Award-winning scriptwriter and actor, Mark O’Holloran comes from Ennis, County Clare.
He is one of the busiest and most acclaimed actor and scriptwriter in Ireland.
As an actor, he has worked with all the major theatre companies in Ireland. On screen he has appeared in numerous films, most notably as one of the eponymous heroes in Adam & Paul for which he also wrote the screenplay and the lead role of MP in History’s Future directed by Fiona Tan for which he was nominated as Best Actor at IFTA awards 2017. Most recently he played the role of Craigy in Shane Meadow’s TV series for Channel 4, The Virtues. He also appears in Darklands and Dead Still, as well as the upcoming Sky Italy TV series, Devils.
Mark‘s writing credits include the multi award winning films Garage and Adam & Paul, as well as the television series Prosperity. He also wrote Viva a Spanish language feature set in Havana Cuba. His latest screenplay Rialto premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. Mark’s work has been seen at Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Telluride and Sundance film festivals. For the stage he has written the play Trade and most recently contributed text to the award-winning theatre production Lippy and co-wrote Beckett’s Room for Dead Centre theatre company.
He is currently writing on the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends for the BBC and Hulu. Also he premiered a new play, Conversations After Sex, at the Dublin Theatre Festival. In November 2021his stage adaptation of Bergman’s The Silence with Dead Centre premiered at the Stadsteater in Göteborg, Sweden. He has also written a libretto called TRADE, which premiered in New York in early 2022.
Mark has been nominated for numerous awards including a European Film Award for the screenplay of Adam & Paul, Irish Film and Television Awards where he won for both Best Screenplay and Best TV writer 2007. He also won the London Evening Standard award for Best Screenplay in 2005. Trade was named as best play at the Irish Theatre Awards 2012. Lippy was Best Production at 2014 Irish Theatre Awards as well as winning a Fringe First at Edinburgh and 2Obie Awards in New York. In the 2020 IFTA’s Mark was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for The Virtues and Best Screenplay for Rialto.
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“Adam and Paul” is one of the most popular Irish buddy comedy drama where he has written the screenplay and has starred one of the main character together Tom Murphy. This drama shows the tragic survival of drug addicts, to the constant and violent research of money to buy any kind of drug.
Friends since childhood, Adam and Paul are two Dublin drug addicts, desperate for the daily dose of heroin. The film follows them over a period of twenty-four hours, alternating moments of comedy with completely antisentimental situations.
The idea of the script of “Viva” came during a holiday in Cuba where Mark felt completely submerged in the exotic cultural life of the island, listening to every bolero and ballad, reading as much of the literature as possible, watching a lot of hits of Cuban Cinema.
Viva is a stirring Cinderella story about the hairdresser who wants to become a drag performer.
Viva was shortlisted for best foreign language Oscar and nominated for Best Screenplay at the IFTA awards 2016.
