Darcy Faolain (Irish pronunciation: [fweɪlɑːn]; born 20 December 1985) is an Irish actor and singer, best known for portraying Ramsay Bolton in the HBO series Game of Thrones, Marius Pontmercy in Tom Hooper's musical Les Misérables (2012), and Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016). He will also be starring in the upcoming 2016 release Silence.

EARLY LIFE

Faolain was born 20 December 1985 in Bray, Ireland to Gabriel, an electrician and prominent member of Ireland's deaf community, and Carmina, an accountant. He has one older brother, Darren, and a younger sister, Mary. Childhood was very much average for Darcy; he attended Saint Cronan's Boys' National School until his 6th year, then completed his primary education at Presentation College. It was during his time at Pres that he discovered a fondness for acting as well as the fact that he seemed to have a natural knack for it, though he placed that interest to the side when it came to furthering his education - Darcy chose instead to pursue the path of an Irish Sign Language/English interpreter at Trinity College Dublin's Centre for Deaf Studies, having grown up with a deaf father. He has expressed that the choice was somewhat of a struggle for him, having felt strong pulls towards both possible career choices; after two years of working as an interpreter he was urged by his father to pursue his desire to act.

CAREER

Darcy landed his first role in 2008 at the age of 22; the experience was unique in that it was the very first role he auditioned for. He played Ruairí McGowan on The Clinic, a long-running RTÉ Irish primetime television medical drama series, during its last two seasons; the series was scrapped at the end of its seventh season, rumoured to be cancelled due to high production costs. It did not take long for Darcy to find further television work, and he quickly found himself in the role of John Mitchell on BBC Three's Being Human. Now playing to a wider audience, he began auditioning for more visible roles, playing minor characters in two films before thrusting himself headlong into the spotlight as Marius in the film adaptation of Les Misérables. This garnered him critical acclaim and recognition on an international scale, though his true acting ability would shine brightest in his role on HBO's Game of Thrones. Having originally auditioned for the role of Jon Snow when the pilot was being cast, he was asked personally to return for a read-through in the role of villainous sociopath Ramsay Snow. The attention and recognition he has received for the role has been monumental, and Darcy has commented on its occasionally being overwhelming, but has also expressed gratitude for the show's audience being able to distinguish between his acting and his actual personality. Most recently, he starred as Newt Scamander in the latest imagining of J.K. Rowling's wizarding world, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; it has been confirmed that there will be five films in the series, presumably with Faolain attached to each project. He will also be starring alongside Oliver Blum and Liam Neeson in Martin Scorsese's Silence, set to be released in December of 2016; this will mark Faolain's first foray into American projects.

PERSONAL LIFE

For the most part, Darcy is protective of his personal life. His father, Gabriel Faolain, passed away during the filming of season four of Game of Thrones, which Darcy has admitted factored into Ramsay's limited appearances in the season, and has expressed gratitude for being able to take time away. He has been in two publically-known romantic relationships since 2009. Faolain is a supporter of the Irish Deaf Society, and is fluent in both Irish as well as Irish Sign Language, having worked as an ISL interpreter for two years before breaching into acting. He is known to have played as a rugby full-back throughout school, and is an avid fan of Leinster. He was raised Catholic and attended all-boys Catholic schools until his time at Trinity, and still identifies as Catholic.

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• Has a very distinguishable scar on his left cheek and a smaller scar on the left side of his forehead. These are, ironically enough, the remnants of a dog biting him on the face when he was a small child, and the surgery that followed.

• Although he is endlessly friendly and warm towards people, especially fans, he doesn't particularly care for the fame or promotion portions of his career, and wishes he could simply act without all the excess as it makes him feel more than a bit anxious. He worries that he won't live up to the expectations people have of him.

• Doesn't keep any sort of public social media accounts. Everything he has is privated and under a pseudonym so as to remain as low-key as possible online. Along the same lines, he tends to shy away from reading anything written about himself online, as he does take things to heart rather easily.

• Housemates with Finn, a year-old Jackapoo.

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