Tutors - Bow Street Academy

Our Tutors.

GERRY GRENNELL

ACTING & VOICE COACH

Gerry trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Constructive Teaching Centre London (Alexander Technique) and Hochschule fur Misik und Theater Hannover (Music). Considered by most to be the finest Acting Coach, Voice Coach and Alexander Teacher in the business, Gerry has worked frequently with Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis, Oscar Isaac, Joel Edgerton, Abbie Cornish, Natalie Portman (Jane Got A Gun) Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) Marlon Brando, Sean Penn, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Amy Adams, Kate Hudson, Albert Finney, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Pete Postlethwaite, Imelda Staunton, Ewan McGregor, Orlando Bloom, and he collaborated extensively with Heath Ledger on numerous projects including The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, Batman: The Dark Knight, Casanova, Candy, The Brothers Grimm, The Order and The Four Feathers.

SHIMMY MARCUS

ACTING COACH and Director

Shimmy is a multi award winning filmmaker working in a variety of formats including Features, Shorts, TV, Documentary, Music Promos, and Commercials. He has been giving filmmaking and acting workshops for over 15 years and began training actors full time at The Factory in 2013. Some of the many actors he has worked with include Stephen Berkoff, Felicity Jones, Gary Lewis, Pat Short, Martin Compston and many more.

SARAH HONE

ACTING COACH and Associate Artistic Director.

Sarah Hone is an experienced actor, casting director and dramatherapist. She has a BA in Theatre and Performance and an MA in Dramatherapy, and has worked as a professional actress in Ireland, USA, Australia and Japan. In mid 2016 she returned to Ireland following a two year tour of Japan performing for Disney. Prior to that she worked as an extras casting assistant on the blockbuster “Mad Max: Fury Road” movie, in Sydney Australia. She has taught acting in universities such as The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney and Temple University Japan. Whilst living in Australia for seven years she opened up a successful private Dramatherapy practice working in the homeless, refugee and disability sectors. A regular tutor at Bow Street she recently left Ali Coffey Casting after 5 years to join Bow Street full time as Associate Artistic Director.

LAURA O'SHEA

acting coach

Laura is an Oscar and BAFTA qualifying director, writer and actor from Limerick, Ireland. In 2020, Laura was selected for a prestigious 'Puttnam Scholarship', where she workshopped Feature Film development with Lord David Puttnam. Most recently, Laura was selected by Element Pictures and Screen Ireland for a Shadow Director placement alongside Paddy Breathnach on the TV series 'The Dry', now streaming on BritBox UK.

MICHAEL DAVID McKERNAN

ACTING COACH

MD is an actor and award-winning filmmaker from Ireland, recently shortlisted for a Young Directors Award at Cannes Lions. His short documentary, How to Fall in Love in a Pandemic, screened at Tribeca Film Festival and qualified for the Oscars long-list after winning Best Short Documentary at Galway Film Fleadh, as well as 8 other international festival awards. His filmmaking debut HALO, a single-take short film won Best Director: Irish Short at Cork International Film Festival. He is also a winner of an Emerging Directors Award in Ireland.

Ally Ryan

Young Screen Actors

Ally Ryan is an actress and stand-up comediene. Sheis a graduate of Bow Street's Full Time Programme for Screen Acting. Among her credits are the Syfy series Nightflyers, RTE’s Striking Out and Maisey. Ally runs the Young Screen Actors Academy and teaches on the 6 Month Part Time Course.

DALE LEADON BOLGER

acting coach

Dale is an actor/writer/director from Wicklow. He recently wrapped on Dennis Hauck’s 65mm revenge Western AL’S BRAND alongside Ian McElhinney. Recently Dale was awarded funding from Screen Ireland as part of the ACTOR AS CREATOR scheme and was recently commissioned under the VIRGIN MEDIA SHARP SHORTS funding initiative. Dale is a graduate of Bow Street Academy, NUI Galway’s Drama, Theatre and Performance programme and he holds a Masters in Screenwriting from The National Film School, IADT where he was awarded the Student of the Year in Screenwriting Award. His debut screenplay was selected as one of eight Screen Ireland’s First Draft and Beyond development programme in 2019.

