Biography

Brendan Mackey was born in Northern Ireland. He left School at 16 and trained as an apprentice electrician for two years. He then auditioned for and won a scholarship to RADA. Brendan gave up his apprenticeship and moved to London where he now lives.

Since leaving drama school Brendan has played the lead in Les Blair's 'H3'(Golden Rosa Award, Bergamo Film Festival), Lab Ky Mo's cult comedy 'Nine Dead Gay Guys' (Best Feature, Montreal Comedy Film Festival), Marion Comer's 'Boxed' (Best Feature, Boston Film Festival) and most recently Kevin MacDonald's multi-award-winning 'Touching the Void', which won the BAFTA for Best Film in 2004.
- IMDb mini biography by: Julia Hamzah

Attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

He got his brown belt in Jeet Kune Do in 2006.

The BBC's flagship movie programme 'Film 2011' declared Brendan Mackey's performance in Touching the Void one of their Top Five "Should've Won an Oscar But Didn't". The reviewer was renowned film critic Antonia Quirke. She added that if Brendan's part "had been played by Daniel Day Lewis he not only would have been nominated, he'd have won." Brendan came 3rd in the list of five. The others were Ingrid Bergman for Casablanca (5), Anthony Perkins for Psycho (4), Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List (2) and 'The Dude' Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski (1).

Graduated with 2:1 (Hons) in English Literature from Open University (2009).

About to film his next feature, 48 Angels.

I always fancied doing an academic degree, but couldn't see how I'd fit a course around my job. The great thing about the Open University (OU) is that it's so flexible. It's about 15 hours' study a week. When I'm away on location, I just take the work with me, sit in my caravan or hotel room and get on with it. This year, I'll be writing a piece of coursework in Bangkok and sitting my final exam in LA.