Roma Downey

Roma Downey is an Irish actress, producer, and author born on 6 May 1960 in the Bogside district of Derry, Northern Ireland. Her name was formed by combining the names of her two grandmothers, Ro from Rose and Ma from Mary. She attended Thornhill College, a Catholic girls school. Her mother, Maureen O'Reilly Downey, died of a heart attack at age 48 when Downey was ten years old, and her father, Patrick Downey, a mortgage broker, died when she was twenty. Though she initially intended to pursue painting, she earned a Bachelor of Arts at Brighton College of Art, where she studied Expressive Arts at Brighton Polytechnic, combining art and drama at the Falmer campus. She subsequently trained as an actress at The Drama Studio in London.

Downey began her stage career with the Abbey Players, based at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, touring the United States in a production of The Playboy of the Western World. An agent she met during that tour encouraged her to relocate to New York City, where she worked as a coat checker at an Upper West Side restaurant before securing roles in Broadway productions. She appeared on Broadway in 1989 in The Circle, alongside Sir Rex Harrison, and also performed at the Roundabout Theater and The Public Theater in New York City. Her Broadway work earned her a nomination for the Helen Hayes Best Actress Award in 1991. Downey has additionally performed with the National Theatre of Ireland throughout her stage career.

Her television career gained significant momentum when she portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the 1991 miniseries A Woman Named Jackie, which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries in 1992. That role led directly to her casting as Monica, an angel, in the CBS series Touched by an Angel, opposite Della Reese and John Dye. The series ran for nine seasons, from 1994 to 2003, and Downey received two Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations for the role, as well as a win at the TV Guide Awards. Downey has spoken publicly about her close friendship with Reese, describing her as a maternal figure following the early loss of her own mother. Reese died on 19 November 2017. Downey also portrayed Annie Sullivan in the 1998 television film Monday After the Miracle and starred in the CBS television movies Borrowed Hearts and Second Honeymoon, on which she also served as executive producer.

In 2011, Downey and her husband, producer Mark Burnett, announced they were producing a ten-hour docudrama for the History channel titled The Bible, based on stories from scripture and scheduled to air in 2013. Planning had begun in 2009, and the couple secured their own financing, with a total production cost of twenty-two million dollars. To ensure fidelity to the source material, they consulted a range of pastors and academics, including Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Craig A. Evans, and Mark Goodacre. The series was filmed in Morocco in 2012, and Downey played the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Bible was viewed by more than one hundred million people in the United States and was nominated for the 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. A theatrical version was released on 28 February 2014 under the title Son of God. In July 2013, Downey and Burnett announced a sequel, A.D. The Bible Continues, which NBC ordered in December 2013 and which chronicled the spread of Christianity following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As President of Lightworkers Media, the faith and family division of MGM, Downey and Burnett produced a number of feature films, including Ben-Hur (2016), Little Boy, Woodlawn, Resurrection, Messiah, and Country Ever After, as well as The Dovekeepers for CBS. Downey executive produced the documentary Faithkeepers, which examines the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, and also executive produced Bump Along the Way and the short film Rough, which won the IFTA for Best Short Film in 2021. She produced the Amazon Prime feature film On a Wing and a Prayer, which closed the Sarasota Film Festival, where Downey received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Beginning in Spring 2024, she executive produced and starred as Elizabeth Baxter in the family drama series The Baxters on Amazon Prime Video, based on the best-selling book series by Karen Kingsbury. A film titled Merv, produced under her label Mrs. B Productions, is scheduled for release in winter 2025 on Amazon Prime.

Downey is a published author whose works include the New York Times best-selling Box of Butterflies (2018), a children's book titled Love Is a Family, and a co-authored book with Burnett titled A Story of God and All of Us. Her most recent publication, Be an Angel: Devotions to Inspire and Encourage Love and Light Along the Way, was released in 2023. She also recorded the spoken-word album Healing Angel during her years on Touched by an Angel and hosted the Pax Network series It's a Miracle. She appeared on stage in A Picasso at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles and hosted Saturday Night Live.

Among the honors Downey has received, she was named one of Variety's 100 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood and appeared on the publication's Women of Impact list in 2014. The Hollywood Reporter included her and Burnett in its Most Influential People of 2013 list and named Downey one of its 100 Women in Entertainment Power in 2014. On 11 August 2016, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2021, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Christian Film and Music Festival and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the arts, drama, and the community in Northern Ireland. Downey serves as an ambassador for Operation Smile and has participated in missions to Honduras, Vietnam, and Jordan.