Adrian Dunbar is an Irish actor and director from Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, best known for his television and theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film, Hear My Song, nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA awards. He has played Superintendent Ted Hastings in the BBC One thriller Line of Duty since 2012. He has also appeared as Alan Cox in The Jump, Martin Summers in Ashes to Ashes, Richard Plantagenet in The Hollow Crown, and as Father Flaherty in Broken.
Dunbar has appeared in such notable films as My Left Foot, The Crying Game, and The General. He has also had leading roles in the films Triggermen, Shooters, How Harry Became A Tree, Richard III, and Widows' Peak. On television, he starred in the first episode of Cracker, giving a performance as an innocent murder suspect with amnesia, and also the last episode of A Touch of Frost, and has been in many British productions, including Tough Love, Inspector Morse, Kidnapped, Murphy's Law, Murder in Mind, Ashes to Ashes and the 2005 re-staging of The Quatermass Experiment. Dunbar's theatre credits include: The Shaughraun and Exiles at Dublin's Abbey Theatre; Real Dreams and The Danton Affair at the Royal Shakespeare Company; King Lear, Pope's Wedding, Saved and Up To The Sun And Down To The Centre at Royal Court Theatre, Conversations on a homecoming at the Lyric Theatre ; A Trinity of Two at Dublin's Liberty Hall Theatre; Boeing Boeing. He directed a critically acclaimed production of Philadelphia Here I Come!. In 2008 he starred in and co-directed Brendan at the Chelsea by Janet Behan, playing Brendan Behan. The play was the first to be staged in the Naughton Studio in the new Lyric Theatre after it reopened in 2011 and is being revived for a tour to Theatre Row in New York in September 2013. He played the role of Aufidius in the BBC Radio production of Coriolanus. He also made a guest appearance in the BBC Radio 4 series Baldi, and appeared on stage as Vermeer in an adaptation of Girl with a Pearl Earring. In 2008, Dunbar played the role of Philip Conolly in the critically acclaimed The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. Dunbar starred alongside fellow Northern Irish actor Ciarán McMenamin in the remote rain-forests of north west Tasmania. He has also joined the cast of the British police proceduraltelevision series, Line of Duty in 2012, portraying the role of Superintendent Ted Hastings continuing on in this role for Series 2, Series 3, Series 4 and Series 5. Dunbar is also a theatre director who staged productions for the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. He played the mysterious character Martin Summers in the second series of Ashes to Ashes. In 2014 he played the title character in a BBC comedy drama Walter. Dunbar also starred as Jim Hogan on the Virgin Media Television original drama, Blood.
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He was cast as Bail Organa for and appeared in costume in publicity stills, but his scene was cut, and the character was re-cast with Jimmy Smits for later films. Dunbar's likeness was retconned into the appearance of the character Bail Antilles.
