Ray Stevenson, Actor in ‘Thor’ and Other Films, Dies at 58

Ray Stevenson, who in a 30-year profession performed a variety of roles in tv and movies, amongst them a talkative soldier within the HBO historic drama “Rome,” the pirate Blackbeard within the Starz sequence “Black Sails” and the Asgardian warrior Volstagg within the “Thor” fantasy motion pictures, died on Sunday. He was 58.

His publicist, Nicki Fioravante, confirmed his dying however offered no additional particulars. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica mentioned Mr. Stevenson died on the Italian island of Ischia, the place he had been filming a film.

Mr. Stevenson was born on May 25, 1964, in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in response to the Internet Movie Database. He had begun a profession in inside design when, in his mid-20s, he determined to attempt appearing. Seeing John Malkovich within the Lanford Wilson play “Burn This” in London’s West End within the early Nineteen Nineties was the catalyst.

“I was dumbstruck by John’s performance,” he informed the California newspaper The Fresno Bee in 2008. “Everybody else disappeared. I knew at that moment there was something very valid about being an actor.”

He studied on the Bristol Old Vic Theater School in England, the place in 1993 he performed the title position in a manufacturing of “Macbeth.” Before the 12 months was over he had landed a recurring position in a British mini-series, “The Dwelling Place.” He had labored kind of steadily ever since.

In the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, Mr. Stevenson appeared on varied British TV sequence, together with the crime drama “Band of Gold.” He landed his first vital movie position in 2004, enjoying the knight Dagonet in “King Arthur,” with Clive Owen within the title position.

Then got here “Rome,” a breakthrough position in a big-budget HBO sequence about historic Rome that was the community’s try and create the subsequent buzz-generating sequence after “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos.”

Mr. Stevenson’s character, Titus Pullo, was, as Alessandra Stanley put it in a 2005 overview in The New York Times, “a drunken, womanizing lout — a soccer hooligan in sandals.” Titus Pullo’s friendship with one other Roman soldier, performed by James Purefoy, was among the many present’s most interesting subplots, and Mr. Stevenson, a big man at 6-foot-4, appeared on the verge of one thing huge.

“He’s kind of George Clooney on steroids,” Chase Squires of The St. Petersburg Times of Florida wrote in 2005. “By the time ‘Rome’ completes its run, the Irish-born English actor will probably be a star, and a very real candidate to replace Russell Crowe when Hollywood gets tired of that actor’s notoriously bad behavior.”

But “Rome” flamed out after two seasons, and Mr. Stevenson by no means fairly achieved Clooneyesque stature. He did, nevertheless, land a lot of meaty roles in lavish tasks, together with three motion pictures from the Marvel Comics universe: “Thor” (2011), “Thor: The Dark World” (2013) and “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017). All three had been box-office smashes.

He typically referred to the “Thor” tales as “Vikings in space,” and in 2020 he bought a style of the earthbound model of that life when he joined the forged of the long-running History channel sequence “Vikings.” He appeared all through its sixth season.

His different roles included a gangster within the 2011 film “Kill the Irishman” and a British colonial official within the Indian movie “RRR” (2022). He additionally performed the vigilante Frank Castle, a.okay.a. the Punisher, one other character primarily based on a comic book ebook. He took on that position in 2008 in “Punisher: War Zone,” after Dolph Lundgren had performed Castle in a 1989 film and Thomas Jane had taken his flip in 2004.

The 2008 film was an orgy of violence, as A.O. Scott famous in his overview in The Times.

“Guys get their heads blown off, or severed, or pierced with chair legs, or pulverized with fists,” he wrote, “because that’s what they have coming and that’s what the fan base will pay money to see.”

His character, Mr. Stevenson informed The Oklahoman, was presupposed to be not a hero however an antihero.

“He really is on a one-way path and in his own hell,” he mentioned. “You don’t want to be Frank Castle.”

Mr. Stevenson’s marriage to the actress Ruth Gemmell resulted in divorce. He and his companion, Elisabetta Caraccia, had three kids.