Ray Stevenson has passed away. The actor died Monday while filming the upcoming film Cassino in Ischia. This was just four days before his fifty-ninth birthday. No cause of death was given.
He was born George Raymond Stevenson on May 25th, 1964 in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He was the second of three boys. As his father was in the Royal Air Force, his family moved to England when he was eight. He eventually graduated from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Stevenson got his acting start playing a gigolo in The Theory of Flight. He then played Dagonet in the 2004 film King Arthur. He got his big break in 2008 when he played Frank Castle in the Lions Gate/Sony film Punisher: War Zone. To prepare for the role, he read every issue of PunisherMAX. He said of the role, "I think he found his own skin, as it were, and it did incredible things for the character and a mine of back stories and information and character work and issues that weren’t being shied away from and it was tremendous a tremendous process." The following year, he would reprise the role for the animated series The Super Hero Squad Show.
While the Marvel film was not successful, he would follow it with several other major roles such as the primary antagonist in The Other Guys, the titular role in Kill the Irishman, Marcus Eaton in the Divergent series, Porthos in The Three Musketeers, and Firefly in G. I. Joe: Retaliation. He returned to Marvel when he was cast as Volstagg in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He would play the role in the Marvel Studios films Thor, Thor: The Dark World, and Thor: Ragnarok. Stevenson said of the role, "He's got every bit of that Falstaffian verve and vigor, and a bit of a gut to suggest that enormous appetite, but he's not the sort of Weeble-shaped figure he is in the comics. He's Falstaff with muscles. I can't wait!"
He also took his talents to the small screen. He played Titus Pullo on Rome, Isaak Sirko on Dexter, Blackbeard on Black Sails. He voiced Mandalorian Gar Saxon on the animated shows Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Most recently, he played the Dark Jedi Baylan Skoll in the upcoming series Ahsoka.
He married English actress Ruth Gemmell in 1997, having met on the set of Band of Gold and then playing a married couple on Peak Practice. However, they divorced after eight years. He eventually fathered three sons with Italian anthropologist Elisabetta Caraccia.