ANTHONY MORIARTY

acting, script & filmmaking coach

Anthony is an actor/writer/director. He recently appeared as Finbar Furlong alongside Natasha O’Keeffe in RESISTANCE directed by Catherine Morshead. He also played Stephen in the comedy pilot BUMP directed by Imogen Murphy for Deadpan Pictures, and the role of Slattery in DRAMA AT INISH directed by Cal McCrystal for the Abbey Theatre. A recent participant on Channel 4 Screenwriting he was one of 12 selected out of 2,800 applicants. He also recently wrote and directed the Actor as Creator short film Inherent.

NAOMI SHERIDAN

script coach

Naomi Naomi Sheridan has been working in Film and Television for years in a wide variety of genres. She is both Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for one of her first screenplays “In America” a film she co wrote with her father, Jim and sister, Kirsten. It went on to win the Critics Choice award and the National Board of Review award. Since then she has written teleplays and screenplays for Paramount, NBC Universal, The Weinstein Group, Tribeca Films, Miramax and Disney. She has adapted a number of novels, which include the hugely popular “Artemis Fowl”, the Stephen King novel “Rose Madder” and “Galway Bay”.

JOHN CRONIN

acting coach

John Cronin has been an actor on stage and screen in Ireland for 30 years, having made his professional debut in The Commitments at the age of 12! Since that time John has built a huge film and theatre career that has taken him to the West End, the Edinburgh festival and to America via the Gate and the Abbey. He also has an extensive career on screen in Ireland and beyond appearing in series for RTE, BBC and Sky as well as feature films with actors such as Jackie Chan and Hugo Weaving. He also has a degree in English and History from UCD and a Diploma in Marketing and Advertising from the Fitzwilliam Institute.

Guest Tutors.

CATHY BRADY

ACTING COACH

Cathy is a two-time IFTA winner for Best Short in 2011 and again in 2013 for her short MORNING. In 2011 she was selected for Coming Up, making ROUGH SKIN for Channel4, starring This is England’s Vicky McClure and which was nominated for a BIFA. Last year she directed on E4’s drama-thriller series GLUE, and is now in Post Production with her debut feature as writer/director WILDFIRE. She also directed the first season of hit TV comedy series, CAN’T COPE/WON’T COPE for RTE. Her ‘Finding The Moment’ workshops have produced rave reviews from Actors and is fast marking herself out as an Actors Director.

ANKUR VIKAL

actor

Ankur Vikal is an Indian theatre and film actor. He graduated from the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi in 2000. His film career began with the Indian ground-breaking film Mango Soufflé, followed by the highly acclaimed films Maqbool and Missed Call. Ankur played the role of Maman in Slumdog Millionaire which was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight. He won a Screen Actor's Guild Award ( Outstanding performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture) for his highly acclaimed and appreciated performance as Maman. He also played the lead in The Forest. He was most recently seen in Telugu language film Kedi and Hindi film Striker. In Tamil cinema he debuted in Mariyan (2013) where he played the role of an oil worker. He then worked on many notable TV series as well including Betaal on Netflix and Paatal lok on Amazon Prime.

ROISÍN O'DONOVAN

intimacy coordinator / actor

Roisín O’Donovan is a versatile and experienced Actor and Intimacy Co-Ordinator. Her recent acting credits include CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS playing Laura and the Italian film VIVERE which premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. As an Intimacy Coordinator she has worked on THE WONDER ( Florence Pugh, Tom Burke), LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER ( Emma Corrin, Jack O’Connell) and VIKINGS: VALHALLA. Roisín is also a graduate of Bow Street’s Full Time Programme for Screen Acting.

LANCE DALY

DIRECTOR

Lance is a multi award winning writer/editor/director. In 2009 he won the IFTA award for best director for Kisses. Also directed The Good Doctor (2011) and Life’s A Breeze (2013). Recently he completed Black’47. He set up The Factory with John Carney and Kirsten Sheridan in 2010.

DEARBHLA WALSH

DIRECTOR

Dearbhla is an Irish film and television director who has worked on drama series for several television channels in Ireland and the United Kingdom, including episodes of Shameless, The Tudors and Penny Dreadful. She won the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special for Part I of the serial Little Dorrit and recently completed the feature starring Dustin Hoffman and Judy Dench.

