Colin O'Donoghue, the son of Con and Mary O'Donoghue, was born and raised in Drogheda, County Louth, in a Roman Catholic family.[3] He has an older brother named Allen.[4] He is the cousin of musician Harry O'Donoghue.[5] He attended Dundalk Grammar School, and later The Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin.[2] At age 16, he went to Paris for a month to learn French.[6]
Career
O'Donoghue's early career was mainly split between theatre and television work in Ireland and the UK.[7] In 2003, he won the Irish Film and Television Award for "Best New Talent" for his role as Norman in "Home For Christmas".[7]
In 2009, he appeared as Duke Philip of Bavaria in an episode of season 3 of the Showtimehistorical-fiction series The Tudors. He made his Hollywood film debut alongside Anthony Hopkins in the horrorthriller filmThe Rite (2011).[2] He made an audition video for The Rite in a friend's home studio in Drogheda and sent it to the United States. He plays guitar and sings in a band called The Enemies, formed in 2003 in Ireland.[2]
In 2012, O'Donoghue was cast as Captain Hook/Killian Jones, love interest of the main heroine Emma Swan, in the second season of the hit ABC series Once Upon a Time. In 2014, O'Donoghue was cast as the main character in The Dust Storm, an independent film set in Nashville, Tennessee as a musician named Brennan.[8][9]
In December 2018, O'Donoghue was cast in an episode of the Netflix anthology drama series, Heartstrings.[11] The series premiered on 22 November 2019.[12]
The Enemies
O'Donoghue was part of the five-piece Irish band, "The Enemies", which was formed in 2003 by O'Donoghue and a close friend, Ronan McQuillan. The Enemies released their self-titled debut EP on 7 March 2011[13] prior to their self-funded first album on track.[14] He played guitar and sang backing vocals on the band's first EP and debut album.
Although the band was unsigned, it was commissioned by General Motors to record tracks for their "Chevy route 66" online campaign.[15] The band worked on the music for Coca-Cola's "5BY20" project.[16] Their debut album Sounds Big on the Radio was to be released in March 2013, which was later scheduled for 2014.[17] In May 2013, he announced he was leaving the band due to the filming schedule of Once Upon a Time.[18]
O'Donoghue has been the co-host of The Sync Report podcast since 2022,[20] his first episode airing in February 2022 and featuring Steve Vai as guest.[21] His fellow co-hosts are American film producer Rose Ganguzza and music supervisor Jason P. Rothberg.
Personal life
O'Donoghue married his wife Helen, a schoolteacher, in 2009, shortly after his appearance on The Tudors.[22] The couple have been together since they were eighteen and have two children: a son[23] and a daughter.[24]
^Molony, Julia (9 September 2013). "SUCH a wicked right hook". Irish Independent. Retrieved 28 August 2014. His first step to stardom took the form of a small part in The Tudors, aka almost every Irish actor's rite of passage. It was here that fate intervened on behalf of our hero. Important people in LA saw his appearance in the show – all eight minutes of it, and on the strength of that, invited him over to LA to sign with a Hollywood agency. The only snag was that all this happened just a few weeks before he was due to marry his childhood sweetheart back in Ireland.
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