When Rex Ryan started drama school three years ago, he received a letter from his secondary school Irish teacher. She recalled the good times they had sparring in class and thanked him for the memories. “I just thought that was very nice of her,” he says breezily. Usually it’s the pupil thanking the teacher, but then Ryan is a practised charmer; a talker, laidback networker and young stage actor hungry for success. “A lot of people would be lying if they said they didn’t go into drama school thinking, ‘I want to do films, television.’ People . . . want to be stars. But very quickly, if you do love the work, you just realise how important theatre is, how amazing it is,” he says.
Ryan arrives for lunch with a laptop case containing only the pages of a script. Every free moment is now spent learning lines for Pilgrim, a high-energy one-man show that he’s performing at this month’s Tiger Dublin Fringe. Not a big fan of nights on the town to start with, Ryan’s recreational activities are now confined to films and housebound chats. “I just don’t think getting locked is conducive to being good in things,” he says.
The play, written by Philip Doherty, is set on September 11, 2001 when Christy (Ryan) finds his flight from San Diego redirected to the small airport of Gander in Newfoundland. A year out of drama school, this is already Ryan’s sixth professional show. It’s a gradual slog, with recognition coming in the form of a Fringe nomination for The Birthday Man in 2013.
The young actor is eager for success but reticent about how he achieves that. His father was the broadcaster Gerry Ryan — the likeness is instantly obvious — and he is aware that the focus can easily shift from his performance to his name. Tabloid newspapers have previously drawn links between characters he portrays on stage and the part that cocaine played in his father’s death in 2010. Like the rest of his family, Ryan avoids talking to the media unless he has something to promote. “The only reason I want people to know who I am is if they enjoy a play I’m in, or a film or TV series. That’s it,” he says.
Stage work is suitably distinct from his father’s profession, but the young actor is readying himself for the aspersions that could be cast if he moves into screen work. “Maybe it’s part of the reason why I’m reluctant to talk about things for the year since I’ve come out of drama school,” he says. “I don’t want people to be saying, ‘He’s just in it because of that.’”
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The actor lives at his childhood home in Clontarf with his mother and siblings. They are a close-knit group and he spends a lot of time with his 18-year-old brother, Elliott. “He just did his Leaving Cert and he got his first choice so he’s delighted,” says Ryan, the second eldest of five children.
He wears his dad’s sovereign ring on his middle finger. He’s not sure if he can believe it, but he likes to think his father can see that his son is happy. “In a weird way I always knew what I wanted to do,” he says of his chosen career. “But I was putting it to the side and going, ‘I’ll just do this and see what happens.’”
Ryan started acting classes at eight but gave them up before starting secondary school. “With my group of friends in Clontarf, and I suppose any group of boys from anywhere in Dublin, unless you were a very strong young personality it was utterly unacceptable to be jumping around the stage with girls. There’d be huge amounts of slaggings.” His focus shifted to the “other important things to a young fella at that time - namely women, going to Wes [a disco] and drinking”. Then sixth year came around and Ryan realised he didn’t know what he wanted to do.
He phoned a former acting teacher and asked about taking lessons. The teacher told him to think about college. Ryan ended up doing a three-year business degree at Griffith College. While many parents might have been happy, Ryan kept making casual references to drama, and whether he was still considering it. As the business studies degree drew to an end, he did some refresher acting classes. His teacher recommended the Gaiety School of Acting, and that’s where he spent the next two years. “I was opened up to so much in drama school, just plays that were changing how I thought about life,” he says. His father took him to plays as a child, usually big commercial shows or productions at the Gate, but it was only in his twenties that he concentrated on writing. “I was being absolutely smashed by plays and saying, ‘I want to do what they’re doing up there,’” he recalls.
His first professional screen gig came while still at the Gaiety. It was a music video for a dance track by an Irish band called This Club. Ryan played Clyde to model Roz Purcell’s Bonnie. Aiming for sultry and dangerous, the final product was a little naff. However, Ryan is more positive about it. “I got to wear a nice suit and kiss Roz,” he says.
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“I got in trouble for that because we’re not supposed to do gigs when we’re in drama school,” he says with a grin. “The course co-ordinator saw it when it came out and rang me up. ‘Rex, I’ve just f****** seen you in a video! What’s going on?’ And I had to own up, because I just pretended I was sick for the two days’ shooting. I wasn’t turning that down though. I said I’ll take the scolding.”In the end, there were no repercussions. A momentary telling-off and all was forgotten.
With a professional qualification and some well-honed charm, Ryan left drama school ready to make his own name.
Pilgrim runs at Smock Alley Theatre from Sept 10 as part of the Tiger Dublin Fringe; fringefest.com
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