Kin and Love/Hate star on his recovery after having a stroke at age of 38

Sunday World

13-06-2025

Actor and writer Stephen Jones on a new appreciation for the simple things
Last July, at the age of 38 and without any warning, Jones, who is a native of Dublin's Tallaght, suffered a stroke.
'It was quite a shock to the system and I'm still going through the process of trying to find the reason why it happened,' Stephen tells the Sunday World .
'I was lucky in the sense that I wasn't overly affected physically because some people are left with really bad injuries.
"But it was a very, very scary time and a real period of uncertainty. You never think it's going to happen to you.
'It could have been far, far worse, but at the same time you get a sense of your mortality. We all have a sense of it in a sort of abstract way.
"We are all aware that we're going to die at some stage, it's inevitable, but that's a philosophical idea. We think that's something to worry about when we're older.
Stephen in Falling To Earth
'And then when you're confronted with it here and now there's nothing really romantic about it. It's kind of scary and you feel very isolated.
'There are times today when I'm feeling very vulnerable and anxious and afraid. So it's just trying to accept it and have more good days than bad days.'
However, Stephen says that in difficult or challenging times he now draws on that experience to gain perspective.
He says: 'On the positive side, I now have a bit of an anchor. I can always go, 'Don't forget that 10 months ago you were lying in a hospital bed crying your eyes out, thinking your life was finished.'
'I have something that can bring you back to a sense of contentment and appreciation very quickly. It doesn't mean there are not challenges… there are challenges all the time.
'Sometimes I don't know what kind of mood or emotion I'm going to wake up in. I could be feeling very fragile and anxious one day and another day I wake up feeling on top of the world.'
Stephen, who also wrote and starred in the Northern Lights TV series, as well as appearing in Red Rock, says his main concern is that medical tests haven't found a reason why he suffered a stroke.
Stephen says he was lucky that he wasn't badly affected physically
Today's News in 90 Seconds - June 13 2025
'I did a check-up a few weeks ago and they are fairly confident that it's not the arteries or the heart,' he says.
'I was able to come off the statin that I was on, although I still take the anticoagulants, the blood thinner, and I'll be on that for life.
'The next thing they are going to do is see if it's to do with some form of migraine that might have brought it on.
'I just have to keep ruling things out. They say that one in three people will find out why these things happen.
'In a way it's a good thing because they're not finding something really obvious and saying it's your heart, you're in trouble here.
Stephen as Brian in Love/Hate
'But on the other hand of course it's frustrating to say, hey, why did this happen to me, I'm feeling good, feeling healthy, will it ever happen again?'
'It's just one of these things in life and I know that if I sit around and dwell on it too long it gets me nowhere. I tried to get back to normal life as quick as I could.
"I'm trying to eat right, I'm trying to be healthy, I'm listening to my doctor, I'm taking my medicine and I will pursue trying to find the cause.
'It does give you a renewed sense of 'it's great to be alive' and there's a lot of great things to do and see and just valuing time with my partner and my family.
'You do have to work on it every day, but it does give you a sense of trying to appreciate the things you take for granted.' Read more
Jones is currently on an Irish tour with the one man show, Falling To Earth — My Summer With Bowie, written by Eugene O'Brien.
'It was the first time back on stage since my stroke and I was really nervous about getting back up there because it's a very intense 80 minutes,' Stephen says.
'It's a very difficult thing when the place that you're the most comfortable in the world — up on a stage — becomes something that you're kind of afraid of.
'To get back up there and do it has been another little hurdle. It's always going to be something that will be with me but you just have to face the fear and do it.'
Falling To Earth — My Summer with Bowie has been wowing audiences and Jones reveals that it was originally based around Michael Jackson.
'Eugene originally wrote the play a few years ago and it was the same story, but with Michael Jackson as the superstar,' he reveals.
'Another actor had rehearsed the play and learned the Michael Jackson routine and then the Leaving Neverland documentary came out a week before it was due out.
'The producer said, 'we just can't do it.' It was the timing and the accusations that came out about Jackson, which were just so horrific. So it was put on the shelf.
'The story was really about (the main character) Scut Kelly, who lives in a town in the midlands with his da and they don't get on.
'He's in love with a girl in the town who barely knows he's alive, he does a bit of part-time security work, but is seen as a bit of a loser and is the butt of jokes among his mates in the local pub.
'Then he gets the opportunity to do a bit of security work in a recording studio, which is based on Grouse Lodge where Michael Jackson spent some time, and he strikes up a friendship with his hero David Bowie.
'What follows is a laugh-a-minute, but with moments of real serious human drama.'
Falling To Earth — My Summer with Bowie, will play the Civic Theatre, Tallaght next Wednesday; DLR Mill Theatre, Dundrum, Dublin, Thursday and Friday; Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Saturday and Lyric Theatre, Belfast from Thursday, June 19 to 21.