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THE WORKS PRESENTS: LIAM CUNNINGHAM ***FINAL***

The Works Presents Liam Cunningham with host John Kelly Image Name: The Works Presents Liam Cunningham with host John Kelly Description: The Works Presents: Liam Cunningham with host John Kelly

The Works Presents: Liam Cunningham, Episode 8 of 8, RTÉ One, Tuesday, March 21 at 11.10pm

Liam Cunningham says he became an overnight success after 27 years for his role in smash hit TV show Game of Thrones. Undoubtedly his role as Davos Seaworth is part of the current zeitgeist but Liam has often come in public consciousness before. His performances in seminal films like The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Hunger demonstrated he is a character actor of rare quality.

More recently, his humanitarian work in relation to Syrian refugees has shown him to be a man with a deeply held sense of what is right and wrong in our time.

Born in the Rotunda and raised in North Wall, Liam grew up with a sense of injustice in his bones. His father worked on the docks, shovelling coal into boats. Each morning, his father would walk to the waterfront and ask if there was work for him for that day.

He left secondary school at 15 to become an electrician – a much coveted job for life – but took up acting classes when boredom set in.

His debut film role came in 1992 – at the age of 31 – with Into the West, where he played a police officer. In War of the Buttons in 1994, he played an inspiring 1950s schoolteacher in the Irish countryside who spoke about democracy and the fight for Irish independence.

High points of his career have included Ken Loach’s celebrated The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Steve McQueen’s Hunger.

Cunningham’s role as Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones has without a doubt been the biggest of his career to date – and indeed, the biggest scale production he’s ever been a part of. He auditioned for several roles for the first season, but did not get any due to scheduling clashes. Producers invited him to audition for Season 2 instead – and it didn’t take much convincing. His character is a complex one, which Liam describes as “a delight to play”.

One of the benefits of his celebrity has been his ability to shine a light on causes he cares about. Liam is ambassador for World Vision – a humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities to tackle poverty and injustice. Last July 2016, he visited the International Rescue Committee programs in Greece, calling on EU leaders to do much more for refugees currently stranded there.