AIDAN
CROWLEY

Aidan Crowley, Aodhán ua Cruadhlaoich (gaelic) was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1976 and raised in Co. Cork. He has been a professional actor and singer and creative producer for over thirty years with multiple credits to his name. He is an award winning actor, singer and filmmaker, proving a range of different characters, writing/directing many short films and has been working on his feature film, called The Scowling Dusk, as actor/writer/director/producer for a number of years. He is known for his independence in filmmaking and preferring to shoot using old-fashioned in-camera methods, whilst creating his own particular stylistic design and acting/performance and in cinematography, puppetry, miniatures, stop-motion and make-ups, including publicity. As an actor he is respected for his research and versatility; immersing himself into the role and changing his appearance, physicality, losing and gaining weight and a different voice for every character. He has been known to turn down offers of roles to pursue his own works and his immense reluctance for publicity or recognition. Crowley continues an eclectic workload including his music and voice (see below) and his own songwriting. There are occasional boutique projects such as publishing AtlanticSanctuary and WhenTimeWasAPlayfulChild, the poetry of his late friend Tom O’Connor.

In early 2022 Crowley directed and produced and appeared in a web-series, Valdís, which has received multiple awards and official selection on the independent festival/award circuit. This was followed by The Haunting Of The Midshipman 1 and 2 which also succeded with multiple nominations and awards.

Crowley writes all of his films and characters in the same ‘universe’ that contain three unusual places he calls Kloxalis, YomiKamta and Târamül and the workings of a mysterious group called the Nexcoyomeh. This universe is an alternative to Earth. Preferring to work with the same troupe of actors on all his projects if schedules allow, Crowley considers this an old fashioned acting company as in the theatre.

For his work on Valdís (2022) he was the winner of the Diamond Award for Best Actor and Silver Award for Best Director at the Mindfield Film Festival, Best Actor at the World Film Carnival in Singapore and Best Actor at the Royal Wolf Film Awards.

Selected recent Awards & Recognition

Nominated for Best Actor, Royal Wolf Film Awards, for his work on Valdís (2022).

Winner Best Actor, for his work on Valdís (2022) at World Film Carnival Singapore.

Winner Silver Award - Best Director for his work on Valdís (2022). Mindfield Film Festival, Albuquerque.

Winner Diamond Award - Best Actor for his work on Valdís (2022). Mindfield Film Festival, Albuquerque.

Winner, Gold Award, Best Actor for his work on Valdís, Royal Wolf Film Awards, Los Angeles.

Music Video for an aria from Siegfried (Wagner) Official Selection (2022) for Best Music Video at the International Music Video Awards.

Nominated Best Actor in Music Video (2022) for his performance of Siegfried (Wagner) aria at the International Music Video Awards.

Official Selection Best Music Video (2022) for his Siegfried (Wagner) aria with Cellist, Deryn Cullen, at the International Music Video Awards.

Official Selection and Finalist, Best Music Video (2022) for his Siegfried (Wagner) aria with Cellist, Deryn Cullen, at the Cult Critic Movie Awards.

Official Selection Best Music Video (2022) for his Siegfried (Wagner) aria, with Cellist, Deryn Cullen, at the Luleå International Film Festival, Sweden.

Nominated for Best Actor at the 2023 Snow Leopard International Film Festival, for his work on Scowling Dusk: The Haunting Of The Midshipman.

His original song The Spirits Of The Sea from the film Scowling Dusk: The Haunting Of The Midshipman, was nominated Best Original Song at the 2023 Snow Leopard International Film Festival.

Winner, Best Music Video (2022) for his Siegfried (Wagner) with Cellist Deryn Cullen aria at the Cult Critic Movie Awards.

Nomination, Jean Luc Godard Award, Best Music Video (2022) for his Siegfried (Wagner) aria with Cellist Deryn Cullen aria at the Cult Critic Movie Awards.

Winner of the 2024 WFCS Magician Of Motion Picture Award.

Winner of the WFCS Golden Merlion Honorary Award.

Winner of the Pen Of Honor Award, at Cult Critic Movie Awards 2024.

Winner, Knight Of The Reel Best Of The Best Award 2024.

Training

Initially training as a professional actor at Mountview Theatre School in London (graduating 1998), winning both theStage newspaper three year acting and musical theatre scholarship and the Mountview singing scholarship. After more than thirty years in the business he has played numerous roles in various guises to date. Essentially a character actor, he usually never looks the same as the part requires and prefers to go as far as he can with ‘transformation’ in acting. He has been described as a Method actor although this is not necessarily accurate. Crowley also studied acting at the Cork Arts and Theatre Club, the Phoenix Contemporary Theatre School, the Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin, two seasons at the Manchester Youth Theatre (NYT), Redroofs in Maidenhead (quit for drama school), Shakespeare at RADA and Postgraduate (with scholarship) at the Actors Company at the London Centre for Theatre Studies. He began studying for a Master’s Degree in Shakespeare at Royal Holloway (University of London) but had to leave due to being offered a theatre tour.

