Mark Tankersley
Most recently Mark played Mike Mitchel in When Harvey Met Bob(2011 IFTA for Best Single Drama) and Barnes in the Steven St.Leger and James Mather directed feature Lock Out (worldwide release 24/02/12) produced by Luc Besson.
Mark was abandoned in a ditch in rural Texas at the age of two… but as a fifth generation Texan with an Irish grandfather named Griffin and an Irish Grandmother named Maloney, he soon learned how to catch crawfish in the ditch with a small piece of string and survived. Some years later, after leaving the ministry, he graduated from The Juilliard School, which he says, “was like doing acid with chameleons”. While there, he learned a lot of things he had to later forget and also directed An Evening of Beckett, which included the rarely produced Theatre I and Theatre II.
Mark then spent a decade in New York performing professionally on Off-Broadway stages, Regional Theatre stages, as well as Television and Film. After an 11th year full of acting in soap operas, playing mad scientists and syphilitic kings, Moreau in The Island of Doctor Moreau and Herod in Wilde’s Solome, Mark needed to “take a break”. So he moved from New York to Hawaii, and alas, ended up directing The Philippine National Theatre, and The Pacific Rim Play Festival as well as performing in Equity Theatre, National Television, and Film… “No break there.”
Desperately wanting some time off, Mark then moved to Colorado to “take that break”… Mark got it. He worked a cattle and horse ranch for six years, later managing it and learned how to build houses… “Raising horses at 9,000 ft. up in the Rockies was good… I miss It.” But it was time to finish the break and Mark did five Equity contracted plays in Colorado in two years. Among them were Macbeth in Macbeth, Torvald in A Doll’s House, Prague in the suspense-comedy film The Summer Intern as well as directing Simon’s The Odd Couple, he also created and executed in cooperation with The Russian Ministry for Education a summer theatre camp for orphans, thirty miles northwest of Moscow. Some of the previous brought three awards, as well as a film that went to Cannes winning bupkis and a Conspicuous Achievement Award from the Russian Deputy Minister for Education.
Mark then moved to Nashville to help one of his brothers build a world-renowned recording studio. While there, he did only Equity contracts… Father Samsa in The Metamorphosis, Robert Crowe in Never The Sinner, as well as others. The Nashville time brought one award, one film, a couple of commercials, and an offer to do Theatre while traveling the world on Crystal Cruises. Mark then performed and directed at sea for two years plays including Artby Yasmina Reza, Shakespeare’s Lovers, original work, All In The Timingby David Ives, a lot of Neil Simon and on and on. He met his true love on the ship in 2002 and they moved to Dublin in 2004. Since here, among other roles, Mark’s been featured as Randy Hanson in RTE’s Killinaskully Series 2, Sean McNab, a recurring character on Fair City. He directed UpStaged at Andrew’s Lane.
Film work in Ireland includes Martin in Natalie, Steve Bizan in The Mechanics directed by Steven St.Ledger and James Mather, Dr. Olan in Stolen City directed by David Rodham as well as a few commercials and voice-overs on TV and radio.
Voice
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