Richard Orr is a Northern Irish stage actor who has worked in films, television and for radio.

Born in east Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Richard Orr has a wealth of stage work to his name, including stage production tours of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

He was educated at Strandtown Primary School

Strandtown Primary School

Strandtown Primary School is a primary school. Its address is 1 North Road, in east Belfast, Northern Ireland.Its local education authority is the Belfast Education Authority. It is a mixed school of Non Denominational religion, with its pupils coming from a wide range of cultures. Its school board...

 and Grosvenor Grammar School

Grosvenor Grammar School

Grosvenor Grammar School is a co-educational controlled Grammar School in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This inter-denominational school, with an increasingly multi-cultural population and outlook, has a staff of 73 full-time teachers....

 in Belfast, and studied acting in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. Critics have compared his acting style and physical appearance to those of Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...

 and Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart

Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...

.

Major theatre work includes a UK tour of Mojo Mickybo, a British premiere of Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, a US tour of Philadelphia, Here I Come, Fathers and Sons with the Stanislavsky Theatre studio in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and, in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

's Theatre Babel as Vasquez

Vasquez

Vázquez is an original Galician surname, in use not only in Galicia but all over Spanish-speaking countries...

 in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

.

In his native city of Belfast, he has portrayed many roles at the Lyric

Lyric Players' Theatre

The Lyric Players' Theatre, more commonly known as The Lyric Theatre, or simply The Lyric, is the main full-time producing theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The theatre was first established as the Lyric Players in 1951 at the home of its founders Mary and Pearse O’Malley in Derryvolgie Ave.,...

, including Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, USA....

, Once Upon A Mattress, Other Island, New Year's Eve Can Kill You, Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...

, All My Sons, Taming of the Shrew, Wind in the Willows, Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...

, Hidden Curriculum, Dracula

Dracula

Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...

. On top of that he has played Paddington in Paddington Bear

Paddington Bear

Paddington Bear is a fictional character in children's literature. He appeared on 13 October 1958 and was subsequently featured in several books, most recently in 2008, written by Michael Bond and first illustrated by Peggy Fortnum....

, Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

, an Ugly Sister in Cinderella

Cinderella

"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...

, The Wizard in Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1902 stage play)

The Wizard of Oz was a 1902 musical extravaganza based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which was originally published in 1900...

, in many Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 shows.

Orr has had parts in British television shows, and voice-overs for advertisements. His major work on radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 includes the Mind's Eye

Mind's Eye (radio series)

Mind's Eye is a series of BBC radio dramas set in Dublin, concerning the effect of apparent paranormal phenomena on two psychotherapists, Lorcan Molloy and his daughter Aoife...

 series.

His film debut was a Film Four production called A Sort of Homecoming. He has also appeared in Jack Higgins

Jack Higgins

Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...

' On Dangerous Ground

On Dangerous Ground

On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler...

, Colin Bateman

Colin Bateman

Colin Bateman is a novelist, screenwriter and former journalist from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.Born in 1962, Bateman attended Bangor Grammar School leaving at 16 to join the County Down Spectator as a "cub" reporter, then columnist and deputy editor...

's Crossmaheart

Crossmaheart

Crossmaheart is a 1998 British drama film directed by Henry Herbert and starring Gerard Rooney, Maria Lennon and Enda Oates. It was based on the novel A Cycle of Violence by Colin Bateman.-Cast:* Gerard Rooney as Kevin Miller* Maria Lennon as Marie...

, The Magnificent Ambersons, portrayed Sammy McIlroy

Sammy McIlroy

Samuel Baxter "Sammy" McIlroy is a former Northern Ireland international footballer whose clubs included Manchester United....

 in the film about George Best

George Best

George Best was a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who played for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders...

, Best

Best (film)

Best is a 2000 British film portraying the football career of the Northern Irish soccer star George Best, particularly his years spent at Manchester United...

, and as Father Mernaghan in The Most Fertile Man in Ireland.

Television work includes a parody of Paul Hill

Paul Hill

Paul Hill is the name of:*Paul Jennings Hill , American anti-abortion activist and murderer, executed*Paul Hill , one of the Guildford Four...

 in an episode of Give My Head Peace

Give My Head Peace

Give My Head Peace was a satirical television comedy series on BBC Northern Ireland that pokes fun at political parties, paramilitary groups and the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland...

and appearances in episodes of Eureka Street

Eureka Street

Eureka Street is an Australian magazine concerned with public affairs, arts, and theology started in 1989 by Michael Kelly SJ, Morag Fraser, and Adrian Lyons SJ. It was published in paper format for 15 years and was an opinion-forming magazine for many of those years...

and I Fought the Law

I Fought the Law

"I Fought the Law" is a song written by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets and became popularized by a cover by the Bobby Fuller Four, which went on to become a top-ten hit for the band in 1966 and was also recorded by The Clash in 1979...

.