Owen O'Neill

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, Northern Ireland. 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, and particularly Richard Pryor: "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. and his stand-up evolved out of his poetry readings. 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 and starred Ian Bannen. 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 of The New York Times praised the effective writing and O'Neill's performance as "hold[ing] the attention fast with its understated, almost offhand intensity.". He won best actor at the Irish Theatre Festival Awards for the role.

Awards and honours YearAwardCategory ForResult 1993 Cork Film Festival Best Irish Short Shooting to Stardom Chicago International Film Festival Best Short Film 1994 Perrier Comedy Awards "It's A Bit Like This" 1998 LWT Writing Award Off My Face 1999 Fringe First "Dehydrated & Travellin' Light" (with Sean Hughes), "Dead Meat" 2008 Boston Irish Film Festival Best Irish Short The Basket Case Brazilian Santa Posa Best Short 2010 First Irish Theatre Festival Awards Best Actor Absolution

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