Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.
Some of his more high-profile roles include Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter film series,
Winston Churchill in the The King's Speech, Peter Taylor in The Damned United, Beadle
Bamford in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and his own documentary Timothy
Spall: Back at Sea.
He also had a lead role in Mike Leigh's 1996 film, Secrets & Lies, had a supporting role
in The Last Samurai, released in 2003, and played the lead role in Pierrepoint which
was released in 2005.
On 24 May 2014 he won the Best Actor award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for his role
in Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner.
Early life Spall, the third of four sons, was born in
Battersea, South London.
His mother, Sylvia R., was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal
worker.
He trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA, where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold
Medal as the most promising actor in his year.
His brother, Matthew, is studio director of the computer games company Morpheme.
Another brother, Richard, is the landlord tenant of the Astolat public house in Guildford.
Career Spall initially made his mark in theatre performing
in productions for Birmingham Rep and, later, the Royal Shakespeare Company including The
Merry Wives of Windsor, Three Sisters, Nicholas Nickleby and The Knight of the Burning Pestle.
Following a film debut in Quadrophenia and wider TV exposure playing the awkward Barry
Taylor in all four series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Kevin in Outside Edge and as Aubrey the
appalling chef in Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet, Spall has since appeared in films such as
Crusoe, Secrets & Lies, Shooting the Past, Topsy-Turvy, Vanilla Sky, Rock Star, The Last
Samurai, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and The King's Speech.
He gained international recognition as Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter film series.
In 1991 he guest-starred in the series 5 Red Dwarf episode Back to Reality.
In 1993, Spall was in Rab C. Nesbitt.
On 31 December 1999, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Spall performed lead vocals on the song The Devil is an Englishman from the Ken Russell
film Gothic, in which Spall portrayed John William Polidori.
Spall played the starring role of Albert Pierrepoint in the 2005 film Pierrepoint, which was released
as The Last Hangman in the United States.
In the 2006 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Spall voiced Phil Collins' manager,
Barry Mickelthwaite.
In 2007, he starred as Nathaniel in Disney's Enchanted and Beadle Bamford in Tim Burton's
production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
He also starred as Georgie Godwin in a one-off television drama The Fattest Man in Britain
on ITV 1 which aired on 20 December 2009.
The drama also featured Bobby Ball, Frances Barber, Aisling Loftus and Jeremy Kyle.
In 2010, he portrayed Winston Churchill in critically acclaimed film The King's Speech
for which as a member of the ensemble he was jointly awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award
for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
Spall reprised the role at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.
In 2012, Spall filmed Wasteland, with actors Matthew Lewis and Vanessa Kirby.
The Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, California, will screen Wasteland on
Sunday, 28 April 2013 and Monday 29 April 2013.
Also in 2012 Spall played Charlie Morgan in the edgy Comes a Bright Day.
Personal life Spall is married to Shane and has three children:
Pascale, Rafe, who is also an actor, and Mercedes.
He lives in Forest Hill, south-east London.
In 1996, Spall was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, but has since been in remission.
He has said of his illness: "I didn't know what made me ill but stress had something
to do with it and the point is now to head off stress at the pass.
It made me aware of things and become more selective.
I am less worried about employment.
I really do my homework so I am not getting stressed on the set because I don't know what
I'm doing."
He is the owner of a Dutch barge that he and his wife have been sailing around the British
Isles as part of a BBC Four TV series Timothy Spall: Back at Sea.
Filmography
References
External links Timothy Spall at the Internet Movie Database
Timothy Spall at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
Amy Raphael, Spall in the Family, The Observer, 28 October 2007
Stuart Jeffries, I don't always play losers, The Guardian, 5 November 2007