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ABOUT NICK DUNNING

as Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire

Nick Dunning plays Sir Thomas Boleyn in The Tudors

Date of Birth: 1959 (according to Internet Movie Database)

Birth Place: London, England

Family: He has been married to Lise-Anne McLaughlin since 1992. Their children are Kitty and Phoebe. His parents are Roy and Jean Dunning and he has a sister named Cathy.

Education: He attended private school in London, England and school in Leicester, England. He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and did an Open University degree in Poliics and Art Appreciation.

Actor Bio: He has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal National Theater and The Royal Court Theater. As a well known theatre actor, he has appeared on stage in the West End in London and at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. He was head of development at the now defunct website www.screenwritingonthenet.com.

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CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Non-acting careers: Screenwriting, Theatre Directing

Movies: My Boy Jack, In America, Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor, Alexander, Lamb

TV Shows: The Tudors, Midsomer Murders (Death's Shadow), The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (In the Guise of Death), Remembrance, Vanity Fair

Stage: That Was Then, Mrs. Warren's Profession, The Homecoming, The Misanthrope, The Homeplace, The School for Scandal, Don Carlos

Big break: The Tudors

Best known for: The Tudors

Awards: 1. IFTA for best actor in a supporting role in TV The Tudors (2008), 2. Irish Times Theatre Awards (2008) for Best Actor in Don Carlos

Upcoming and Current Projects: Look for his projects under his name at www.imdb.com.

Talk about...

Nick Dunning

MEMORABLE QUOTES

On wanting to be an actor as a child-“I do remember standing in the wings waiting to go on and I do remember that being a very important moment. That’s what I’m still in contact with today. I still feel kind of excited and in the wings, waiting to go on, waiting to do things.”

On portraying Thomas Boleyn in "The Tudors"-"First thing I do is take off all the judgment on the character, always,” Dunning said. “Because I don’t think people really believe what they are doing is what you might consider to be bad or wrong or evil. They tend to do it out of necessity or out of belief that what they are doing is the right thing. Are you using your daughters for your own end entirely or are you actually doing what you think is the best thing for them at the time? I can totally understand somebody being in that dilemma.”
On portraying Thomas Boleyn in "The Tudors"-“He had virtually all his titles taken away. He had his land taken away from him. He lost his daughter and his son. They were both executed, and he was present at the execution. What does that do to you? The ending is just awful. Ghastly."
On Thomas Boleyn and his not returning for a third season of "The Tudors"-“I have a fantasy of him ending up in a cupboard somewhere and just appearing on set one day,” he said and then laughed. “I think that would be fun. Just showing him popping his head out.”

On modern connections to the 16th century aristocrat-“Is he that different than (those) corporate barons today who go off and do extraordinary things and they’re all off making money and flying around the world and their children are drug addicts in rehab?” he mused. “Is it that different? I’m not so sure it is. I see it a lot. People get hooked on status and power.”

On what he considers challenging about playing Thomas Boleyn-"It was challenging hiding his real ambitions and making it look as if he is a noble and honest man."

On what made him want to be part of the show-"The superb script is by Michael Hurst, who wrote the movie 'Elizabeth', starring Cate Blanchett and the amazing cast. The scripts read like a movie, are full of action, intensity, political intrigue, sexual scandal and love."

