a veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, having performed stand-up or theatre gigs there for over twenty years. He was nominated for the 1994 Perrier Award with his show "It's a Bit Like This", and won a Fringe First in 1999 with Sean Hughes for the theatre show "Dehydrated and Travellin' Light". Theatre sets have included 12 Angry Men, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Odd Couple. Stand-up has included "Off My Face" and "It Was Henry Fonda's Fault". As a writer, his debut feature film ''Arise and Go Now'' was screened by BBC2 and was directed by

Danny Boyle Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on the films ''Shallow Grave (1994 film), Shallow Grave'' (1994), ''Trainspotting (film), Trainspotting'' (1996) and its sequel ''T2 Tra ...

and starred

Ian Bannen Ian Edmund Bannen (29 June 1928 – 3 November 1999) was a Scottish actor with a long film, stage and TV career. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Academy Award for his performance in ''The Flight of the Phoenix ( ...

. He has adapted a number of his works of short fictions to be plays or films. His short film ''The Basket Case'' won the best Irish short at the 2008 Boston Irish Film Festival, where judges described it as "a beautiful and memorable film", and best International short at The 2010 Fantaspoa film festival in Brazil. O'Neill's play ''Absolution'' performed on Off Broadway in 2010 to good reviews.

Charles Isherwood Charles Splaine Isherwood Jr. (born October 1964) is an American theater critic. Career A graduate of Stanford University, Isherwood wrote for '' Backstage West'' in Los Angeles. In 1993, he joined the staff of '' Variety'', where he was promote ...

of The New York Times praised the effective writing and O'Neill's performance as "hold ngthe attention fast with its understated, almost offhand intensity.". He won best actor at the Irish Theatre Festival Awards for the role.

Awards and honours

Filmography

Film

* Michael Collins (Rory O’Connor) (1998) * "Arise and Go Now" (writer) (1991) * The Basket Case (writer) (2008)

Television

* Shooting to Stardom (writer) (1993) * The Bill (George Rayburn) (2000) * The Fitz (writer) (2000) * DNA (writer) (2000) * Saints and Scholars (presenter) 2000-02

Theatre

* Much Ado About Nothing (Dogberry) (1998) * Off My Face (1998) * 12 Angry Men (2003) * One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Dale Harding) (2006) * The Odd Couple (Roy)(2005) *

The Shawshank Redemption ''The Shawshank Redemption'' is a 1994 American Prison film, prison Drama (film and television), drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella ''Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption''. The film t ...

(2009) * Absolution (Nathan, also playwright)(2010)

Bibliography

* WB Yeats and Me (short story) * The Basket Case (short story) * Volcano Dancing (2006) * Tom Joad and Me (2024)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Owen Male comedians from Northern Ireland Male film actors from Northern Ireland Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Stand-up comedians from Northern Ireland Satirists from Northern Ireland Comedy writers from Northern Ireland Humorists from Northern Ireland Actors from County Tyrone People from Cookstown