FRANK BLAKE
From rural Ireland to the breakout force of Blue Lights, one of Irish drama’s most compelling actors Frank Blake has built a career on discipline, empathy and realism. Frank arrives with the kind of quiet ease that makes you lean in rather than look up. We sat down to chat in London, where he’s lived for the past four years, and there’s a steadiness to him, an actor who doesn’t need to perform the idea of being one. It’s a contrast to the rising visibility that’s followed him since Blue Lights, a show that has put him in the limelight portraying the emotional weight of frontline policing, with the new season coming out this month. But Frank still feels shaped by the long road from Tuamgraney, County Clare, where acting was more instinct than opportunity. “I think there was always a sort of latent actor in me,” he says. He’s just wrapped a job and is heading to Italy for a break before starting a new film in September.
Words by Bridget Devine.
Photographed by Brennan Bucannan. Styled by Tasha Arguile. Grooming by Isabel Concetta at The Wall Group using Hair by Sam McKnight and Armani Beauty. Set Designed by Darcy Norgan. Frank Blake appears courtesy of Curtis Brown.
Frank’s path into acting wasn’t a straight line so much as a slow, accumulating pull. Growing up in rural Ireland, he wasn’t surrounded by the buzz of the acting world to begin with. “There weren't really any drama clubs or drama classes in my area.” But, what he did have was the annual amateur drama festival that visited his school, a brief glimpse of theatre that drew him to the art. University was the first time acting became something he could actually do. He enrolled in an arts degree, “Drama, German, and Philosophy — only one of which I’ve kept up,” he laughs, as well as joining the drama society. Within months, he dropped out to go to drama school.
Frank’s early influences were rooted close to home. “There was a theatre company I was really into, based in Galway,” he says. Druid Theatre Company, a group of young artists who started lunchtime shows in the 1970s and grew into a Tony‑winning institution, became a kind of blueprint for Frank. “I always really admired that it was just a bunch of young people in Galway who got together to make something.” He speaks with reverence for actors like Aaron Monaghan and Marty Rea, “probably some of the best actors we have in Ireland,” and you can hear how their discipline shaped his own sense of craft.
Blue Lights entered Frank Blake’s life twice, first as a missed opportunity, then as a turning point. “I’d actually auditioned for the first season and I didn’t get the part,” he says. When the show first aired, he watched it with the curiosity of someone who knew what it could have been. “I thought, ‘oh, this is a really different take on a cop show.’ Your run‑of‑the‑mill sort of cop show is very character‑focused, and this wasn’t that.” When season two was commissioned, he was invited to meet the directors, writers, and producers, helped along by a friend inside the cast who tipped him off about a role he would be right for. “I followed that up, and I’m glad I did.”
Playing Constable Shane Bradley meant stepping into an existing police unit, a dynamic Frank empathised with as a new cast member. “He’s a new character coming into an established unit and that was my experience as a new actor coming into a very established cast.” That mirroring shaped his early approach, from the sense of getting up to speed to simply adjusting and listening.
This season, he leans into Shane’s evolution. “A lot of people would wrongly call him a bad guy but I think he’s slowly found his way back.” Toward the end of season three, audiences began to see, “a softer, gentler side of him than I always thought was there.”
Blake explains how he prepares for heavier scenes by staying present, “The best thing you can be is relaxed. That relaxation gives you a focus.” His philosophy of acting is to take the work seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. “I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of different actors,” he says, “and the ones who’ve made the jobs the most fun? They take the work very seriously without taking themselves very seriously.” It’s a balance he returns to throughout filming. “Because if you lose the playfulness,” he says, “otherwise, it’s just work, and it shouldn’t feel like it.”
Zipped padded jacket with shearling collar, white cotton shirt, grey sleeveless sweater and high waisted trousers, all by AMI Paris. Sterling silver ‘Decus’ large ring, worn on right pinky finger, by 886 by The Royal Mint. Claddagh ring, Frank’s own
His method sits somewhere between instinct and attentiveness. He doesn’t over‑engineer emotional preparation and tries to stay open. “Sometimes I listen to music to get in the mood,” he says, “but if you ask yourself ‘how do you prepare?’ you can almost put too much pressure on it.” For him, the real work is relaxation and the ability to stay present enough that the emotional truth can surface without force. Listening is his anchor. It’s how he builds characters, how he calibrates rhythm, how he handles scenes that demand emotional weight. “Just listening, really,” he says. “That’s the best thing you can ever do as an actor.”
Police advisors are on set “most of the time,” shaping everything from blocking to emotional beats. “You just wouldn’t be able to do it without them. So much of what’s in the show has come from their stories.” The research really expanded his mindset, “I realised how you can make a difference in someone’s life by even just giving them half an hour, just asking them how they are.” It reframed policing not as spectacle but as patience, empathy, and presence.
Reflecting on the portrayal of policing on screen Frank explained, “I don’t think there should be a responsibility to portray the police well. I think there should be a responsibility to portray them truthfully, whether that be good or bad.” Frank is aware of the landscape the show enters. “A sort of universal distrust of police is — a difficult thing,” he says carefully. He’s seen the complexity up close through the advisors on set, the frontline workers whose real stories shape the show’s realism. “I’ve seen firsthand the ones asking addicts how they are, checking in on vulnerable people and homeless people. They’re the people trying to save them.” In a moment where public opinion is fractured, where policing is debated as much as depicted, that commitment to truth becomes its own form of responsibility.
For Frank, realism isn’t about siding with anyone. It’s about accuracy, honesty and acting as a form of storytelling that depicts stories clearly. He talks about character building saying, “It can depend on the project.” For Blue Lights, it's the ability to stay loose enough that last‑minute script changes or unexpected emotional beats don’t knock him off centre. But in other work, especially when playing real people or stepping into historical worlds, he starts with the tangible recordings, videos and accents. “Accents are a great way in,” he says. “They take you out of yourself. They’re so attached to class, to specific areas, to how someone grew up.” It’s a method that’s both technical but instinctive with research as the scaffolding and spontaneity as the thing that brings it alive.
“Do your research but be ready to throw it all out on the day,” he says. It’s a philosophy shaped by experience watching actors get lost in a backstory no one will ever see, by learning that the audience doesn’t need to know the six books you read for a role. “That’s for you,” he says. “The character you make is for them.”
Looking ahead, Blake says he’s about to shoot a feature film he’s written with his best friend, Chris Walley, a story set in his hometown, about two brothers living with the guilt of an accident that changes their best friend’s life. “It’s been a long time coming,” he says with a spark in his voice. Perhaps the excitement of building something from the ground up. Beyond that, he lights up at the idea of a Western. “I grew up riding horses,” he says. “I’d love to use that skill someday.” It’s a dream that feels both playful and inevitable. When asked what he’d tell his younger self, he pauses, then smiles. “Chill out. Stay the road.” Because as Frank Blake has proved thus far in his career as an actor, everything always works out in the end.
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