DAMIEN O’DONNELL

DIRECTOR

Damien has directed East is East (1999) and Inside I’m Dancing (2004), as well as TV series The Savage Eye. He won a BAFTA Award for Best British Film for East is East.

HUGH O’CONNOR

DIRECTOR

Hugh started his acting career when he was 10. Best known for his role in the film My Left Foot (1989), in which he portrayed the childhood days of Christy Brown. Studied at Trinity College in Dublin, and received a scholarship to attend the NYU Film School. While continuing his acting career he also directs including music videos for Sinead O’Connor and The Coronas.

JUANITA WILSON

DIRECTOR

Juanita is an Irish director and writer from Dublin. Her short film The Door received an Irish Film and Television Award in 2009 and an Academy Award nomination in 2010. She recently directed As If I Am Not There (2010) and Tomato Red (2016) with Anna Friel.

FRANK BERRY

DIRECTOR

Frank Berry is a Dublin-born director whose work began with ten years of community filmmaking and television. This work led to his critically acclaimed feature documentary Ballymun Lullaby (2011), winner of the DGA Directors Finders Award, which received a cinema release in Ireland and continues to screen at film festivals around the world. His next film I Used to Live Here (2014), a drama that deals with suicide clusters among teenagers, won the Best First Feature Audience Award at the Galway Film Fleadh and has been released in Irish cinemas to critical acclaim.

REBECCA DALY

DIRECTOR

Rebecca Daly entered the Irish film world with her acclaimed short film Joyriders, winning both the IFTA Best Short Film and the Short Film Award at the Galway Film Fleadh. Her debut feature The Other Side of Sleep premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight. Her latest feature Mammal stars Rachel Griffith and Barry Keoghan.

IAN POWER

DIRECTOR

Ian’s career started with the short film ‘Buskers‘, a big hit on the international festival circuit, collecting awards at the Galway Film Fleadh, the Cork Film Festival among others. His first feature length film is ‘The Runway‘, starring Demián Bichir, Kerry Condon and James Cosmo which premiered at The Galway Film Fleadh in 2010 where it picked up the award for Best Irish Feature. He has since gone on to make ‘The Guarantee’.

IAN FITZGIBBON

DIRECTOR

Ian Fitzgibbon is a BAFTA nominated director and actor who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and has a long and extensive acting career principally on English television where his credits range from ‘Prime Suspect’ to ‘Father Ted’. He is better known for his directing credits including the TV Dramas ‘Moone Boy’, ‘Damned’, ‘Raised by Wolves’, and the Feature Films ‘Dark Lies the Island’, ‘Death of a Superhero’ and ‘Perrier’s Bounty’.

WILLIAM CONACHER

DIALECT COACH

William has coached the voices of some of cinema’s most talented artists, including Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Tom Hanks, Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, James Franco and Matthias Schoenaerts – to name just a few. A graduate of the Central School of Speech and Drama, he taught voice, dialects and phonetics in several drama schools before teaching at RADA in 1998, where he remained for eight years. William has also been a longtime collaborator with director Stephen Daldry, working on two of his Oscar-nominated films, The Reader and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Other collaborations with Daldry include The Audience with Helen Mirren and Skylight starring Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy. His film credits include Perfume, Cloud Atlas, Diana, In The Heart of the Sea and Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert.

STEPHEN BRIDGEWATER

ACTING COACH

Stephen Bridgewater is one of Hollywoods hardest working Acting Coaches. Some of the clients he has worked with include: Benicio Del Toro, Heath Ledger, Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Orlando Bloom, and Robin Williams. Stephen has also worked with directors and cast members of Sons of Anarchy, The X-Files, The Sopranos, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,12 Monkeys, The Fisher King, Brokeback Mountain, Forrest Gump, 21 Grams, Mississippi Burning, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many more. Stephen also has multiple credits as an actor, director, producer, writer, and script consultant.

GUEST CASTING DIRECTORS

Bow Street also brings in International Casting Directors like Maureen Hughes, Leo Davis, Ros Hubbard, Carla Stronge, Louise Kiely, Amy Rowan and many more to work with the students giving them feedback on audition technique and on filmed scenes.