Ray Fearon

Ray Fearon
Ray Fearon
	Fearon in 2012
Alma mater	Rose Bruford College
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1994–present
Children	3+

Raymond Fearon is a British actor. He played garage mechanic Nathan Cooper on ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street and voiced the centaur Firenze in the Wizarding World film series Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts.

Career

Theatre

After studying drama at Rose Bruford College, Fearon went on to make his reputation as a stage actor, working at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre; Manchester Contact Theatre; Manchester Royal Exchange; Oxford Playhouse; Barn Theatre, Kent; The Almeida; The Crucible, Sheffield; The Donmar Warehouse; The Royal Shakespeare Theatres in Stratford and the National Theatre. He has also toured in the United States and Europe and the Far East.

Fearon starred in Othello—opposite Gillian Kearney's Desdemona— in Liverpool at the age of 24, becoming the first black actor to play Othello on RSC main stages for over 40 years.^[1]^[2] His other early stage roles included Charles Surface in The School for Scandal; Betty/Martin in Cloud Nine; Longaville in Love's Labour's Lost; Ferdinand in The Tempest; and Pete in Blues for Mr Charlie.

His early theatre work in London included Hugo/Frederick in Ring Round the Moon at the Lilian Baylis Theatre; the title role in The Invisible Man (his one-man show) at the Bridewell Theatre; and Pierre in Venice Preserv'd at the Almeida.

He has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company in their Stratford and London theatres and on tour. He was the first black actor to play the title role in Othello in the main Royal Shakespeare theatre (director Michael Attenborough, 1999) giving a performance alongside Richard McCabe's strong and repressed Iago.^[3] They also played opposite one another in 1996's The White Devil (Gale Edwards, Swan theatre) where he played Brachiano and McCabe the villain Flamineo. Fearon was directed by Attenborough also as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (RSC, Swan Theatre, 1997) alongside Zoe Waites as Juliet.

Other RSC roles have included the First Knight and First Tempter in Murder in the Cathedral (Swan, 1993), Stubb in Moby Dick (TOP, 1993), the Prince of Morocco in The Merchant of Venice (RST, 1994), Paris in Troilus and Cressida (Ian Judge, RST, 1996), the Marquis of Posa in Don Carlos (1999), Pericles in Adrian Noble's Pericles, Prince of Tyre (RST and Roundhouse, 2002) and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (2012).

In 2003, he played 'Oberon' in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre. In 2004, he appeared in as Jean Kiyabe in World Music by Steve Waters at the Donmar Warehouse, and in the same year at the National Theatre as Mark in Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads by Roy Williams.

In 2010, he starred as Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. This critically acclaimed production was directed by Michael Buffong at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.

In July 2013 he played Macduff opposite Kenneth Branagh (as Macbeth) and Alex Kingston (as Lady Macbeth) in Macbeth at Manchester International Festival. His performance was broadcast to cinemas on 20 July as part of National Theatre Live.^[4]

In December 2017 he played Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls at the Royal Exchange, Manchester. The production was directed by Michael Buffong.^[5]

Television, film and radio

Fearon played Nathan Harding in Coronation Street from 2005 to 2006 and in 2001 he appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (as Firenze the centaur).^[6] He had a minor role as a sentry in Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film version of Hamlet.

He was in the 2006 series of Strictly Come Dancing, partnered by Camilla Dallerup, and was voted out in week 6.

He also appeared as a fictionalised version of historical figure Carlo de' Medici on the Starz series Da Vinci's Demons, which ran from 2013 to 2015.

In 2019, Fearon played the role of Hot Misogynist in season two of the acclaimed BBC Three comedy-drama Fleabag.

In the BBC's 2003 radio adaptation of His Dark Materials, Fearon appeared as the narrator and as the angel Balthamos.^[7]

Filmography

Film, television and radio
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Prime Suspect	Mark Whitehouse	"Scent of Darkness"
1996	Hamlet	Francisco
1997	Band of Gold	Paul	2 episodes
1997	The Bill	Foley Marsh	1 episode
1999	The Clandestine Marriage	Brush
2000	A Christmas Carol	Jacob Marley	TV film
2001	EastEnders	Lennie	2 episodes
2001	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	Firenze / Fawkes	Voice / vocal effects
2002	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	Fawkes	Vocal effects
	The Bill	Paul Sharpe	1 episode
	As If	Riggs	10 episodes
2003	His Dark Materials (BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation)	Balthamos, narrator	All episodes
	Keen Eddie	Georgie Pendergast	1 episode
	Waking the Dead	Miles Patterson	1 episode
2003, 2008	Doctors	PC Vernon Samuels Malcolm Tumelo	1 episode 18 episodes
2004	In Search of Shakespeare	various characters	4 episodes
2005	Revelations	Benjamin	1 episode
2005−2006	Coronation Street	Nathan Cooper	Series regular, 99 episodes
2006	Strictly Come Dancing	Himself	6 episodes
	Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two	Himself	6 episodes
	An Audience with... Coronation Street	Himself/performer	1 episode
2008	The Chef's Letter	The Sous Chef
2009	Lulu and Jimi	Jimi
2009	Missing	Karl Hughes	1 episode
2010	Raw	Paul	3 episodes
	Ein Sommer in Kapstadt	Gabriel Swat	TV film
	Morlocks	Tyrell
2011	Beate Uhse [de]	Jeff
2011	Death in Paradise	Curtis	1 episode
2012	Silk	Roland Boyce QC	1 episode
	Hamilton: I Nationens Intresse	Benjamin Lee
	Julius Caesar	Mark Antony
2013	National Theatre Live	Macduff	Stage production of Macbeth
2013	Moving On	Steve	1 episode
2014	Da Vinci's Demons	Carlo de' Medici	8 episodes
2014	The Hooligan Factory	Midnight
2016	New Blood	David Kumalah	2 episodes
2017	Beauty and the Beast	Père Robert
2017	The Foreigner	Commander Richard Bromley
2018	2036 Origin Unknown	Sterling Brooks
	Origin	Omar Touré	1 episode
	Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald	Fawkes	Vocal cameo
2019	Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators	Major Tony Suffolk	TV series, 1 episode
2019	Fleabag	Hot Misogynist	TV series, 3 episodes
2020	Red Dwarf	Rodon	Red Dwarf: The Promised Land
2021	The Protégé	Duquet
	Father Christmas Is Back	Felix	Film
	The Lady of Heaven	Abu Bakr	Film
2022	Memory		Film
	One Year Off		Film
	Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore	Fawkes	Vocal effects
	Christmas in the Caribbean	Gregory	Film
2023	Champion	Beres Champion	TV series; main cast
2023	Barbie	Dan at the FBI	Film
2024	Father Brown	Silas O'Hagen	TV series, 1 television
2025	The Feud	Alan	Filming ^[8]
TBA	My Fault: London	William	Post-production^[9]