Ray Stevenson, the Irish actor who played the villain in RRR, an Asgardian warrior in the Thor films, and a member of the 13th Legion in HBO’s Rome, has died. He was 58.
Representatives for Stevenson told The Associated Press that he died Sunday but had no other details to share on Monday.
Stevenson was born in Lisburn in 1964. After attending the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and years of working in British television, he made his film debut in Paul Greengrass’s 1998 film The Theory of Flight. In 2004, he appeared in Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur as a knight of the round table and several years later played the lead in the Marvel adaptation Punisher: War Zone.
Aside from the first three Thor films, in which he played Volstagg, his other prominent film roles included the Divergent trilogy, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Transporter: Refueled.
On the small screen, he was Titus Pullo in Rome, the role that really got his career going in the United States and got him a SAG card, at the age of 44. He was also Blackbeard in the Starz series Black Sails and Commander Jack Swinburne in the German television series Das Boot.
This year’s film awards season has found an unlikely contender: India’s RRR, a three-hour long, action-packed, Telugu-language film that’s breaking box office records and winning over audiences worldwide.
Role in upcoming Star Wars series
Stevenson did voice work in Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars, as Gar Saxon, and had a role in the upcoming Star Wars live-action series Ahsoka.
In an interview with Backstage in 2020, Stevenson said his acting idols were “the likes of Lee Marvin [and] Gene Hackman.”
“Never a bad performance, and brave and fearless within that calibre,” Stevenson said. “It was never the young, hot leading man; it was men who I could identify with.”
Day 69:34With awards season in full swing, the buzz around the breakout Indian movie RRR continues to grow
For all the latest entertainment News Click Here
