Stephen Rea has appeared in films such as V for Vendetta, The Butcher Boy, This Is My Father, Evelyn, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto. Rea was nominated for an Academy Award for his lead performance as Fergus in the 1992 film The Crying Game. He has had important roles in the Hugo Blick TV series The Shadow Line and The Honourable Woman, for which he won a BAFTA Award. He directed and starred in an adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s play The Plough and the Stars at the Gaeity Theater in Dublin. He is currently starring in Black 47, a thriller set during the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s.

Rea was hired to speak the words of Gerry Adams when Sinn Féin was under a 1988–94 broadcasting ban. He was married for to Dolours Price, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army bomber and hunger striker who later became a critic of Sinn Féin. They had been divorced when she died on 23 January 2013. They had two sons: Danny Rea and Oscar Rea.

Rea is an Ambassador for UNICEF Ireland and is currently starring in Black 47, a thriller set during the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s.