Richard Dormer was born on 11 November 1969 in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, into a Protestant family. He trained at the RADA school of acting in London before returning to Northern Ireland to work.

Rather than hosting or presenting in the traditional sense, Dormer serves as narrator for The Crime I Can’t Forget, a BBC One true-crime documentary series that first aired on BBC One Northern Ireland on 15 November 2023, with episodes also available on BBC iPlayer.

He built his reputation on stage, winning The Stage award for Best Actor in 2003 for his self-written play Hurricane, before breaking through on screen with Good Vibrations (2012) and his long-running role in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

He currently lives in Belfast and is married to theatre director Rachel O’Riordan, artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith in London.