Northern Irish actor, Ray Stevenson, who played the villainous British governor in ‘RRR’, Volstagg in the ‘Thor’ films and a main antagonist in the upcoming ‘Star Wars’ series ‘Ahsoka’, has died aged 58.
Representatives for Stevenson said he had died on Sunday, four days before his birthday. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported he had been hospitalized with a sudden illness on the island of Ischia while in production on the film Casino in Ischia.
Among those to pay tribute on Tuesday were RRR director SS Rajamouli, who wrote: “Just can’t believe this news. Ray brought so much energy and vibrancy with him to the sets. It was infectious. Working with him was pure joy. My prayers are with his family. May his soul rest in peace.”
Harry Potter actor Matthew Lewis, who appeared alongside Stevenson as a child in the television film Some Kind of Life, wrote on Twitter: “This is so sad. Ray played my dad in the first thing I ever did on TV. Almost 30 years ago. A proper actor with a fascinating career, and I couldn’t have dreamed of a better first experience in this ridiculous industry.”
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Stevenson was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in 1964. His family moved to England when he was eight. 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 pre-Disney Marvel adaptation of Punisher: War Zone.
Though Punisher was not the best-reviewed film, he had another taste of Marvel in the first three Thor films, where he played the Asgardian warrior Volstagg. Other prominent film roles included the Divergent trilogy, GI Joe: Retaliation and The Transporter: Refueled.
On the small screen, he was the roguish Titus Pullo in the HBO series Rome, a role that got his career going in the US and won him a SAG card at 44. The series ran from 2005 to 2007.
He was Blackbeard in the Starz series Black Sails, Commander Jack Swinburne in the German television series Das Boot and Othere on Vikings.
Stevenson also did voice work in Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars, as Gar Saxon, and has a role in the upcoming Star Wars live-action series Ahsoka, in which he plays the bad guy Baylan Skoll. The eight-episode season is expected on Disney+ in August.
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In an interview with Backstage in 2020, Stevenson said his acting idols were “the likes of Lee Marvin, 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.”
Stevenson has three sons with the Italian anthropologist Elisabetta Caraccia, who he met while working in Rome.