Roma Downey

Roma Downey (born 6 May 1960) is an Irish actress, producer and author.

For nine seasons, Downey played Monica the angel in the CBS television series Touched by an Angel.

She also played the leading role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Emmy award-winning NBC mini-series A Woman Named Jackie.

In addition to her television work, Downey has performed on stage with the Abbey Theatre, The National Theatre of Ireland and has appeared both on and off Broadway.

Downey starred in and was executive producer for a number of television movies for the CBS network, including Borrowed Hearts and Second Honeymoon.

As President of Lightworkers Media, the faith and family division of MGM, Downey and her husband, Mark Burnett, produced the Emmy-nominated miniseries The Bible – in which she appeared as Mary, mother of Jesus – for the History Channel, which was watched by over 100 million people in the United States.

Downey and Burnett also executive-produced the feature films Ben-Hur, starring Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell and Morgan Freeman; Son of God; Little Boy; Woodlawn; Resurrection; Messiah; and Country Ever After.

Downey and Burnett also produced The Dovekeepers – based on the best selling book by Alice Hoffman – for CBS and A.D. The Bible Continues for NBC, Women of the Bible for Lifetime, and Answered Prayers for TLC.

Downey is the executive producer of the documentary Faithkeepers about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Bump Along the Way and of the short film Rough, which won the IFTA for best short film in 2021.

Most recently, Downey produced the Amazon Prime feature film On a Wing and a Prayer – starring Dennis Quaid and Heather Graham and directed by Sean McNamara – which closed the Sarasota Film Festival where Downey was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Variety recognized Downey and Burnett as "trailblazers" and listed Downey as one of Variety's "100 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood".

The production led to a nomination during the Broadway run for the Helen Hayes Best Actress Award in 1991.

She also starred on Broadway in The Circle with Sir Rex Harrison and also at the Roundabout Theater and The Public Theater in New York City.

Downey played the role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the American television miniseries A Woman Named Jackie (1991) which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries in 1992.

Downey's role as Jacqueline Kennedy led to her most famous role, as the angel Monica, on the CBS series Touched by an Angel, opposite singer-actress, Della Reese and John Dye, which ran from 1994 to 2003.

She received one nomination and one win at the TV Guide awards for favorite actress and also received two Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.

Downey has said the character Monica interested her because it was a strong female role, which were "few and far between" and for its spiritual aspects: It was pilot season of ‘94 and I was reading through endless junk scripts that were being sent my way.

Typically the roles were to play his wife or his girlfriend — leading roles for women were few and far between.

Suddenly a very unusual script turned up.

"Now this is curious," I remember thinking.

The Hollywood Reporter included the couple in their "Most Influential People of 2013" and Downey as one of the "100 Women in Entertainment Power" in 2014.

She was honored on Variety's "Women of Impact in 2014".

On 11 August 2016, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2021, Downey received the Lifetime Achievement Award for the International Christian Film & Music Festival and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Arts, Drama and to the Community in Northern Ireland.

Downey has also authored multiple books, including the New York Times best-seller Box of Butterflies in 2018.

Her most recent – Be an Angel: Devotions to Inspire and Encourage Love and Light Along the Way – was released in February 2023.

She is an ambassador for Operation Smile, serving on missions to Honduras, Vietnam and Jordan.

Downey was born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the Bogside district.

Roma is named after her two grandmothers, Ro from Rose and Ma from Mary, joined to make Roma.

She attended Thornhill College, a Catholic girls school.

Her mother, Maureen O'Reilly Downey, a housewife with an interest in the performing arts, died from a heart attack at age 48 when Downey was ten years old.

Her father, Patrick Downey, was a mortgage broker.

Her father died when Downey was 20.

Originally, she planned to be a painter and earned a Bachelor of Arts at Brighton College of Art.

Roma studied BA (Hons) Expressive Arts at Brighton Polytechnic.

Based at the Falmer campus, she combined Art and Drama for her degree.

She then went on to study acting in London at The Drama Studio.

She joined the Abbey Players, based at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and toured the United States in a production of The Playboy of the Western World.

Downey moved to New York City after an agent, whom she met during the tour of The Playboy of the Western World, suggested she had potential for success there.

She took a job as a coat checker at an Upper West Side restaurant, before getting cast in Broadway shows.