Trivia: An actor whose sad eyes and brooding presence often get him cast as moody, tragic figures, John Lynch first lent his haunted charm to the title role of Pat O'Connor's Cal (1984). Cast as a young IRA recruit who falls in love with the widow (Helen Mirren) of a man he has killed, Lynch earned wide praise for his sensitive, complex performance, and more than held his own opposite the more seasoned Mirren.Born in Corrinshego, Newry, Northern Ireland, on December 26, 1961, Lynch was raised as the eldest of five children (his sister, Susan Lynch, also went into acting). He got his first break during his second year at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, when he was picked to star in Cal. Following his work on the film, Lynch dropped out of the movies for almost a decade, preferring to work on the stage in England and Ireland. When he resurfaced in front of the cameras in the mid-'90s, he began working steadily, appearing in films ranging from Agneiszka Holland's celebrated 1993 adaptation of The Secret Garden, to Jim Sheridan's acclaimed political drama In the Name of the Father (1993), to John Sayles' similarly feted family fantasy The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), which also featured Lynch's sister, Susan. In addition to In the Name of the Father, Lynch did starring work in subsequent dramas that focused on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Among them were Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal (1995), in which the actor portrayed an apolitical but conflicted Catholic; and Terry George's Some Mother's Son (1996), an account of the 1981 Belfast prisoner's hunger strike that, in addition to casting Lynch as IRA prisoner and strike leader Bobby Sands, reunited him with Cal co-star Mirren. In 1998, he appeared in the little-seen This Is the Sea, a romantic drama about the relationship between a Protestant woman and a Catholic man living in post-1994 cease-fire Northern Ireland.Lynch has also worked in films that have taken him out of the geographical and topical boundaries of Northern Ireland. Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors (1998) saw him play Gwyneth Paltrow's hapless, two-timing boyfriend, while Best (2000), which Lynch co-wrote with his wife, Mary McGuckian, who also directed, cast him as the title figure of real-life football legend George Best. And, like many actors hailing from that section of the world, Lynch has also put in time in various period dramas, including the 1996 TV adaptation of Moll Flanders.

Trivia: Irish actress Susan Lynch first caught the attention of international audiences as a mythical half-seal, half-human Selkie in John Sayles' widely acclaimed The Secret of Roan Inish. The daughter of an Irish father and Italian mother, Lynch (her brother John is also an actor) got her start performing plays in Gaelic and received her theatrical training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she won Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Award for Most Promising Student. Lynch broke into television in 1993, when she appeared in an episode of the popular BBC series Cracker and went on to act in a number of miniseries and made-for-TV movies, including Kings in Grass Castles (1998) and the well-received BBC dramatization of Ivanhoe (1997), which cast her as Rebecca. While acting on screens big and small, she continued to appear on the stage, doing particularly notable work in a number of London West End productions, including August Strindberg's Miss Julie, in which she starred in the title role opposite John Hannah. Although Lynch made her film debut in the 1978 drama Northern Lights, it was not until 1994, when she appeared in The Secret of Roan Inish that she began to have a relatively steady cinematic career. That same year, she had a small part as a vampire in Interview With the Vampire, and subsequently starred as a troubled single mother in the romantic thriller Down Time. In 1998, Lynch starred in her most successful film to date, the Irish comedy Waking Ned Devine. The film, which cast the actress as a small-town woman in love with a pig farmer (James Nesbitt), was an international sleeper hit, and helped to give Lynch exposure outside of the UK. The following year, she won the role of Nora Barnacle opposite Ewan McGregor's James Joyce in Nora, the story of the author's real-life relationship with the woman who would both inspire and challenge him throughout his life.