Go Ballistic’s Top 5 Irish Action Heroes
It’s St Patrick’s Day, but if there’s one thing the Go Ballistic team like even more than a pint of the black stuff, it’s a large helping of action. We love it! We can’t get enough of it! We like to get right smack into the thick of it. But the thing about splattered paintball war zones is, sometimes, they’re closed.
So, once the last paintball has been blasted in anger, we get a shot of adrenaline watching awesome Hollywood action movies.
To celebrate St Paddy, we’re counting down our favourite trigger-whacking, name-taking, baddie-beating movie stars from Ireland.
These lads are the real fighting Irish, and we’re happy to sit back and watch them busting heads long after the 17th of March.
5. Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Wait! Come back! We know, we know, young Jonathan’s not exactly what you had in mind when you hit a link about action heroes. But this real life bad boy is starting to forge a mammoth Hollywood career and there have been a few butt-kickers among his recent roles.
A tumultuous upbringing included a spell in an orphanage and permanent expulsion from school at the age of 16. Rhys Meyers never went back, but he never looked back either.
Following humble beginnings in a TV advertisement for soup, the interesting actor has consistently nabbed screen roles and in recent years has helped Tom Cruise beat the baddies in ‘Mission Impossible III’ and helped John Travolta do it in the brainless but brilliant action movie ‘From Paris With Love’.
Keeping company like that means Jonny Boy could probably walk into any Scientology tea party that he wanted to. One thing he hasn’t had the chance to do is walk into a Michael Bay style Hollywood explosion-fest. But he is quoted as saying he’d like to.
We’re sure it’s only a matter of time.
4. Gabriel Byrne
One of a number of famous actors born in Dublin, Gabriel attended a seminary for five years of his childhood and trained to become a Catholic priest. In an eclectic early life, he found the time and inclination to be an archaeologist, a cook, a bullfighter and even a Spanish schoolteacher before kicking off his acting career at the ripe old age of 29.
He started in swashbuckling style as Lord Uther Pendragon in John Boorman’s round table epic, ‘Excalibur’ and would later play master swordsman D’Artagnan in ‘The Man In The Iron Mask’.
Then, smouldering Mr Byrne traded swords for guns in awesome movies like ‘The Usual Suspects’, ‘Miller’s Crossing’ and the remake of ‘Assault On Precinct 13’.
The guy’s even kicked Arnie’s ass, playing Satan in ‘End Of Day’s’; which definitely makes him worthy of the list.
3. Pierce Brosnan
Born in Ireland, partly raised in England and now officially half-American, Brosnan has lived many bloke’s dream by taking on the role of globe-trotting super-spy James Bond in not one, not two, nor three but four massive movies.
And the actor has a permanent souvenir of his time in the tuxedo, which takes the form of a scar on his face, picked up from a stuntman while filming ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. The action might have gotten a little too real, but buff Brosnan lived to tell the tale. We’re sure it couldn’t have been as painful as Pierce’s singing in the ‘Mama Mia’ movie, anyway.
He’s had his fair share of battles to overcome, has the boy from County Meath. Uprooting to London at the age of just 10, Pierce became the target of school bullies, standing almost six foot tall at a very early age.
What’s more, he might have achieved 007 status much sooner if plans to cancel the actors hit TV show ‘Remington Steele’ been followed through. Instead producers had a last minute change of heart and the role of Bond went to Timothy Dalton.
But the actor wasn’t shaken or stirred and would eventually fulfil his ambition. It almost seems he was destined to, when you consider that the first movie he ever saw, the one that convinced him he wanted to be an actor, was in fact Sean Connery’s ‘Goldfinger’.
2. Colin Farrell
Another native of Dublin, and once seen treading the quaint country lanes of British telly’s ‘Ballykissangel’, Farrell is now a fully fledged movie star.
He broke onto the world stage with Joel Schumacher’s ‘Tigerland’, and even managed to make a blockbuster movie out of a guy standing in a phone box (in the movie ‘Phone Booth’).
Since then the former real life bad boy has kicked screen ass for Hollywood royalty like Steven Spielberg (‘Minority Report’) and Michael Mann (‘Miami Vice’), and partnered the biggest movie names while doing so. He played Al Pacino’s highly skilled, gun-toting protégé in ‘The Recruit’, and played Samuel L. Jackson’s number one S.W.A.T team guy, in an explosive action movie about S.W.A.T team guys, imaginatively titled ‘S.W.A.T’.
He’s even managed to show off his comedic chops, as a bumbling hitman in the hilarious ‘In Bruges’. Colin won a golden globe for the performance, and he also got to run around a famous European city with a gun, which is a must for action heroes.
He continues to nab huge Hollywood movie roles and in 2012 will hit our screens as the lead in a remake of Arnie classic ‘Total Recall’.
It takes a big, brave man to fill the Schwarzenegger shoes. Colin Farrell is just that. But please, don’t mention ‘Daredevil’.
1. Liam Neeson
Ballymena boy Liam Neeson was once a forklift truck driver for Guinness, an assistant architect and even an amateur boxer and he put the latter to good use in the blisteringly brilliant, head smashing action flick ‘Taken’.
The tall, strapping Northern Irishman has enjoyed a glittering career accentuated by weighty, acclaimed roles, and has played a number of real historical figures in huge movies such as ‘Schindler’s List’, ‘Rob Roy’ and ‘Michael Collins’.
But in recent years Neeson is enjoying something of a renaissance as a full blown Hollywood action hero. He can be seen dishing out pain in ‘Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace’, ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Taken’ and even the remake of ‘The A-Team’, in which he played the cigar-muching, butt-kicking, day-saving Colonel Hannibal Smith.
The actor has played cinematic tough guys for the likes of Spielberg and Scorsese and brings authenticity and genuine toughness to each impressive role. Next up he’ll take on a pack of blood thirsty wolves in Alaskan plane crash chiller ‘The Grey’.
Interestingly enough, while he makes it to the top of our list, he hasn’t always enjoyed the luck of the Irish when it comes to winning movie parts. He missed out on playing the giant, Fezzik, in Rob Reiner’s adaptation of ‘The Princess Bride’, because at only 6’4” he wasn’t anywhere near ‘giant’ enough. The role eventually went Andre Rene Roussimoff, a man more commonly known as Andre the Giant.
There you have it! Go Ballistic’s Top 5 Irish Action Heroes.
Wishing you all a very happy St Patrick’s Day! Have fun, drink responsibly and leave the bar brawls and action scenes to the guys in the Hollywood hills.
That is unless you want to engage in electrifying team military simulations in any of our stunning purpose built paintball battlegrounds. We offer top-notch facilities all over the UK, giving you the chance to be the hero of your own action story.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, all you have to do is click here.