Ray Fearon Biography
Ray Fearon (Raymond Fearon) is a British actor. He is famously known for playing garage mechanic Nathan Harding on ITV’s long-running soap opera Coronation Street. He has also worked extensively in theatre.
He attended Rose Bruford College of speech and drama. After this, Fearon went on to make his reputation as a stage actor. He worked at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre, Manchester Contact Theatre and many more. At the age of 24, he starred in Othello, opposite Gillian Kearney’s Desdemona in Liverpool.
Ray Fearon became the first black actor to play Othello on RSC main stages for over 40 years. His other early stage roles included Charles Surface in The School for Scandal. Moreover, he played as Betty/Martin in Cloud Nine, Longaville in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Ferdinand in The Tempest, and Pete in Blues for Mr Charlie.
He has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company in their Stratford and London theatres and on tour. Other RSC roles he had include: the First Knight and First Tempter in Murder in the Cathedral, Stubb in Moby Dick, the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice and many more.
Other than theater, Ray Fearon has made many appearances in film and television shows. He played Nathan Harding in Coronation Street. In 2001, he appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as Firenze the centaur. In addition, he had a minor role as a sentry in Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film version of Hamlet.
Ray Fearon Photo
Ray Fearon was in the 2006 series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered by Camilla Dallerup. Moreover, he featured as a fictionalised version of historical figure Carlo de’ Medici on the Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons, which ran from 2013-2015. In 2019, Fearon played the role of Hot Misogynist in season two of the acclaimed BBC Three comedy-drama Fleabag.
Ray Fearon Age
Ray Fearon was born in London, United Kingdom. He was born on 5th August 1973. His current age is 45 years old as of 2018.
Ray Fearon Height
Ray Fearon is pretty tall. His height is 1.8m. His other body measurements are not known. We will update you as soon as we get the information.
Ray Fearon Net Worth
Ray Fearon primary source of income is from his acting career. He has been in the industry since 1995 and featured in many films and television shows and theater. He earns depending on the size of the venue.
For the seat of over 1,100, they earn about $900 per week and for the seat of less than 800 they earn about $740 per week. In the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone, it made $975.1 million at the box office.
He must therefore have earned a good share from it. Ray Fearon approximated net worth is $ 1.6 million as of 2019.
Ray Fearon Family
Ray Fearon was born and raised in London. His parents are west Indian. He grew up with 7 siblings.
Ray Fearon Daughter
Ray Fearon is a father to one daughter. Her name is Rosa May Fearon. Ray welcomed his daughter with his ex-girlfriend. He was in a relationship with his girlfriend Jane Gurnett. The couple is not together now and the reason for their separation is not disclosed yet.
Ray Fearon Movies | Ray Fearon Death In Paradise | Who Did Ray Fearon Play In Harry Potter
1997 Band of Gold
2000 A Christmas Carol
2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
2003 His Dark Materials (BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation)
2003– 2008 Doctors
2004 In Search of Shakespeare
2005 Coronation Street
2008 The Chef’s Letter
2011 Death in Paradise
2013 National Theatre Live
2014 Da Vinci’s Demons Carlo
2016 New Blood
2017 Beauty and the Beast
2019 Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators
2019 Fleabag
Ray Fearon Interview
Q: What makes this production of Julius Caesar unique?
Ray Fearon: In this production Rome has been put into Eastern Africa. Although it’s set in present day, in Africa when they go to funerals they wear black togas and the set is broken down like an amphitheatre so it looks like a Roman senate basically. It’s amazing when you see it, you sort of go ‘This is Rome!’ When Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar there was an assassination plot going on with Elizabeth the First, but if he’d written about that happening he’d have been beheaded.
So he had to write something other, so he wrote Julius Caesar. But the metaphor for it basically is the politics of the time. Our thing is that the metaphor is for Africa and the dictatorships that happen now in Africa and the Middle East. Bringing up questions like when you overthrow a dictator, who do you put in its place? And exactly what happens is total chaos.
Q: Set in present day Eastern Africa sounds like you’ve brought a new element to it?
Ray Fearon: Absolutely. I think because the play has things like soothsayers and there are witch doctors in Africa, and when characters are talking about lions walking the streets you just think, ‘This is Africa.’ It’s such a big world Shakespeare has created and a dangerous world and with something like that it’s great to see how relevant it is today. I think it’s great to relate it to what’s going on now, because young audiences then realise there’s a reason why we’re doing these plays. These are the audiences that we want to understand, because they’re the audiences of tomorrow and they want to see how it is relevant to them.
