British Actors

1. Ben Whishaw

Proclaimed by many critics as one of the best young actors of his generation, Benjamin John Whishaw was born in Clifton, Bedfordshire, to Linda (Hope), who works in cosmetics, and Jose Whishaw, who works in information technology. He has a twin brother, James. He is of French, German, Russian (...

2. Cillian Murphy

Actor | 28 Days Later...

Striking Irish actor Cillian Murphy was born in Douglas, the oldest child of Brendan Murphy, who works for the Irish Department of Education, and a mother who is a teacher of French. He has three younger siblings. Murphy was educated at Presentation Brothers College, Cork. He went on to study law ...

3. Tom Hiddleston

Actor | The Avengers

Thomas William Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to English-born Diana Patricia (Servaes) and Scottish-born James Norman Hiddleston. His mother is a former stage manager, and his father, a scientist, was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. He started off at the preparatory ...

4. Benedict Cumberbatch

Actor | The Imitation Game

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born and raised in London, England. His parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch), are both actors. He is a grandson of submarine commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, and a great-grandson of diplomat Henry Arnold ...

5. James McAvoy

Actor | Filth

McAvoy was born on 21 April 1979 in Glasgow, Scotland, to James, a bus driver, and Elizabeth (née Johnstone), a nurse. He was raised on a housing estate in Drumchapel, Glasgow by his maternal grandparents (James, a butcher, and Mary), after his parents divorced when James was 11. He went to St ...

6. Ryan Gosling

Actor | Blue Valentine

Born Ryan Thomas Gosling on November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada, he is the son of Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. Ryan was the second of their two children, with an older sister, Mandi. His ancestry is French-Canadian, as well as English, ...

7. Chris O'Dowd

Actor | Bridesmaids

Christopher "Chris" O'Dowd (born 9 October, 1979) is an Irish actor and comedian best known for his role as Roy Trenneman in the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd (2006). O'Dowd created and is starring in the Sky 1 television series Moone Boy (2012). He had a recurring role on the drama series Girls (...

8. David Tennant

Actor | Doctor Who

Widely considered as one of the greatest stage and screen actors of his generation both in his native Scotland and internationally, David Tennant was born David John McDonald in West Lothian, Scotland, to Essdale Helen (McLeod) and Sandy McDonald, who was a Presbyterian minister. He is of Scottish ...

9. Charlie Hunnam

Actor | Sons of Anarchy

Charles Matthew Hunnam was born on April 10, 1980 in Newcastle, England, to Jane (Bell), a business owner, and William Hunnam, a scrap metal merchant. At 18 years of age, he made a guest appearance in popular TV series Byker Grove (1989).

He gained fame in Britain thanks to his television role as ...

10. Clive Owen

Actor | Children of Men

British actor Clive Owen is one of a handful of stars who, though he is best known for his art house films, can handle more mainstream films with equal measures of grace and skill. Owen is typically cast as characters whose primary traits are a balance of physical strength, intellect, conflicting ...

11. Nicholas Hoult

Actor | Mad Max: Fury Road

Nicholas Hoult was born on December 7, 1989 in Wokingham, Berkshire, England, UK as Nicholas Caradoc Hoult. His parents are Glenis Hoult, a piano teacher and Roger Hoult, a pilot. He has three siblings, two sisters and one brother. His great-aunt was one of the most popular actresses of her time, ...

12. Cary Elwes

Actor | Saw

Cary Elwes was born in Westminster, London, England, the third son of interior designer/shipping heiress Tessa Georgina Kennedy and the late portrait painter Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes. He is the brother of producer/agent Cassian Elwes and artist Damian Elwes. He was raised in London and attended ...

13. Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Actor | Kick-Ass

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is an English stage, television, and film actor.

He was born Aaron Perry Johnson in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, to Sarah and Robert Johnson, a civil engineer. He has a sister, Gemma Johnson, who had a small role in his movie Tom & Thomas (2002). Aaron is of ...

14. Sam Worthington

Actor | Avatar

Samuel Henry John Worthington was born August 2, 1976 in Surrey, England. His parents, Jeanne (Martyn) and Ronald Worthington, a power plant employee, moved the family to Australia when he was six months old, and raised him and his sister Lucinda in Warnbro, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.

...

15. Jamie Bell

Actor | Billy Elliot

Described by top film critic Mark Kermode as an "unbelievably versatile" actor, Jamie Bell was born in 1986 in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England, UK, to Eileen (Matfin) and John Bell, a toolmaker. He comes from a family of dancers including his grandmother, mother, aunt, and ...

16. Matthew Goode

Actor | Stoker

Matthew William Goode (born 3 April 1978) is an English actor. His films include Chasing Liberty (2004), Match Point (2005), Imagine Me and You (2006), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Watchmen (2009), A Single Man (2009), Leap Year (2010), Stoker (2013) and The Imitation Game (2014). Goode also ...

17. Sam Claflin

Actor | Snow White and the Huntsman

English actor Sam Claflin was born in Ipswich, England, to Susan A. (Clarke), a classroom assistant, and Mark J. Claflin, a finance officer. As a child, he was football-mad, often going to see his favorite team, Norwich City. He was a talented footballer, playing for Norwich schools at city level ...

18. Gary Oldman

Actor | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), ...

