Ray Stevenson, who in a 30-year profession performed a variety of roles in tv and movies, amongst them a talkative soldier within the HBO historic drama “Rome,” the pirate Blackbeard within the Starz collection “Black Sails” and the Asgardian warrior Volstagg within the “Thor” fantasy motion pictures, died on Sunday. He was 58.
His publicist, Nicki Fioravante, confirmed his dying however offered no additional particulars. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica stated Mr. Stevenson died on the Italian island of Ischia, the place he had been filming a film.
Mr. Stevenson was born on Might 25, 1964, in Lisburn, Northern Eire, in accordance with the Web Film Database. He had begun a profession in inside design when, in his mid-20s, he determined to strive performing. Seeing John Malkovich within the Lanford Wilson play “Burn This” in London’s West Finish within the early Nineteen Nineties was the catalyst.
“I used to be dumbstruck by John’s efficiency,” he instructed the California newspaper The Fresno Bee in 2008. “All people else disappeared. I knew at that second there was one thing very legitimate about being an actor.”
He studied on the Bristol Outdated Vic Theater Faculty in England, the place in 1993 he performed the title function in a manufacturing of “Macbeth.” Earlier than the 12 months was over he had landed a recurring function in a British mini-series, “The Dwelling Place.” He had labored kind of steadily ever since.
Within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, Mr. Stevenson appeared on numerous British TV collection, together with the crime drama “Band of Gold.” He landed his first vital movie function in 2004, taking part in the knight Dagonet in “King Arthur,” with Clive Owen within the title function.
Then got here “Rome,” a breakthrough function in a big-budget HBO collection about historical Rome that was the community’s try to create the following buzz-generating collection after “Intercourse and the Metropolis” and “The Sopranos.”
Mr. Stevenson’s character, Titus Pullo, was, as Alessandra Stanley put it in a 2005 evaluation in The New York Instances, “a drunken, womanizing lout — a soccer hooligan in sandals.” Titus Pullo’s friendship with one other Roman soldier, performed by Kevin McKidd, was among the many present’s most interesting subplots, and Mr. Stevenson, a big man at 6-foot-4, appeared on the verge of one thing massive.
“He’s sort of George Clooney on steroids,” Chase Squires of The St. Petersburg Instances of Florida wrote in 2005. “By the point ‘Rome’ completes its run, the Irish-born English actor will most likely be a star, and a really actual candidate to switch Russell Crowe when Hollywood will get uninterested in that actor’s notoriously dangerous habits.”
However “Rome” flamed out after two seasons, and Mr. Stevenson by no means fairly achieved Clooneyesque stature. He did, nevertheless, land plenty of meaty roles in lavish tasks, together with three motion pictures from the Marvel Comics universe: “Thor” (2011), “Thor: The Darkish World” (2013) and “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017). All three had been box-office smashes.
He typically referred to the “Thor” tales as “Vikings in house,” and in 2020 he received a style of the earthbound model of that life when he joined the forged of the long-running Historical past channel collection “Vikings.” He appeared all through its sixth season.
His different roles included a gangster within the 2011 film “Kill the Irishman” and a British colonial official within the Indian movie “RRR” (2022). He additionally performed the vigilante Frank Fortress, a.okay.a. the Punisher, one other character primarily based on a comic book ebook. He took on that function in 2008 in “Punisher: Warfare Zone,” after Dolph Lundgren had performed Fortress in a 1989 film and Thomas Jane had taken his flip in 2004.
The 2008 film was an orgy of violence, as A.O. Scott famous in his evaluation in The Instances.
“Guys get their heads blown off, or severed, or pierced with chair legs, or pulverized with fists,” he wrote, “as a result of that’s what they’ve coming and that’s what the fan base can pay cash to see.”
His character, Mr. Stevenson instructed The Oklahoman, was speculated to be not a hero however an antihero.
“He actually is on a one-way path and in his personal hell,” he stated. “You don’t wish to be Frank Fortress.”
Mr. Stevenson’s marriage to the actress Ruth Gemmell resulted in divorce. He and his accomplice, Elisabetta Caraccia, had three youngsters.
