He graduated from University College Dublin in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Film Studies.

For his performance as Des, Drea was nominated for the Irish Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actor.

[4] Drea returned to television when he appeared in the 2016 History Channel docudrama Barbarians Rising.

In 2017, he played Barney Quinn in the BBC Northern Ireland drama My Mother and Other Strangers[5] and appeared in the space opera film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

[9] He also had recurring roles in the Netflix series Vikings: Valhalla as Eadric Streona and the Hulu miniseries adaptation of Daisy Jones & the Six as Nicky Fitzgerald, Daisy's (Riley Keogh) antagonistic husband.