Q: Can you identify any of the characters in this production with current political dictators?
Ray Fearon: I think it’s a lot broader than that. You could say Robert Mugabe or Joseph-Desiré Mobutu but it goes further. Basically these guys don’t start off as dictators; they’re political rebel freedom fighters. But like Caesar their corruption grows as their power grows. What Shakespeare does fantastically is show you the character from so many different points of views.
We see that Caesar is slightly fearful; he’s a bit superstitious and has enfrailments like being deaf in one ear. Our perception of a dictator is someone who looks like a devil. Shakespeare’s done the opposite by presenting Caesar as a man, and it means that you can see why these things happen. It’s like one man trying to unite the whole of Africa; he would be seen as a dictator. We see the other characters being corrupt after Caesar’s gone.
I love Barack Obama; I truly believe he wants the best for his country. I believe a great ruler is someone who wants to make change but good change not just for political gain. Change for the good of the people and for the good of mankind.
Mark Anthony becomes something he didn’t want to become because of revenge.
Octavius Caesar comes on the scene and he’s the rightful heir, but he and Marc Anthony don’t get on. So you have Brutus and Cassius in cahoots with each other, and you begin to wonder whether it was right to get rid of Caesar? Because none of these guys can really run anything, they can win wars but are they rulers?
Q: What do you think makes a good ruler?
Ray Fearon: I couldn’t really tell you. I think it’s a touch of everything. You can have someone who’s popular with people but has no idea how to implement political rule. I don’t know which one is right, like in the Middle East now, people are overthrown and people are wanting democracy and you realise that now they have it things are worse.
And that’s exactly what goes in in this play, they murder a man for the good of Rome, for democracy and what ensues is complete chaos. I don’t have the answer. I love Barack Obama; I truly believe he wants the best for his country. I believe a great ruler is someone who wants to make change but good change not just for political gain. Change for the good of the people and for the good of mankind.
Q: Do you prefer performing in classical plays to your television and film work?
Ray Fearon: I enjoy both. I’m an associate artist here at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I spent so much of my 20s here; I kind of grew up here and learnt so much. Shakespeare is so much of our art as actors. It’s like a base; you always come back to Shakespeare. I enjoy all types of work, I don’t do as much theatre work as I used to, and I do a lot of film now. I like them equally, but I just think Shakespeare gives us so much. There’s no other writer like him, which is why you get people like Dame Judi Dench or Ralf Fiennes still doing it.
Q: You were in Strictly Come Dancing in 2006. How does the celebrity element of your craft come into your job?
Ray Fearon: It doesn’t. The celebrity thing is just about how many people know you and how popular you are. It’s something that you have to get used to when it does happen. When I did Corrie within about the second month I came out of my house in Manchester and I couldn’t go anywhere without people stopping me and it was like that every single day. I have a little daughter and she deals with it, but she doesn’t like it. They don’t see the other people. But it’s part of it; you just try and be as nice as possible. It was fun doing Strictly Come Dancing, but originally I didn’t want to do it, my daughter was the one who made me do that.
I said to her ‘Listen, I will do it under the proviso that you will take up dance.’ And she did! She did hip hop and Irish dancing for a while. Now she’s 14 and she does cheerleading. They just did a competition in Manchester and they won it. Actually after Strictly in the next two jobs I had to dance. I did Argentinean tango at the Young Vic straight afterwards, and then I was doing a film in Berlin where I had to jive all through the film. I knew it would come up so it’s certainly been helpful in my career.
Q: Obvious question but is there any significance to this production being performed by an all black cast?
Ray Fearon: I think we should get away from that question, because no one ever asks that if they’re all white. When Greg (Doran-director) decided to do this he wanted to set it in the sub Sahara, of Africa, and obviously Africa is where black people are. The media like to publicise things and say ‘Oh, it’s an all black cast’ but Africa is our Rome, so of course it’s a black cast. Rome was a metaphor anyway, Shakespeare had to put it in another place but it was really about Elizabeth the First.
I think Greg’s motivation was to set this play in Africa because he met Nelson Mandela, and found out that in Robben Island someone sneaked in a complete Shakespeare’s works. It went around the prison and these guys underlined the quote that they loved best. Mandela underlined a quote from Julius Caesar and it was, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once”
SOURCE: www.afridiziak.com