Ronan Vibert

A character actor of considerable resources, Ronan Vibert’s gift for suave understatement lent his villains sly, straight-faced menace and imbued his heroes with an often quirky, charismatic charm, qualities that brought him success on television and film, and roles with the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.

Born in Cambridge to artist David Vibert and sculptor Dilys Jackson, Vibert moved to Penarth, South Wales, when he was six and showed early promise in school plays, later training at RADA.

He made his professional debut as a reindeer in The Snow Queen at Derby Playhouse in 1985, and impressed the following year as a fussy, prissy poet falling in love with Jonathan Cullen’s conscientious objector in Robert Holman’s wartime-set Being Friends at London’s Bush Theatre.

In 1986, Vibert also made his first appearance – in Brecht – at the National, as the son to Yvonne Bryceland’s The Mother. He returned to the South Bank a decade later as Prince Andre in Helen Edmundson’s adaptation of War and Peace.

By then, he was a regular presence beyond London, striking as the heroin-addicted Ralph in Michael Wall’s Amongst the Barbarians (Royal Exchange Manchester and Hampstead, 1989) and the fragile Irwin in David Hare’s The Secret Rapture (Library Manchester, 1990). 

Equally impressive were his languid patron in Robert David MacDonald’s Webster (Old Red Lion, London, 1991) and a religious, matricidal maniac in Walpurgis Night at London’s Gate Theatre in 1992.

He made his RSC debut in multiple roles in Yukio Ninagawa’s visually spectacular Peer Gynt in 1993, and was memorable as the Afrikaner Johnnie in Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye at Theatr Clwyd in 1996.

Later theatre included Antartica (Savoy Theatre, 2001), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bristol Old Vic, 2003), Dying for It (Almeida, 2007), and Gilbert Is Dead (Hoxton Hall, 2009).

On radio, Vibert was heard in productions including Gorky’s Summerfolk, Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out, Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, and Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust.

He also played Paris to Michael Sheen and Kate Beckinsale’s Romeo and Juliet for Naxos Audiobooks in 1997. 

On television, he was an always vivid presence in costume dramas; his Robespierre opposite Richard E Grant’s The Scarlet Pimpernel (1999) a slippery civil servant, his Sforza a merciless schemer in The Borgias (2011). His aquiline features and haughty self- possession lent him natural authority as aristocrats in The Buccaneers (1995), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Penny Dreadful (both 2015), although he was just as likely to pop up alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster or in episodes of Lovejoy and Midsomer Murders.

He made memorable contributions to American television dramas as diverse as the ancient epic Rome (2007), the fantasy Highlander (1999), and alongside Kevin Costner in the Western Hatfields and McCoys (2012). 

On film, he appeared alongside stars such as Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, 2003), John Malkovich (Shadow of the Vampire, 2000), Adrien Brody (The Pianist, 2002) and Michael Fassbender (The Snowman, 2017). He made a striking impression as the publisher to Emma Thompson’s PL Travers (author of Mary Poppins) in the Oscar-nominated Saving Mr Banks in 2013, and was last seen in two episodes of Amazon Prime’s steampunk fantasy Carnival Row in 2019.

Ronan David Jackson Vibert was born on February 23, 1964 and died on December 22, 2022, aged 58. He is survived by his wife, Jess Grand.