On Thomas Boleyn in a bbc.co.uk comment-"He knows the King's appetites; he knows he loves women. So he offers him his daughters; that's what they're for. It's easy for us to judge him harshly today but I think that he sees his action as advancing the family. He's trying to do what he thinks is best for the family but he's utterly, utterly selfish. It's a warped view of the world."
When asked about whether there are fights with his real life wife about who forgot to do the washing up in the morning- "Oh no, we'd never do that in our house," he laughs. "We're both temperamental at times, but in general we're fairly calm. My family means everything to me, and we're very close, so it's very difficult being away from them, but that's our gig and you just have to deal with it."
On meeting his wife-"I fell for her because she was gorgeous in more ways than one," he says of the actress most people will remember for playing the interior designer Pauline, Leo Dowling's former wife, in Fair City. "She's stunning and has a big heart, and is my best mate in the world."
As an Englishman living in Ireland-"We all speak the same language, but I find that Irish people are very much more at peace with themselves," he says. "People say hello to you here when you're walking up the road, and I'm really happy living here."
On his wife's thyroid cancer-"It was very stressful," says Nick, "and very tricky for a time, but thankfully Lise-Anne was fine. It was a horrible thing to happen, but in a way we were fortunate that she didn't have to undergo dreadful chemotherapy. They were able to operate and treat it with pills, and ultimately it was one of those things that affected us in the right way and brought us closer."
On being a part of Alexander-"It just didn't work and I don't know why," he says. "Oliver Stone is a very challenging director, and a brilliant one, and Colin Farrell was great. When the film was having its premiere in LA, he paid for 10 of us who'd worked on it from Ireland to fly there first-class for it. None of us had actually been asked to it, but he knew that it was really important to us to be there, so he took it upon himself to organise it for us. He didn't have to do it, and that's really who Colin Farrell is -- he has such an understanding of and connection to people."
On not being an academic in his mid teens-"My mother actually taught at my school, which was pretty rough, as you can imagine. I'd hear kids giving out about her, and even though I'd know that it had nothing to do with Mum really and they were probably annoyed because they had been in trouble for misbehaving, it was really very hard."

FUN FACTS

According to an article on bostonherald.com, he won't be back for a third season of "The Tudors."
Natalie Dormer (Anne Boleyn) on Nick Dunning in a Time Warner Cable interview-"He is the wickedest thing for telling jokes. He has me in hysterics."
According to Starry Constellation Magazine on what he does in his spare time-" I hang out with my wife and kids, play tennis, go to the gym, watch movies and go out to dinner with friends. I do the usual stuff."
He has been a fan of the Arsenal football team since he was thirteen years old.
A comment from insidesocal.com from Sam Neill-
“I thought the costumes were fantastic. One of the pleasures in coming to work was that you didn’t know how they’d look. The odd hat was faintly ridiculous. I came in one day and saw Nick Dunning in his costume – he looked so ridiculous, I was on the floor laughing. He being a good friend of mine, he took it in stride.”
He's wanted to be an actor since he was 5 and played the prince of the fairies in a stage production of “Thumbelina."
Both of his parents and his sister were teachers and his sister later went on to be co-creator of the hugely successful TV programme, The Weakest Link.
His wife is an actress and writer and has appeared in Fair City. He met her while he was performing at the Royal Court Theatre.
His wife is a native of Ireland and he moved there with her.
His wife is a survivor of thyroid cancer.
He thinks Michael Gambon is a great stage actor.
When asked to leave school as a teenager for being a tearaway, he went to work in a factory that made loudspeakers. His job was driving the forklift truck. He later returned to school when his father obtained a job teaching French at a university in Leicester, England. He enjoyed it and a teacher suggested he enter drama school.

FAN SITES

Irish Film and Television Awards clip of supporting actor win for "The Tudors."-

http://www.ifta.ie/downloads/speech/nickdunning.htm

Great article on the life and career of Nick Dunning from the independent.ie http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/news-gossip/nick-had-a-lucky-break-1462216.html

NICK DUNNING PHOTOS

Nick Dunning and Henry Cavill on the set of The Tudors	Nick Dunning
Nick Dunning as Sir Thomas Boleyn in The Tudors	Supporting Actor Win from the Irish Film and Television Awards in 2008 for The Tudors
Nick Dunning and Tom Murphy in Henry IV (Part One)	Nick Dunning and Elizabeth Dermot Walsh in Misanthrope
Nick Dunning as Attalus in Alexander in which Jonathan Rhys Meyers also starred	Nick Dunning as Attalus in Alexander
Nick Dunning at an Amnesty International Event- 2008	Nick Dunning with David Walliams, Michael Gambon, and David Bradley in a promotional photo for No Man's Land. 2008
Nick Dunning and Natalie Dormer behind the scenes on The Tudors	Nick Dunning in Dublin after rehearsal for No Man's Land in August 2008
Nick Dunning and David Kelly at a Gate Theatre Celebration November 2008	Stage Photo of Nick Dunning and Michael Gambon at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland for No Man's Land August 2008

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