Liam Cunningham gives supporting characters the weight to challenge whoever occupies the centre of a scene. We value that authority most in Hunger, where he gives Michael Fassbender someone who cannot simply be brushed aside.
Fi1m perspective
In Hunger (2008), Liam Cunningham's priest has a long conversation with Michael Fassbender's Bobby Sands. Cunningham gives the priest enough substance to keep the discussion from becoming another opportunity to admire Sands. He makes us attend to the objections, even with Fassbender holding the centre of the film. We found the exchange more disturbing than we expected because neither actor lets us assume that a decision is beyond question simply because it has been made. Cunningham gives us a reason to keep listening to both men.
His earlier parts include Captain Ryan in Dog Soldiers (2002) and Dan in Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). Genre work was there well before the wider recognition that came with Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones (2012). The move into internationally recognised television did not end his work in independent films. Thomas Wade in 3 Body Problem (2024) extended that television career, with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss again among his collaborators.
In Hunger, Steve McQueen and co-writer Enda Walsh give him the writing to justify his authority. The conversation with Fassbender runs for 17 minutes in a single take, and Cunningham prepared for it through intensive rehearsal. The length would matter little if the priest existed merely to prompt the next speech. What works is the weight Cunningham gives the disagreement while Fassbender refuses to make Sands easier company. The preparation serves an exchange that still feels difficult, rather than a display of how much dialogue two actors can remember.
The danger in casting someone for grounded authority is that a part can stop at asking him to sound dependable. We would rather see Cunningham given somebody to argue with than employed simply to reassure us that a sensible adult is present. There is enough in that exchange to make us hope for another part as demanding. Start with Hunger, with a warning that the violence makes it a hard evening.
Biography
Liam Cunningham is an Irish actor born on 2 June 1961 in Dublin. He worked as an electrician before training at the Oscar School of Acting and beginning his career in theatre and film in the early 1990s.
Cunningham is known for his role as Davos Seaworth in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2012–2019). His film credits include The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Hunger (2008) as a priest, Clash of the Titans (2010), Centurion (2010) and The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023). He has also appeared in Doctor Who and 3 Body Problem (2024).
He has received two Irish Film & Television Awards and shared a BAFTA for the short film Pitch Black Heist (2011).