19. Ian McKellen

Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery ...

20. Ben Barnes

Actor | The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

British actor Benjamin Thomas Barnes was born in Cambridge, England, to Patricia (Becker), a relationship therapist, and Thomas Barnes, a professor of psychiatry. He has a brother, Jack. His mother is from South Africa while his father is English.

Barnes studied at Homefield Preparatory and King's ...

21. Idris Elba

Actor | Beasts of No Nation

An only child, Idrissa Akuna Elba was born and raised in London, England. His father, Winston, is from Sierra Leone and worked at Ford Dagenham; his mother, Eve, is from Ghana and had a clerical duty. Idris attended school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting, before he dropped...

22. Tom Hardy

Actor | Inception

With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. However, the versatile actor has been steadily working on both stage and screen since his television debut...

23. Christian Bale

Actor | The Dark Knight

Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries ...

24. Bill Nighy

Actor | Love Actually

Bill Nighy is an award-winning British character actor. He was born William Francis Nighy on December 12, 1949 in Caterham, Surrey, England, to Catherine Josephine (Whittaker), a psychiatric nurse from Glasgow, and Alfred Martin Nighy, who was English-born and managed a garage in Croydon.

At school,...

25. Paul Bettany

Actor | WandaVision

Paul Bettany is an English actor. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film Gangster No. 1 (2000), and director Brian Helgeland's film A Knight's Tale (2001). He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, including A Beautiful Mind (2001), ...

26. Ewan McGregor

Actor | Moulin Rouge!

Ewan Gordon McGregor was born on March 31, 1971 in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland, to Carol Diane (Lawson) and James Charles McGregor, both teachers. His uncle is actor Denis Lawson. He was raised in Crieff. At age 16, he left Morrison Academy to join the Perth Repertory Theatre. His parents ...

27. Michael Sheen

Actor | Masters of Sex

Even though he had burned up the London stage for nearly a decade--and appeared in several films--Michael Sheen was not really "discovered" by American audiences until his critically-acclaimed turn as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1999 Broadway revival of "Amadeus".

Sheen was born in Newport, Wales...

28. Henry Cavill

Actor | Man of Steel

Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill was born on the Bailiwick of Jersey, a British Crown dependency in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne (Dalgliesh), a housewife, was also born on Jersey, and is of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of ...

29. Daniel Radcliffe

Actor | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on July 23, 1989 in Fulham, London, England, to casting agent Marcia Gresham (née Jacobson) and literary agent Alan Radcliffe. His father is from a Northern Irish Protestant background, while his mother was born in South Africa, to a Jewish family (from Lithuania, ...

30. Robert Carlyle

Actor | The Full Monty

Robert Carlyle was born in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland, to Elizabeth, a bus company employee, and Joseph Carlyle, a painter and decorator. He was raised by his father after his mother left him when he was four. At the age of 21, after reading Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," he enrolled in acting ...

31. Simon Pegg

Actor | The World's End

English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was ...

32. Alex Pettyfer

Actor | Magic Mike

Alexander Richard Pettyfer was born in Hertfordshire and raised in Windsor. His mother, Lee (Robinson), is an interior designer. His father, Richard Pettyfer, is a fellow actor. His parents divorced and Alex now has a younger half-brother, James, from his mother's re-marriage to a property ...

33. Jude Law

Actor | The Talented Mr. Ripley

Jude Law is an English actor. Law has been nominated for two Academy Awards and continues to build a prolific body of work that spans from early successes such as Gattaca (1997) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) to more recent turns as Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes:...

34. Gerard Butler

Actor | 300

Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. His family is of Irish origin. Gerard spent some of his very early childhood in Montreal, Quebec, but was mostly raised, along with his older brother and sister, in his hometown of Paisley. His parents ...

35. Robert Sheehan

Actor | The Umbrella Academy

Irish actor Robert Sheehan was born in Portlaoise, County Laois, the son of Joseph and Maria Sheehan. His father was a member of the Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland. As a child, Sheehan was interested in performing music. He learned how to play the banjo, the bodhrán, ...

36. Iwan Rheon

Actor | Game of Thrones

Iwan Rheon (born 13 May 1985) is a Welsh actor, singer and musician, best known for portraying Ramsay Bolton in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), Simon Bellamy in the E4 series Misfits (2009) and Ash Weston in the ITV sitcom Vicious (2013).

Rheon was born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire. When he...

37. Freddie Highmore

Actor | Finding Neverland

Freddie Highmore is an English actor who came to prominence for his roles in Five Children and It (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).

He was born Alfred Thomas Highmore in Camden Town, London, England, to Sue (Latimer), a talent agent, and Edward Thomas ...

38. Joseph Morgan

Actor | The Originals

Joseph Morgan was born in London and spent his childhood with his family in Swansea, Wales. Morgan moved back to London in his late teens to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama. While there he continued to write and experiment with filmmaking, participating in student films and ...

39. William Moseley

Actor | The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

William Peter Moseley was born on April 27, 1987, in Gloucester, England, to Juliette (Fleming) and Peter Moseley, a cinematographer. He is the eldest of three children with a younger sister named Daisy and and younger brother named Ben. His father's name is also William's middle name.

He wanted to ...

40. Alan Rickman

Actor | Die Hard

Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). ...