Risteárd Cooper

Risteárd Cooper is an Irish actor, comedian, singer and writer.

He attended Scoil Bhríde, Ranelagh and St Michael's College, Ballsbridge. Cooper joined the National Youth Theatre aged 16 [1] and graduated from the acting program at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College. He lived in New York for several years working at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Irish Rep and in 1997 at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company (founded by, among others, John Malkovich) in the American premiere of Jez Butterworth's multi award-winning Mojo directed by Ian Rickson.

In 1998 he, Barry Murphy and Gary Cooke first appeared as Après Match on RTÉ Television. The comedy trio has since gone on to record many TV shows and chart-topping DVD's, performing live stage shows and releasing a single in 2002.

He has played lead roles in major theatres in Ireland and the UK, including Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at the Abbey Theatre, Auntie and Me at the Gaiety Theatre, I Keano at the Olympia Theatre, and in numerous productions at the Gate Theatre such as Arcadia, An Ideal Husband, See You Next Tuesday, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Betrayal (Pinter Festival) The Deep Blue Sea and in Brian Friel's The Yalta Game at the 2009 Sydney and Edinburgh International Festivals.

He starred as Setanta in An Crisis, an Irish language comedy series on TG4 for which he was nominated Best Comedy Actor at the 2010 Monte Carlo Awards.

In 2011, he played Henry Higgins in the Abbey Theatre's first ever production of Shaw's Pygmalion going on in 2012 to star as Joxer Daly in O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at the same venue, before transferring to Britain's National Theatre.

In 2013 he played Finbar in Conor McPherson's The Weir at The Donmar Warehouse, which transferred to the West End in 2014. It also starred Brian Cox, Dervla Kirwin, Ardal O'Hanlon and Peter McDonald and was directed by Josie Rourke.

Television roles in that period include Sir Henry Coverly in the ITV drama The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Dermot Nally in RTÉ's Charlie and the serial-killer Laurie Gaskell in Season 1 of No Offence on Channel 4.

More recently he appeared on stage in the musical Jacques Brel is Alive and Living in Paris at the Gate Theatre, Dublin and in 2019 he played 'Lawrence' in the American political play Shipwreck by Anne Washburn, at The Almeida Theatre, London which was directed by Rupert Goold.

In 2020 he appeared in ITV's critically acclaimed mini-series Quiz, directed by Stephen Frears, playing the role of David Liddiment, ITV's head of programmes.

Cooper also has a regular sports comedy sketch show on offtheball.com which is available to view on youtube.