Rex, son of the late former RTÉ presenter Gerry Ryan, was doing free walking tours around Dublin city centre in 2018 before he got the ball rolling in his career.
He met his wife Miglé in a city centre cafe and, after finally asking her out 10 weeks later, ended up marrying her around a month afterwards in May 2018.
The couple now work together at the Glass Mask Theatre on Dawson Street, which Rex helped found as a home for new work in the heart of Dublin.
“The conception of our love story was actually in KC Peaches Café on Dame Street, where Miglé was working as manager,” Rex said.
“This was shortly after I got out of acting school. A couple of my acting friends and myself were broke and not doing any jobs. We’re all working in the industry now, but back then we hadn’t got anything whatsoever.
“We used to do these bizarre free walking tours of Dublin for tourists. We’d collect them all from hostels and walk them around Dublin for two and a half hours and spoof history lessons, with no history degree to any of our names. Then they’d pay us in tips.
“We made a deal with KC Peaches that if we brought a load of tourists in on the break, they’d give me free meals. I just went in there one day and I saw Miglé and thought she was incredible.
Rex Ryan married his wife Miglé after meeting in a Dublin café in 2018. Pic: Damien Eagers
“For about 10 weeks, I just kept going there regardless of whether I was doing tours or not. Eventually I got the balls up to ask her out and we were married in about a month, two months after that.”
Now an award-winning actor, writer and director, Rex has directed numerous critically acclaimed plays for his Glass Mask Theatre. His latest play, The Dole Wide World, debuts on stage this week.
“When I went to acting school, I had no interest in the theatre, all I wanted to do was go to Hollywood and act in Tarantino movies,” he said.
“But I discovered the beauty of the theatre, and I did all these new plays. I did a one man show in the Abbey Theatre.
“I travelled to Manchester and Edinburgh and did shows there. I just saw how powerful a great theatre experience could be, and how terrible a bad one could be as well.
“I think it’s the closest thing I would have to a church. When you get it right and people can come together and stop being anxious, it opens up their hearts.
“That’s why I love it, and I stick at it because it’s certainly not for the money. Running your own theatre is a lot of work.
“It’s very hard to get people to go to the theatre because there’s a stigma that it’s boring, and culture, and it’s good for you. Like drinking a green juice might be good for you, but it’s disgusting and boring.
“I think this is for the general public in Dublin anyway. When I manage to get new people into the theatre and the plays are excellent, I’ve seen them be uplifted and changed.
“My life was made a lot richer by finding theatre and live performance, but it could be any art form, a concert, a theatre, being with friends in an art gallery, an arcade, whatever.
“I think the act of people coming together in person is really important, especially in the age of isolation that we live in.
“On working with my wife, the cliché answer would be that you have a work life balance and that we compartmentalise our work with our relationship.
“But, of course, that would be complete bullsh*t because that’s impossible for us to do.
“I have a solid relationship with my wife regardless. We both respect each other, which is the key to any relationship, and we take that into our theatre work. She lets me do my stuff and I respect her.
“Essentially, her job is to tell me no for everything that I want, because I say things like I’d love a chameleon, an open fire, and a bag of cocaine in the next play.
“But she is the responsible one, and she will say all of that’s absolutely impossible, but maybe we could have a bag of fake weed, and you could have a plastic chameleon.
“She’s very much the organisational unit of the system and she allows me to run riot with the plays.”
The Dole Wide World, directed by Ian Toner, is about two people at a crossroads who step into a dole office on Parnell Street and attempt to save each other’s lives.
The play features Tara Cush and Neill Fleming and explores motherhood, meaning, violence and the state’s handling of individuals on the edges of society.
The Dole Wide World is showing until November 23
“The Dole Wide World is a really exciting thriller, I would love it if people looked at it like a Tarantino movie, except you get to see it live,” Rex said.
“On a deeper level, you can come into our intimate theatre with 55 seats, and you’ll experience this with a load of other people. I think that’s more powerful than the cinema.
“I’ve smuggled some things that are on my mind about society in the form of the thriller, so I would like to hit people on a deeper level. There are questions about mental health, sanity in today’s society, who is sane and who isn’t?
“I often feel like a lot of people in positions of power are insane, and a lot of people who are considered fools are sane, so there’s a lot of that.
“There are questions about the mental health system. It’s a play about forgiveness, so hopefully that would resonate with people too.”
The Dole Wide World is showing at The Glass Mask Theatre in Dublin from November 5 to 23
