Back as Captain Jack

Ciarán Hinds, star of film and TV, returns to the Abbey after 20 years, in Juno and the Paycock, says Pádraic Killeen.

HE has worked with iconic film directors Stephen Spielberg (Munich), Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition), and Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), yet it was in theatre that Ciarán Hinds gained a reputation as an actor of presence and subtlety. The Belfast native is back on an Irish stage this week, in the Abbey’s new production of Juno and the Paycock playing tragi-comic drunkard ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle. The cast includes Sinéad Cusack as Juno and Risteard Cooper as Joxer Daly.

A graduate of RADA, Hinds distinguished himself in British productions throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, among them Peter Brooks’ epic adaptation of The Mahabharata. Hinds was also prominent in Irish theatre, collaborating with Druid and Field Day, and starring in productions at the Abbey, the Lyric in Belfast, and the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.