Ray Stevenson (May 25, 1964 – May 21, 2023) was a film, TV and stage actor. He moved with his family to Lemington, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England in 1972 at the age of eight, and later to Cramlington, Northumberland, where he was raised. The second of three sons of a Royal Air Force pilot father and an Irish mother, As a child he dreamed to become an actor, but he also thought that dream was impossible. So he pursued his other love, art, and went to art school instead. He was an interior designer with an architectural firm in London when he at 25 decided to try out acting. Eventually he attended Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating at the age of 29.