Gabriel Byrne's acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979.
27 Facts About Gabriel Byrne
2.
Gabriel Byrne went on to star in such films as Excalibur, Lionheart, Miller's Crossing, Little Women, Dead Man, The Usual Suspects, The Man in the Iron Mask, Enemy of the State, Vanity Fair, The 33, and Hereditary.
3.
Gabriel Byrne co-wrote The Last of the High Kings and produced In the Name of the Father.
4.
Gabriel James Byrne was born on 12 May 1950 in Walkinstown, Dublin, Ireland, the son of devoutly Roman Catholic parents.
5.
Gabriel Byrne's father Dan was a soldier and cooper, while his mother Eileen, from Elphin, County Roscommon, was a hospital nurse.
6.
Gabriel Byrne has five younger siblings: Donal, Thomas, Breda, Margaret, and a sister who died at an early age, Marian.
7.
Gabriel Byrne attended Ardscoil Eanna secondary school in Crumlin, where he later taught Spanish and history.
8.
Gabriel Byrne attended University College Dublin, where he studied archaeology, Spanish and linguistics, and graduated with a BA in 1972, becoming proficient in the Irish language.
9.
Gabriel Byrne went on to complete a Higher Diploma in Education in 1973.
10.
Gabriel Byrne maintained his love of his language, later writing the first television drama in Irish, Draiocht, on Ireland's national Irish-language television station, TG4, when it began broadcasting in 1996.
11.
Gabriel Byrne started acting at age 29, and began his career on stage with the Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
12.
Gabriel Byrne later joined the Performing Arts Course at Roslyn Park College in Sandymount.
13.
Gabriel Byrne came to prominence on the final season of the Irish television show The Riordans, subsequently starring in his own spin-off series, Bracken.
14.
Gabriel Byrne made his film debut in 1981, as King Uther Pendragon in John Boorman's King Arthur epic, Excalibur.
15.
Gabriel Byrne was cast in a film adaptation of Flann O'Brien's metafictional novel At Swim-Two-Birds, alongside Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy.
16.
Gabriel Byrne starred as therapist Paul Weston in the HBO series In Treatment from 2008 to 2010.
17.
Gabriel Byrne was named as TV's "latest Dr McDreamy" by The New York Times for this role, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series in 2008.
18.
Gabriel Byrne received his first Emmy Award nomination for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards that same year.
19.
Gabriel Byrne had a 12-year relationship with television producer and presenter Aine O'Connor, from 1974 to 1986.
20.
Gabriel Byrne began a relationship with actress Ellen Barkin, and relocated to Manhattan to be with her.
21.
At the fifth Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in 2007, Gabriel Byrne was presented with the first of the new Volta awards, for lifetime achievement in acting.
22.
Gabriel Byrne received the Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society, of Trinity College Dublin on 20 February 2007.
23.
Gabriel Byrne mentioned in interviews and his 1994 autobiography, Pictures in My Head that he hates being called "brooding".
24.
Gabriel Byrne has been listed by People as one of the "Sexiest Men Alive".
25.
Gabriel Byrne married his partner, Hannah Beth King, on 4 August 2014 at Ballymaloe House in County Cork, with their daughter, Maisie.
26.
Gabriel Byrne is an atheist and has been vocally critical of the Catholic Church, which he described in a 2011 interview with The Guardian as "repressive of women and minorities and repressive of its followers".
27.
Gabriel Byrne criticised the marketing strategy employed by Guinness known as Arthur's Day as "a cynical piece of exercise in a country which has a huge drinking problem".