Hugh O'Conor

Hugh O'Conor — Biography

Hugh O'Conor was born on 19 April 1975 in Dublin, the son of pianist John O'Conor, and studied drama at Trinity College Dublin's Samuel Beckett Centre before a Fulbright scholarship took him to NYU Film School. He made his screen debut opposite Liam Neeson in the 1985 film Lamb, then won a Young Artist Award for playing the young Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989), a role Daniel Day-Lewis name-checked in his Oscar acceptance speech.

He played the murderer Graham Young in Benjamin Ross's The Young Poisoner's Handbook, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1995, and was part of the cast nominated at the 2001 SAG Awards for Chocolat; his role in Speed Dating earned him a Best Actor nomination at the 2007 Irish Film and Television Awards. His short film Corduroy screened at the Berlinale, his work on the sketch show Your Bad Self helped it win Best Entertainment at the 2011 IFTAs, and he won Best Supporting Actor at the 2014 Irish Times Theatre Awards for playing the Fool in King Lear at the Abbey Theatre. In 2018 his directorial debut Metal Heart premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh and brought him the Jim Sheridan Award.