Biography

Always looking for ways to expand his pursuits, Gabriel took on network television with a starring role in the short-lived sitcom “Madigan Men” (ABC, 2000-01), playing a recently divorced man who routinely receives romantic advice from his teenaged son Luke (John Hensley) and widowed father Seamus (Roy Dotrice). He maintained numerous producing projects on his slate, including “Mad About Mambo” (2000), a Belfast-set coming-of-age tale produced by his own Plurabelle Films. Meanwhile, he continued to be in-demand as a character actor, happily toiling away with parts in such mainstream films as “Ghost Ship” (2002), a supernatural thriller in which he played a salvage ship captain whose crew encounters a mysterious ocean liner lost at sea. In the flashback sequences of “Spider” (2002), he essayed the challenging role of the father of a psychologically damaged man (Ralph Finnes) recently released from a mental institution, who may or may not be truthful about his childhood trauma. After a short role in “Shade” (2004), an indie about poker hustlers, Gabriel appeared in Mira Nair’s adaptation of Thackerey’s “Vanity Fair” (2004), playing the seductively titled and privileged Marques of Steyne, who offers Becky Sharp (Reese Witherspoon) all she wants – for a price.

His next film, the remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 thriller, “Assault On Precinct 13″ (2005), provided Gabriel with what Roger Ebert characterized as “one of his thankless roles in which he is hard, taciturn, and one-dimensional enough to qualify for Flatland.” “Wah Wah” (2005), on the other hand, revealed him at his best as the alcoholic father trying to raise his son and hold on to two strong women (Miranda Richardson and Emily Watson) in Richard E. Grant’s autobiographical story of growing up in Africa. In “Jindabyne” (2006), he was a gas station owner in Australia who goes off on a fishing trip with his pals and discovers the body of a young Aboriginal woman in the river. But instead of calling the police, the men decide to go on with their fishing trip, which causes all hell to break loose when they go home to their wives (which include Laura Linney). “Emotional Arithmetic” (2007), based on Matt Cohen’s beloved book, paired Gabriel with Susan Sarandon as childhood survivors of the Holocaust, now grown up and discovering one another again.

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