Selected Credits

Throughout 2013 Crowley produced his one man show entitled We Are Dust & Shadow as part of the Solo Festival at the Lord Stanley Theatre and subsequently at the Baron’s Court Theatre. This performance won the award for Most Original Act at the 2013 Solo Festival in London. Prior to returning to the role of Dick Deadeye in HMS Pinafore tour in 2014 he appeared as The Fool in theEclipse at the Union Theatre, which he also produced. Selected Theatre credits include: Blossom, Bellowes u/s and Postman in Doctor Dolittle UK Tour, Dick Deadeye in HMS Pinafore, Valene in The Lonesome West, Louis in Chelinot, George in Private Exposure, Kreutchmar in The Surgeon & the Nurse, Toennesen in The Pillars of Society, Mick Connor in Comedians, Rev. Hale in The Crucible, Pastor Manders in Ghosts, Soldier in Bacchai, Ghoul in The Rocky Horror Show, Raynor in Black Coffee, Det. Sgt. Penny in The Hollow, Sandy Tyrell in Hay Fever, Allwit in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Solyony in Three Sisters, Bill in Popcorn, Constable in Wait Until Dark, John in Oleanna, Roy Cohn in Angels in America Part 1, Angelo in Measure for Measure, Richard Mulcahy in Frongoch, Rakitin in A Month in the Country, Whitney in The Stonewater Rapture, Bandit/Johnstone in The Hard Man, Peter Kien in The Windmill, Gold in The Wild Party, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet, The Commissioner in Lysistrata.

Film/Television/Commercial includes: Tenor in Conn-X Greece, Patient in The Psychiatrist RaboBank Ireland, Dandy in Badger or Bust trailer, Husband in Halifax Ireland, Travolta in Daddy Cool, The Man in Old Friend, Fish in Lee’s Sitcom, Addict in Discovery Theme Parks, Dave in Fruice, Rebel in Nobby’s Nuts, Crazy Hair in Manpower.

Voiceover/Radio includes: Time Warner, Cartoon Network, Thresher’s, guest newspaper reviewer on BBC London 94.9fm.

Recent credits include multiple roles in his own film productions: Valdís, The Haunting Of The Midshipman and The Scowling Dusk.

Voice & Music

Crowley is a Tenor/RockVocalist and he has studied voice with many highly regarded vocal tutors over the years including: Susie Webster, Nathan Martin, Claire Groom, Phillip Tebb, Lynton Atkinson, Alexander Massey, Neil Howlett, Mary Hammond RAM, Roderick Earle RCM. Whilst respecting the composer it is obvious the raw and disruptive approach Crowley takes especially with classical aria or musical theatre. His is not a beautiful or legato tone but anguished character and a metallic squillo. His first experimental classical/crossover album was called Those Strange Elusive Tears with the gifted cellist Deryn Cullen. Aidan is also a singer/songwriter/composer and has produced and released independently his own albums including Pilgrim Simpatico, The Byzantium Broadway, Omens Of Tempest, Draoícht/Lux and Invisible Spirit. Alternative/Vocals/Guitars, experiments in music exploring a hybrid style, aria, songwriting, folk/rock and classical voice. Crowley likes to experiment in his own unique, simple Guitar style, each song written with different/unusual tunings and trying to find the voice that suits the individual song or aria, whilst working with various effects systems and orchestrations. He has also composed various pieces of music and is working on the score for Scowling Dusk. In 2022 Crowley recorded an EP of aria and contemporary song, The Dead Unsleeping Fires, with acclaimed pianist Gisela Meyer. Additional projects include 悪霊 AKURYŌ a rock opera concept album and a further songwriting album called In The Morphia Honeymoon.

From 2025 work is begining on a new album called I Wanna Get Out Of This Feeling, a symphonic poem The Lament Of Malachy Lorcan and plans for a Recital/Concert series.

Creative & Artist

In 2013 Crowley decided to take more control and focus on producing independent film and music projects whilst remaining freelance and very selective preferring to concentrate on his own ventures. To pursue and produce his own works as a musician, writer, publisher, producer, director and filmmaker. Crowley, an actor, writer, producer, director, filmmaker, editor, cinematographer, tenor, songwriter, musician…obviously has many interests, with an eclectic variety of creative projects in operation at any one time. He is loyal to his key creative team, many of whom have been working on his projects for a number of years.

With a multifaceted imagination with a great curiosity towards life, Crowley’s pursuits have taken him on adventures as varied as research into his great love of Shakespeare, Esoteric Philosophy and even in the medical world as a Corporal in the Irish Red Cross and in the operating room, training for a time in the NHS as an anaesthetic and surgical assistant [ODP]. He was also a visiting actor for ECST via Frontline NHS training all medical staff and Aidan was a Drama Tutor at Oxford University at the Oxford Summer Academy and various theatre schools.

He is also a published academic writer and an artist in pastel/pencil/sculpt/paint and asemic writing. Aidan also has numerous tattoos and likes to meditate over a quality cigar. Aviation is also a very important escape from the world and he holds a Private Pilot’s Licence which he takes very seriously.

Aidan is notoriously reserved about his private life but lives with his wife Bridie and a cat called Sukï.

©2025 by Robert McEllister.

“BE KIND. BUT DON'T TAKE ANY BULLSHIT”

“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art”

-Orson Welles

THANK YOU

Special Thank You to EVERYONE who has helped Aidan and his creative works over the years from training, opportunities, work, production, all the way through to the present day. Too many to mention but you know who you are and you are sincerely appreciated...

All his peers at Mountview, Gaiety, CAT, LCTS, Manchester MYT National Youth Theatre and Rada Shakespeare. JoAnne Good at the BBC, Toks Adebanjo, Geoffrey & Hazel Sykes at MYT. Patricia Leventon, Gerard Reidy, Peter Coxhead, TheStageNewspaper, Brian Astbury, Terry Meech, Jude Tisdall, Claudette Williams, Lionel Chilcott, Patrick Savage, Daphne Peña-Higgs, Thomas Southerland, Sir Peter Hall, Geoffrey Coleman, David Harris and Uni, Andrew Tidmarsh, Paul Sabey, Rachel Rath, Marcus Markou, Steve Miller, Sasha Regan, Ben De Wynter, Victor Sobchak, Andrew Jarvis, Bill Kenwright, Mary Hammond, Roderick Earle, Declan Lowney, Scott Corbett, Mark Denton...