David John Bradley is an English actor.
He is best known for playing Argus Filch in the Harry Potter film series and Walder Frey
in the HBO series Game of Thrones, though he is also an established stage actor with
a career that includes a Laurence Olivier Award for his role in a production of King
Lear.
Other acting credits include the BBC series Our Friends in the North, the ITV series Broadchurch,
for which he won the best supporting actor award at the 2014 British Academy Television
Awards, and the films Hot Fuzz and Captain America: The First Avenger.
In 2013, Bradley portrayed William Hartnell, the actor who played the First Doctor, in
the Doctor Who drama An Adventure in Space and Time.
Early life Bradley was born in York, where he attended
the Catholic St George's Secondary Modern School at which he was a member of the choir.
He first performed on stage in musical productions as a member of a youth club and with the Rowntree
Youth Theatre.
Upon leaving school he completed a five-year apprenticeship with the optical instruments
maker Cooke, Troughton & Simms and he remained with the firm until 1966 when he moved to
London to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Career
Bradley joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed at Laurence Olivier's Royal
National Theatre in 1971.
He first appeared on television that year, as a police officer in the successful comedy
Nearest and Dearest.
He was awarded a Laurence Olivier Award in 1991 for his supporting role in King Lear
at the Royal National Theatre.
He appeared in the Royal National Theatre's 1997 production of The Homecoming, as well
as productions of The Caretaker at Sheffield Theatres and the Tricycle Theatre from 2006
to 2007.
Bradley starred as Jake in the BBC comedy series Wild West.
He played fictional Labour Member of Parliament Eddie Wells in the 1996 award-winning BBC
Two serial Our Friends in the North.
In 1996, he appeared as gangster Alf Black in Band of Gold.
In 1998, he appeared in the BBC adaptation of Vanity Fair as the miserly Sir Pitt Crawley,
and Our Mutual Friend as the villainous Rogue Riderhood.
Other television appearances include the 2001 series The Way We Live Now, directed by David
Yates, who would work with Bradley five years later on the Harry Potter films.
Bradley acted in the 2004 musical drama serial Blackpool on BBC One.
He appeared in the 2005 BBC drama Mr. Harvey Lights a Candle, playing the part of a morose
coach driver who takes an unruly party of pupils on a trip to Salisbury Cathedral, and
the 2006 BBC drama Sweeney Todd.
He had a small part in a 2006 episode of the series Taggart.
In 2006, he played Tom in the Midsomer Murders episode "The Green Man".
He appeared as the electrolarynx-using gangster Stemroach in the BBC comedy series Ideal and
as Electric in the BBC's Thieves Like Us, as well as the BBC One series True Dare Kiss.
He starred in the theatre production Reckless, and in the film Lycanthropy as the owner of
a nightclub hosting a gang of werewolf-inspired criminals.
Bradley appeared in the 2002 film Nicholas Nickleby, and had a small role in the 2007
comedy film Hot Fuzz as a farmer that illegally hoards weapons.
He played Cohen the Barbarian in a Sky One adaptation of The Colour of Magic.
In 2008, he appeared as Spooner in a production of No Man's Land at the Gate Theatre, which
later transferred to London's West End.
In 2009, Bradley appeared as an animal rights activist in the popular BBC drama Ashes to
Ashes, and appeared in BBC's The Street later that year.
Bradley portrayed Will Somers, Henry VIII's court fool, in an episode of the Showtime
series The Tudors in 2009.
In 2010, he appeared in the film Another Year, which earned him a nomination for Best Supporting
Actor from the London Film Critics Circle Awards.
In 2011, and again in 2013, Bradley appeared as Lord Walder Frey in the HBO series Game
of Thrones.
Bradley played Solomon, a ruthless buccaneer, in the 2012 Doctor Who episode "Dinosaurs
on a Spaceship".
He previously provided voice work for The Sarah Jane Adventures serial Death of the
Doctor.
It was announced in January 2013 that Bradley had been cast as actor William Hartnell in
An Adventure in Space and Time, a BBC docudrama about the creation of Doctor Who in 1963.
The special aired in November 2013, adding to the buildup to the 50th anniversary episode
of Doctor Who later that month.
Bradley plays Professor Abraham Setrakian, a Holocaust survivor turned vampire hunter
in Guillermo del Toro's TV series The Strain.
He will voice the Lord High Admiral Suvarov in the PC RPG The Mandate.
Personal life Bradley serves as the President of Second
Thoughts Drama Group, which performs in and around Stratford-upon-Avon.
He is an avid fan of Aston Villa and York City.
On 17 July 2012, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of Warwick.
Filmography References
External links David Bradley at the Internet Movie Database
Podcast interview with David Bradley on his career Interview with David Bradley on the
occasion of receiving his Honorary Degree from the University of Warwick